Eucharistic Reflection - Do You Want Life and Love?

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Christmas night rocked Heaven. Angels were aghast at the Incarnation. But Holy Thursday night struck them dumb. That God should become a Babe in swaddling clothes was cause for overwhelming surprise; but that God should bury Himself in Bread and become the very Food of man dazzled and stupefied the nine choirs of Heaven’s court. And yet, great as was God’s action, they were not completely bewildered by it. No! It took man’s reaction to do that! Heaven was not completely bewildered until it saw man’s coldness to God’s condescension.

Bethlehem closed doors – but Bethlehem did not really know who Joseph was or whom Mary tabernacled. Roman soldiers scourged Christ and hammered Him to a Cross while High priests howled, and frenzied Jews mocked; but none of these fully understood what they did or who He was. But you! – you have made profession after profession of your belief. You say that you know that God is on your altars; that He is there with His Body and His Blood, His soul and Divinity under the guise of Bread and the appearances of Wine. You proclaim to believe that God is Emmanuel – God with us – yet, you leave Him alone!...

[Seraphim] do not understand men and women and even growing children who say that they want life and love, and then deliberately neglect the only Food and Drink that will give them life and love, preserve them in life and love, and augment their lives and their loves! Heaven cannot understand your neglect of Christ in the Holy Eucharist. Can you?

 

(A Trappist Asks Do You Want Life and Love?)

 

 

Book Review - "The Treasure with A Face" by Janeen Zaio

We live in a time and culture where many children give little or no thought to the loving Lord who lives physically among us. Most of them spend a good portion of their free time glued to some type of screen - a tablet, a phone, or a television. For hours they watch or play bizarre and often violent videos and games. These diversions never provide any lasting satisfaction. 

Author Janeen Zaio wants them to put down their screens, pick up a copy of her book, The Treasure Within a Face, and accompany twelve year-old Eli on a fascinating, suspenseful and life changing quest to find the Treasure of all treasures.

This captivating adventure tale takes us back to the time of Jesus in a small village some distance from Jerusalem. There we meet Eli, who with his mother, lives with his uncle Sham - an irascible, difficult and unappreciative man. Eli and his friend Abe dream of leaving this tiny town in search of the lost Arc of the Covenant.  When Uncle Sham asks Eli to deliver a mirror to a customer in Jerusalem, Eli jumps at the chance. But he has to go alone. Abe was not able to accompany his friend.

This book will keep any child’s interest. It is a page turner - full of adventure, interesting characters, danger, disappointment, humor, suspense and unexpected twists and turns as young Eli perseveres in the face of unimaginable obstacles placed in his path.

Whom he met and what he found far exceeded any treasure this young child could have ever imagined at the outset of his journey. While this book is fiction, the Treasure Eli found is not. It is the author’s hope that all who read this book will discover or re-discover the same sense of awe and amazement little Eli did when he first stepped into God’s Presence.

More than ever our children need to believe in and treasure the real physical presence of our Lord (Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity) in the Sacred Eucharist hidden in the tabernacles of His Churches and placed on their tongues.

You can help Janeen succeed in her effort by putting a copy of The Treasure With A Face into the hands of every adolescent and young teen (and even seventy-three year old book reviewers) you know. I have ordered a copy for my granddaughter. You can get your copy here.

I will be forever blessed for having been privileged to receive an advance review copy of this gem.

 

Eucharistic Reflection - Lose Yourself

"The more food is chewed the more it loses of its former nature. Dear child, if you want to be drawn into and transformed into God, you must lose your former nature, yourself, your self-love, your absorption and satisfaction in your own activity, in fact every form of self-obsession. 

You must be prepared for all of this. ‘Two lives and two forms cannot exist together in one being’; if heat is to enter, cold must of necessity go out; and if God is to enter, the creature’s love of itself and clinging to itself must go out. If God is really to perform His works in you, you must be purely passive. All your powers must quite abandon their own activities and preoccupations and must be kept utterly free of yourself. You must deny all your own powers and be content to be purely and entirely nothing.  The more the depths of your soul are emptied of all that is yourself, the truer and more essential will your union with God be.

This selflessness was never more purely and truly seen than in the soul of our Lord Jesus Christ. We might say of Him, if this were possible for anyone, that He had no self, so perfect was His union with the Father. He was utterly united to the Father because He denied Himself utterly…”

(Johann Tauler, O.P. from Spiritual Conferences)

Eucharistic Reflection - There Has Never Been Any Ambiguity - So Why Do We Hesitate Teaching This Truth?

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"But anyone who would approach this gracious Sacrament while guilty of deadly sin would receive no grace from it, even though such a person would really be receiving Me as I am, wholly God, wholly human. But do you know the situation of the soul who receives the Sacrament unworthily? She is like a candle that has been doused with water and only hisses when it is brought under the fire. The flame no more than touches it, but it goes out, and nothing remains but smoke. Just so, this soul brings the candle she received in holy baptism and throws the water of sin over it, a water that drenches the wick of baptismal grace that is meant to bear the light. And unless she dries the wick out with the fire of true contrition by confessing her sin, she will physically receive the light when she approaches the table of the altar, but she will not receive it into her spirit.

If the soul is not disposed as she should be for so great a mystery, this true light will not graciously remain in her but will depart, leaving her more confounded, more darksome, and more deeply in sin. She will have gained nothing from this Sacrament but the hissing of remorse, not because of any defect in the light (for nothing can impair it) but because of the water it encountered in the soul, the water that so drenched her love that she could not receive this light."

 

(The Dialogue - Jesus to Saint Catherine of Siena)

 

 

 

Monday Musings - We Have Not Answered - We Have Not Listened

There is never an idle word that flows from the mouth of our God. What He said through the prophets years ago, should be listened to by those living now. His Truth never changes nor do the consequences for those who choose to ignore Him. Foolish are those who turn deaf ears to His warnings.

 

Eucharistic Reflection - Let Us Pray

 

Monday Musings - Attending Mass Fruitfully

 

Pondering Tidbits of Truth - September 2, 2021

 

Pondering Tidbits of Truth is my simple and inadequate way of providing nuggets of spiritual wisdom for you to chew on from time to time.

 

 

Venerable Bruno Lanteri

"Do you find yourself turning inward, preoccupied by your anxieties and burdened by your failings? 'Instead of turning in on yourself, lift your gaze often with peace and love to God.' Often. With peace. With love. The less you focus on your failures and the more you gaze on the Lord with peace and love, the more your heart will lift, the stronger you will become, the more joy you will find. Tell Him that 'you want to be totally His' and, with boldness, tell Him that 'it is His to make you become better'!"

(From Overcoming Spiritual Discouragement - The Wisdom and Spiritual Power of Venerable Bruno Lanteri)

 

Mother Mectilde of the Blessed Sacrament

"Would to God that you could fathom the extreme and terrible evil that it is to sin. Oh! Sin, sin what harm you have done to us! Alas! Who will be able to repair your ruins? Jesus Christ alone has the power, the will, and the capacity for this, and He did it in a perfect manner through His blood and through His death. It is Jesus Christ who ransomed me and gave me back the possession of my rights. He redeems every moment of my life, because after committing one [mortal] sin, we deserve not only spiritual death, but bodily death too. And if God executed justice it would destroy us irretrievably.

Therefore, I owe Jesus Christ every moment of my life, all the operations of my soul's powers, all my time, all my work, all my ability, all my thoughts, in a word, the use of my senses and all my faculties. And as many acts are for myself or for creatures, these are so many thefts I perpetrate against the blood of God's Son. All is His, we are purchased at that inestimable price, and we have no right to use or spend our life’s moments except for His love and glory. Otherwise, we make a dreadful profanation of this precious blood and render ourselves guilty of it…

If a soul understood the evil and abomination of one sin, she would have such a horror of it, that however wicked she might be, she could not bring herself to commit it. You must confess that our blindness is great and worthy of compassion."

(From The Breviary of Fire - Letters by Mother Mectilde of the Blessed Sacrament)

 

Lisa Brenninkmeyer  “The Lord is inviting you to come and gaze into His eyes of mercy. He's offering you hope for a fresh start. Oh, I pray that the eyes of your heart would be enlightened, and that the darkness of shame would be chased away. Shame keeps your eyes cast down. But God is cupping your face in His hands and calling you to look up.”  (From Be Still: A Daily Devotional)