Eucharistic Reflection - Sweet Jesus You Are Calling Me

(Photo by Eric Mok on Unsplash)

 

"O my sweet Jesus, You are calling me to come aside to the quiet, to spend time with You. I come to You eagerly. I long to be with Magdalene, sitting at Your feet, listening to the sound of Your voice. With John, the beloved, may I place my head upon Your shoulder, for I hope one day to fully embrace You in Your kingdom.

In this uncertain world, the one thing that I have always known with certainty is that You love me. It is my earliest memory, perhaps a gift of Your grace to guide me and bring me to the path that You were placing before me. I was never distracted by the drama around me, because the one thing I knew with every fiber of my being was Your love for me.

Your love has carried me, and it now carries me into Your Eucharistic Presence, so that I may spend time with You, my Beloved. Here in Your Presence, the world outside ceases to exist. I bring the needs of my brothers and sisters to place before You, believing and trusting in Your love and mercy. The clamor outside is stilled, so I may listen attentively to You. I find joy and peace in being with You. 

Who am I, my Lord, that You choose to be housed in the tabernacle for me? To be a prisoner for my sake? It is by Your great love that You choose to remain here. Love and peace permeate this sacred space. I am content to sit quietly in Your Presence, my sweet Lord. All the words of love that I speak, pale in comparison. They fall short. I am trying to use finite words to speak of the infinite and eternal Love and Beauty which You are. 

Augustine has said our hearts are restless until they rest in You. The psalmist has said in listening to the voice of God, we enter His rest. When I step aside and enter the quiet to be with You, Lord, both are true. Indeed, my heart is restless to be with You, but when I enter into Your Eucharistic Presence to spend time with You and listen to Your voice, I do enter into that promised rest with You. I understand why our brother, Thomas Aquinas, placed his head against the tabernacle, so as to draw as close to You as possible to enter into that rest. He understood the reality and power of Your presence in the Blessed Sacrament. Thomas knew that You were offering a foretaste of Heaven and a pledge of future glory. 

Enlighten me, precious Jesus. Help me to understand as much of the mystery that I am capable of understanding in this life, and may I come to know the fullness of understanding when I am with you one day in Heaven. Until that time, direct and order my life, so I may bring others to You, my dearest Lord. I ask this in Your most holy name."

(Mrs. Melanie Von Gunten, OP from Godhead Here in Hiding Whom I Do Adore - Lay Dominicans Reflect on Eucharistic Adoration)

Merry Christmas!

 

Eucharistic Reflection - The Best Hour

"Blessed opportunities to be with our Lord in Eucharistic Adoration are the best hours spent when it comes to healing a broken heart, a wounded soul. I find that when I am in my darkest hours, I run to the Adoration Chapel. There is no other comfort our earthly home can provide to soothe my soul when I am wounded. It is truly a privilege to be able to just go to the Chapel, where God resides, and be able to “stop in” for a visit, any day, any time, and find my dearest and best Friend waiting for me. Who could ask for anything more?

Time in Adoration is also the best place to go when discerning God’s providence. I find myself going there automatically when I need to know what God wants of me when I am making big decisions in life. It is an anointed time to be with God. He can reach my heart and mind in a way that breaks through the distractions I encounter when I talk to Him most anywhere else. It seems to me that He leads my mind in directions I cannot seem to go any other time. The best ideas and plans come to me in Adoration in prayer. When I go forth, and act on the direction I receive in prayer at Adoration, it is almost always the perfect plan or idea. Thanks be to God!..."

(Ms. Katrina Johnson, OP, from Godhead Here In Hiding Whom I Adore - Lay Dominicans Reflect on Eucharistic Adoration)

Monday Musings - Smile on Me, O Face of God

"Smile upon me, face of God, and know You Christ, Love Incarnate, are loved by my puny heart. Make my will show that love in all circumstances that present themselves after I depart from You in this Holy Tabernacle. Know that I long for eternity but willingly and patiently wait and finish the earthly work You have given me. I am grateful for Your unrelenting excessive Trinitarian love for us all. I am grateful for Your excessive forgiveness for us all. I continue to be fascinated by the orderliness of Your creation and by your enduring patience with all as the future unfolds and races toward the end of time. I am sorry that it took me so long to understand the richness before me in Jesus Christ, the God-man. I pray that my offspring will be quicker to comprehend the gift of Love Incarnate in Christ. Smile on me, face of God. When I am able to see Your Face in eternal life, I think I will still keep my head bowed. Proximity to Love Incarnate will be enough for me." 

(Mrs. Donna Kerrigan, OP from Godhead Here in Hiding Whom I Do Adore - Lay Dominicans Reflect on Eucharistic Adoration)

Eucharistic Reflection - He Is Waiting

"Our Lord is here in all His Divinity and Humility in the Holy Eucharist, waiting for us to come. To come, to spend time with Him in Adoration, to receive Him into our bodies during Mass, to unite with Him. Our ever loving, merciful Father is present with us, we can look upon Him, speak to Him. God our Father is waiting to hear our joys and sorrows, triumphs and failings. Waiting. Waiting for our attention in the busyness of life, to pause, to worship, to adore, to praise our merciful God who loves us, provides for us and bestows abundant graces upon us so that we have eternal life with Him. Can we pause? Can we listen for the voice of God in the quietness? Can we give the gift of our attention to God? He is waiting."

(Dr. Kathleen Cuddihy, OP, from Godhead Here in Hiding Whom I Do Adore - Lay Dominicans Reflect on Eucharistic Adoration)

Monday Musings - Do His Work

 

Pondering Tidbits of Truth - December 7, 2023

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.

A Lay Dominican from the St. Joseph Province

“In a world with noise, finding silence is a task.  Adoration may be the only place of silence for you all throughout the week. Sanctify it!"

(From Godhead Here in Hiding Whom I Do Adore – Lay Dominicans Reflect on Eucharistic Adoration)

 

Catherine Doherty, Servant of God

“Joy is very quiet and full of wonder. It is like a light that shines in the darkness and is connected with hope and with love.

To give you an idea of my joyous moments, the first occurs when I wake up every morning with the incredible thought that here God has granted me another day to love Him and to serve Him.

Simultaneously, other thoughts come to me from Satan and from my own humanity and emotions. They creep in like shadows over the shining light of my joy

They whisper: ‘Look you are going to have a full a whole day full of problems. You are going to have to be in four places at once’ and so on. Through these whispers, the whole weight of the day and of my duties creep in.

But joy smiles.  I know that I don't have to face all of those things at once, that these too are works of love for Christ's sake, that all I have to worry about is doing the duty of the moment as it comes to me, with love and enthusiasm for Love's sake-- for Christ's sake.”

(From Grace in Every Season (2001) November 26 page 311, and as reprinted in the November 2022 issue of Restoration, printed by Madonna Publications)

 

 Robert Cardinal Sarah

“Infallibly, silence leads to God, provided man stops looking at himself. For even in the experience of silence, there is a snare: narcissism and egotism.”

(From The Power of Silence – Against the Dictatorship of Noise)

 

 

Eucharistic Reflection - Go To Jesus

"Beloved souls, in suffering and in joy, go to Jesus hidden in the Sacred Host and let the sweetness of His loving gaze fill you. Like the sick who expose their diseased bodies to the healing rays of the sun, expose your miseries, no matter what they are, to the beams of light streaming forth from the Sacred Host."

 (Reflections and Prayers for Visits with our Eucharistic Lord - John J. Cardinal Carberry)

Monday Musings - Progressing In the Service of God