Eucharistic Reflection - Growing in Humility

 

“So how do we grow in humility through the Eucharist? A few simple practices can help.

First, we must always approach the Eucharist with reverence. Come to Mass prepared, recollected and aware of the great mystery before you.  One way we do this is by looking at the prayers and readings beforehand, thus allowing us to participate more fully at Mass.

Second, make frequent visits to the Blessed Sacrament. Even a few minutes in prayer before the tabernacle can teach the soul humility, We don't need to worry about bringing a prayer book or what we are going to say, just be with Jesus.

Third , we must allow the Eucharist to shape our daily lives. After receiving Communion, ask yourself: How can I be’ bread broken’ and ‘wine poured out’ for others today?

Fourth, serve in your ministry, quietly. Remember anything we do for the Church is not our right, it is a privilege. Allow your love for Eucharist to spill over into hidden acts of service that reflect Christ's humility.

The Eucharist is humility made visible before our eyes. It is God's love poured out in silence and hiddenness, a love that gives itself completely without seeking recognition. If we wish to grow in humility, we must draw near to the Eucharist  - not only to receive it but to let it transform us.”

(Excerpted from Learning Humility from the Eucharist written by Father Richard D. Breton and published in the October 16, 2025 issue of The Wanderer)

Monday Musings - What The Eucharist Teaches Us

 

Eucharistic Reflection - How To Grow In Humility

 

(Photo ©Father Lawrence Lew, O.P. Used with Permission)

“If you want to grow in humility, spend time in Eucharistic adoration. In the silence of the chapel before the Blessed Sacrament, we come face to face with the humility of God.

There, Christ waits for us - not demanding, not forcing, but simply inviting. In adoration. we learn to quiet the noise of our pride and ambitions. We learn to listen more than we speak. We learn to rest in God's presence without needing to prove ourselves.

Adoration teaches us that humility is not about doing but about being - being with Christ, who humbled Himself to be with us.”

(Excerpted from Learning Humility from the Eucharist written by Father Richard D. Breton and published in the October 16, 2025 issue of The Wanderer)

Monday Musings - Rosary Reflection - When Parents Pray The Rosary

 

"The faults of children are not always imputed to the parents, especially when they have instructed them and given good example. Our Lord, in His wondrous Providence, allows children to break the hearts of devout fathers and mothers. Thus the decisions your children have made don't make you a failure as a parent in God's eyes. You are entitled to feel sorrow, but not necessarily guilt. Do not cease praying for your children; God's grace can touch a hardened heart. Commend your children to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. When parents pray the Rosary, at the end of each decade they should hold the Rosary aloft and say to her, 'With these beads bind my children to your Immaculate Heart"'. She will attend to their souls."

(St. Louise de Marillac)

Pondering Tidbits of Truth - October 15, 2025

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.

St. Bernard of Clairvaux

“Look to the star of the sea, call upon Mary. In danger, in distress, in doubt, think of Mary, call upon Mary. May her name never be far from your lips, or far from your heart. If you follow her you will not stray; if you pray to her, you will not despair; if you turn your thoughts to her, you will not err. If she holds you, you will not fail; if she protects you, you need not fear; if she is your guide, you will not tire; if she is gracious to you, you will surely reach your destination."

(From A Homily of St. Bernard)

 

St. John Henry Newman

“Realize it, my brethren; —every one who breathes, high and low, educated and ignorant, young and old, man and woman, has a mission, has a work. We are not sent into this world for nothing; we are not born at random; . . . God sees every one of us; He creates every soul, He lodges it in the body, one by one, for a purpose. He needs, He deigns to need, every one of us. He has an end for each of us; we are all equal in His sight, and we are placed in our different ranks and stations, not to get what we can out of them for ourselves, but to labor in them for Him. As Christ has His work, we too have ours; as He rejoiced to do His work, we must rejoice in ours also.”

 (From Newman Reader)

 

Father Florian Racine   “How can we live from the power of the Holy Spirit if this gift is not renewed in the Eucharist? Eucharistic adoration is a perpetual outpouring of the Holy Spirit to give us the heart of a child, to put us at the disposal of the Heart of God, to learn in those long hours spent before the Blessed Sacrament how to say ‘Abba, Father’ with the right attitude…"

(From Could You Not Watch with Me One Hour?)

 

Rosary Reflection - Its Beauty

 

"The entire Rosary has the beauty of reproducing the theological thoughts concerning Mary, they are reproduced in the entire dialectic of truth and deduction. Marian theology and the Rosary are two poems that are united into one, two hymns forming one hymn, two magnificent temples, two cathedrals of thought and piety, that come together as one...

Here in the Rosary, piety speaks in the language of theologians. Here meditation rises to the heights attained by scholars. Here prayer dwells where the scholars are brought to a halt.

Marian theology and the Rosary are therefore similar to two temples having at the same height their pinnacles and spires. The people of God in the Church have found the Rosary, its Book of Psalms. The clergy have the Divine Office, the people have the Rosary. Like The Divine Comedy, the Rosary is a trilogy: it recalls the joys, sorrows, and triumphs of Jesus and in perfect symmetry, for each part it has five chants, and each chant in turn is an episode. 

The Rosary could very well be called the poem of human redemption. The Rosary is a poem that takes its lively but simplistic hues from the pure palette of the Gospel; while at the same time it draws its logical ties, its harmonious responses, its entire intimate dialectic from the highest theology."

                           (Saint Bartolo Longo)

Eucharistic Reflection - I Come Before the Lord

 

(Image Source: cathopic.com)

I come as I am, before the Eucharistic Lord, the beloved Eucharistic Son of the Father. I come in silence and sincerity as one in need. I come neither piously nor sentimentally. I come not on my own merit, moral strength nor conviction, but one seriously aware of my personal frailty, weakness, forgetfulness, inconsistency, pretentiousness, in short my sinfulness. I come as one in need. I come in truth just as I am, in need of the mercy, forgiveness, healing and correction. Like the Publican I cry out to the merciful one before me; “Oh God be merciful to me a sinner”. (Lk. 18:13)

The Lord’s Eucharistic Presence before me is the one who calls me and receives me as I am; “come to me all you who are weary and are burdened and I will refresh you. Take My yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart” (Mt. 11:28).  I come before our Eucharistic Lord not crestfallen, downcast, dejected or depressed at my inner and outer poverty. Rather like the Publican in humility and truth I come before our Eucharistic Lord, before the merciful one and experience joy, and peace at the reception of my presence there with Him as I am, His welcome of me; a reception and call full of a tenderness that is personal and unique to and for me, yet at the same time not privatized but open to all.

The Lord’s reception of me, His receiving me as I am, is an astounding welcome that changes me from the inside out. I am touched to the core of my being in the awareness that He, the Eternal Son, has been sent by the Father and has come for me, as if I were the only one and not because of my perfections nor because of my goodness, but because of the love that the Father has for me.

I think of Zacchaeus, the despised tax collector whom Jesus called to Him in the most amazing, surprising and totally unexpected way. I am so touched by Zacchaeus’ perceptive regard for his personal need to also see Jesus and his shrewd astuteness in running ahead, being short in stature and cleverly climbing the low-lying Sycamore tree that he too, although reviled and shunned by the crowd, nevertheless hoped to also get a glimpse at Jesus as he passed by. Zacchaeus I feel sure was acutely aware of his despicable, shameful goings-on, yet there he was seriously intent on laying eyes on Jesus, if only for a moment, perhaps secretly hoping that Jesus had come for him too. And then the unimaginable happens! Jesus looks up at him and not only penetrates him with His gaze full of affection and recognition, but also calls him by name and asks to be welcomed into his home; “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down for I must stay at your house today. So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him.” (LK. 19:5-7)

This miraculous encounter between Zacchaeus and Jesus is what awaits all of us who come, just as we are in our poverty and need, to the one who comes for us first, our Eucharistic Lord; secretly or not so secretly hoping that the one who welcomed Zacchaeus and called him by name, will surely also welcome us and calls us also by name. “Fear not, for I have redeemed you I have called you by name, you are mine”. (Is. 43:1)

 (Mrs. Mary Hurley OP, Our Lady of Providence & St. Thomas Aquinas Fraternity, Providence, RI, excerpted from Godhead Here in Hiding Whom I Do Adore Lay Dominicans Reflect on Eucharistic Adoration)