Eucharistic Reflection - Have You Been To This Place?

When the soul has given itself up to God, He makes it suffer, and will make it suffer constantly. This will be hard! In order to take complete possession of the soul, God annihilates it, as it were, and takes its place. And as it is continually assailed by the temptation to find itself again, God gives combat, makes it suffer; He effaces the spirit, stifles the heart.

Photo by Joshua Eckstein on Unsplash

When the spirit will not surrender unconditionally, God plunges it into darkness, into temptations against faith, and hope and confidence. All peace is lost until the mind surrenders and totally renounces its own lights. Against such a state, the director can do nothing.

He reasons; he discourses on the goodness of God, which the soul alas, can no longer see. It is terrified by the past and trembles for the present. What is to be done? Accept everything. God wills this state for you and does not tell you why. He is waiting for you to say to Him: 'I am nothing but sin; I give myself up to Thee; do with me as Thou wilt. Thou desirest me to suffer inner turmoil and torture? Very well; that is my desire, too. Unable to see any good actions to offer Thee, I shall bring to Thee the misery Thous showest me. Though I shall not love my misery, nevertheless, I shall glorify Thee by it.'

(Photo by Nishta Sharma on Unsplash)

And the good God is still with you at that very moment. He wishes you to be like this; what does anything else matter? Above all, do not examine your state too closely, thinking God is abandoning you, wondering what will become of you; you might lose your mind. God wants you to know whether you love Him more than your own will, spiritualized though it be. So be at peace. Even tormented as you are, you glorify Him. And do you desire any other thing than His glory?

(St. Julian Peter Eymard from Holy Communion)

Pondering Tidbits of Truth - August 6, 2020

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.

Mother Mectilde of The Blessed Sacrament

“We must be very surprised to see with what boldness people enter churches and we ourselves enter choir, which is a place sanctified by the Presence of God Oh! If we could see the posture of the angels and the saints before the adorable Eucharist, we would not be so bold as to enter without fear, without respect, and without amazement. It is here that we lack faith.”

(From The Mystery of Incomprehensible Love)

 

 

Father Jean Pierre de Caussade, S.J.

“To avoid the anxieties which may be caused by either regret for the past or fear of the future, here is the rule to follow: The past must be left to God’s measureless mercy, the future to his loving providence; and the present must be given wholly to his love through our fidelity to his grace.”

 (From Abandonment to Divine Providence)

 

Father Gabriele Amorth

 “Some years, a friend from Brescia, Father Faustino Negrini, was doing an exorcism near the small sanctuary of Our Lady of the Star and asked the demon: ‘Why do you have such a terror of the Virgin Mary?’ He heard his response through the demoniac: ‘Because she is the most humble of all, and I am the most proud; because she is the most obedient and I am the most rebellious (toward God); and because she is the most pure and I am the vilest’.”

(From The Devil Is Afraid Of Me)

 

 

Worth Revisiting - Eucharistic Reflection - His Goal Is My Heart

Thank you Allison Gingras at Reconciled To You  and Elizabeth Riordan at Theology Is A Verb  for hosting Worth Revisiting each week. It is a privilege to share our work with you and your followers.


Eucharistic Reflection - His Goal Is My Heart

(Originally posted on July 28, 2012)

(St. Vincent Ferrer Parish, NYC)

“When Jesus remains in the quiet of the altar, in the tabernacle’s shadow, people in their blind carelessness let Him alone, they forget all about Him. And when He exposes Himself upon the altar, he is hurt to the Heart by the irreverence of so many who either have no faith at all or a faith that is very weak. When He goes through the streets in order to bring unspeakable blessings to His beloved children, He hears curses and blasphemies that make out of His errand of mercy another way of the cross.

But in the midst of all these bitternesses one hope sustains Him – the hope of a place of refuge that will offer the love and peace He craves. The bitter chalice which others continually place to His lips He drinks with resignation; for He is sustained by the hope of a loving reception in my heart by way of reparation. One only hour spent in the enjoyment of my love, and He forgets years and years of suffering…

Altar and tabernacle, monstrance and church, are merely the avenues thorough which He enters; its goal is my heart;it is there that He would rest. Ah! How it would pain His Divine heart if I would not let Him in, or if I would receive Him unworthily. What a bitter disappointment that would be!"  

(Eucharistic Whisperings, Father Winfrid Herbst, S.D.S.)

Eucharistic Reflection - He Loves, He Hopes and He Waits

"The persistency of the love of Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament is another undeniable proof that He loves us.

An almost incalculable number of Masses  are celebrated every day; they follow one another almost  without interruption. But how distressing it is for an understanding soul to realize that very often no one is present to hear or assist at these Masses in which Jesus offers Himself up for us! While Jesus is crying for mercy on this new Calvary, sinners are insulting God and His Christ.

Why then does our Lord renew His sacrifice so often, since men do not profit by it?

Why does our Lord remain day and night on so many altars to which no one comes to receive the graces He is offering so lavishly?

He loves, He hopes and He waits."

(St. Peter Julian Eymard from The Real Presence)

Worth Revisiting - If We But Understood

We thank Allison Gingras at Reconciled To You   and Elizabeth Riordan at Theology Is A Verb  for hosting Worth Revisiting each week. It is a privilege to share our work with them and their followers.

Monday Musings - If We But Understood

(Originally posted on July 30, 2018)

Eucharistic Reflection - Jesus Knew

Photo©Michael Seagriff

"He [Jesus] knew that, if He consented to remain alone [in our tabernacles] through the nights, with no more company than the flickering light of a lamp, there would be loving hearts who, rather than allow Him to remain abandoned, would interrupt their sleep, renounce a well-deserved and needed rest, and, like living lamps, illumine many a solitary sanctuary and dissipate the shadows of forgetfulness and abandonment."

(From The Holy Eucharist by Father Jose Guadalupe Trevino)