Harvesting The Fruits of Contemplation

T hank you 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-He Loves Us Even When We Fail To Love Him (Originally posted on February 23, 2013) Can this adorable Savior, Who has done so much to gain the hearts of men, refuse anything to those who themselves ask of Him a place in His Heart? If Jesus Christ allows Himself to be given even to those who do not love Him, and would have Himself carried to dying persons who never condescended to visit Him in their lifetime, and who have been insensible both to the manifest marks of love which He gave them and to the cruel outrages He received in the adorable Eucharist, to persons who have perhaps themselves ill-treated Him, what will He not do for faithful servants who, sensibly touched at seeing their dear Lord so little loved, so rarely visited, so cruelly outraged, make H...

Another Wednesday and another opportunity to thank Allison Gingras and Elizabeth Riordan for their weekly invitation to re-post our favorite posts on Worth Revisiting. Go there now (and every Wednesday) and let an interesting group of Catholic bloggers nourish you in your Faith journey. V isit Allison at   Reconciled To You and Elizabeth at Theology Is A Verb during the rest of each week.   You will enjoy your visit. May you find the following worth pondering: Eucharistic Reflection - Enormous Ingratitude (Originally posted August 11, 2015) “And Jesus answering, said: ‘Were not ten [lepers] made clean? And where are the nine ?Is there no one found to return and give glory to God, but this stranger?’  (Photo©Michael Seagriff) In the world, we cannot endure ingratitude. It is only when God is in question that we do not concern ourselves about being ungrateful. This wonderful cure,...

Thank you Allison Gingras and Elizabeth Riordan, for inviting your fellow Catholic bloggers to re-post their favorite articles on it’s "Worth Revisiting” Wednesdays.   Go there now (and every Wednesday) and enjoy what these authors have to offer. During the rest of each week. visit Allison at  Reconciled To You and Elizabeth at Theology Is A Verb .  What follows is a clear, necessary and unambiguous challenge : Eucharistic Reflection - The Jesus We Ignore (Originally posted on August 12, 2013) "Jesus Christ dwells in the midst of us in the same manner He dwelt at Nazareth amidst His relatives. He was there without being known by them, and without working in their favor, the miracles that He wrought elsewhere. Our blindness and evil dispositions prevent Him from letting us experience the wonderful operations with which He favors those whom He finds well disposed… (St. Agatha's, Canastota, NY)

“As the sanctity and merit of our actions depends on the motive and spirit with which they are actuated, the practice of the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, however holy, would be of little use, unless it were animated with the spirit and the motive which                    gives it all its value. This motive, as we have said, is to repair, as far as possible, by our love, our adoration, and by every kind of homage the indignities and outrages which Jesus Christ has endured, and still daily endures, in the most Blessed Sacrament. It is in this spirit, and in these sentiments, the devotion should be practiced.”                                     (From De...

“And Jesus answering, said: ‘Were not ten [lepers] made clean? And where are the nine ?Is there is no one found to return and give glory to God, but this stranger?’  (Photo©Michael Seagriff) In the world, we cannot endure ingratitude. It is only when God is in question that we do not concern ourselves about being ungrateful. This wonderful cure, this miracle, had been extended to ten persons, and of them all, one only was found who thanked his Benefactor.

St. Mary's - Baldwinsville, NY -Photo©Michael Seagriff After this [Jesus telling His followers that he who feeds on His flesh and drinks His blood has eternal life] many of His disciples went back and walked no more with Him. Then Jesus said to the twelve: Will you also go away ? This question came from a Heart so inflamed with love, and was in itself so strong a proof of excessive tenderness, that it could not fail to oblige those, to whom it was directed, to love Jesus Christ yet more ardently. It had also all the effect that this Divine Savior desired; and this increase of fervor in the Apostles, consoled Him a little, for the affliction He felt, at the departure of those who had forsaken Him. Jesus Christ often asks us the same question, and for the same reason. How happy should we be, if it had the same effect!

If Jesus Christ, in coming to us, gives us sensible marks of His presence, as is generally the case with those who have a tender devotion to His Sacred Heart, let us profit by these precious moments, let us preserve great interior recollection, let us listen to our Lord, let us allow grace to work. If we do not hinder its operation by voluntary distractions, and a kind of dissipation by which the devil seeks to make us lose all the fruit of Communion, it will work wonders in us. The occupation of a fervent soul at this time, shouldbe principally, to abandon herself entirely to the loveof her Divine Savior, and to enjoy the sweetness of His presence.

Let us imagine that the Communion, for which we are preparing, is to be the last in our lives. Let us prepare, every time, as though, on quitting the holy table, we had to pass from this life to eternity. If we desire that the sacrament of the Eucharist should produce in us sentiments of the love of God, let us think of the immense love which God has shown us in instituting this mystery, and of His design to oblige us thereby to love Him perfectly.

  “Were we to communicate only once in our life, our whole life, however long it might be, would  not be too long to prepare ourselves worthily for receiving so holy and so awful a mystery. This  should not, however, keep us from it. It should only urge us to approach it with the requisite  dispositions. We are wrong, then, when we say: '' I will not communicate, because I feel I am  unworthy." We should say, on the contrary: “I will endeavor, as far as possible, by the innocence  and regularity of my life, to make myself worthy to communicate."   To approach worthily, is to believe ourselves unworthy; while, at the same time, we do what we can to make ourselves less unworthy. A single good Communion is enough to make a Saint. Not much more is necessary than a good will, and a few reflections, in order to make a good Communion.   Those who communicate...

(Photo©Michael Seagriff) Most adorable and most amiable Jesus! Ever full of love for us, ever touched with compassion for our miseries, ever actuated by the desire of making us partakers of Thy treasures, and of giving Thyself wholly to us: Jesus, my Savior and my God, Who, through an excess of the most ardent and most won- derful love, hast placed Thyself in the condition of a victim, in the Adorable Eucharist, where Thou offers Thyself for us in sacrifice so many times every day, what must be Thy sentiments in this state, at finding no return for all this, in the hearts of the greater part of men, but hardness, forgetfulness, ingratitude and  contempt!   Was it not enough. Oh my God, to have taken the most painful means of saving us, when Thou could have shown us Thy excessive love at much less cost ? 

"Jesus Christ dwells in the midst of us in the same manner He dwelt at Nazareth amidst His relatives. He was there without being known by them, and without working in their favor, the miracles that He wrought elsewhere. Our blindness and evil dispositions prevent Him from letting us experience the wonderful operations with which He favors those whom He finds well disposed… (St. Agatha's, Canastota, NY)

  "Although all exercises of devotion are capable of filling the soul with interior consolations, and all good works are accompanied by an unspeakable delight and joy, which is inseparable from the testimony of a good conscience, and which surpasses all other pleasures, it is, however, certain, that Jesus Christ never grants so many sensible favors as in the practices of devotion which tend only to honor Him in the most Blessed Sacrament.   The lives of the saints are filled with examples of this truth. When did a St. Francis, a St. Ignatius, a St. Teresa, a St. Philip Neri, a St. Aloysius Gonzaga, and numberless others feel their hearts inflamed with love, than when they approached this august Sacrament? What sighs of love issued from their hearts, what sweet tears streamed from their eyes in the celebration or in the participation of this adorable mystery!   With what consolations, with what torrents of delight, were they not replenished! For indeed Jesu...

Can this adorable Savior, Who has done so much to gain the hearts of men, refuse anything to those who themselves ask of Him a place in His Heart? If Jesus Christ allows Himself to be given even to those who do not love Him, and would have Himself carried to dying persons who never condescended to visit Him in their lifetime, and who have been insensible both to the manifest marks of love which He gave them and to the cruel outrages He received in the adorable Eucharist, to persons who have perhaps themselves ill-treated Him, what will He not do for faithful servants who, sensibly touched at seeing their dear Lord so little loved, so rarely visited, so cruelly outraged, make Him atonement, from time to time, for all the insults He receive, and neglect nothing to repair so many offenses, by their frequent visits, their adorations, their homages, and chiefly their ardent love? Is it not, then, plain that there is nothing more reasonable, more useful, than the pra...

However incredible may appear the love which the Son of God shows us in the Adorable Eucharist, there is something else yet more surprising. It is the ingratitude with which we repay so great a love. It is marvelous, indeed, that Jesus Christ should take delight in loving man. But it is most unaccountable that man should not love Jesus Christ, and that no motive, no benefit, no excess of love can inspire him with the least feeling of gratitude. Jesus Christ may perhaps have some reason for loving men. They are His work. In them He loves His own gifts. In loving them He loves Himself.   But can we have any reason for not loving Jesus Christ, for loving Him only in a small degree, for loving anything together with Him? Is there anything, then, in Him,that keeps you from Him? Has He not yet done sufficient to merit our love? Should we ever have dared to desire, or ever have been able to imagine, all that He has deigned to do, in this adorable mystery, in order to gain ou...

               But we must remember that, however great and ineffable is all that our Lord has done for our salvation, the love which has led Him to do it is still greater than all, because it is infinite — and as if this love could not be satisfied, so long as there remained a miracle it had not wrought, He institutes the adorable Sacrament of the Altar, the sum of all His wonders.   He truly lives with us until the end of the world. He gives Himself to us, under the appearances of bread and wine. He makes His flesh and blood the nourishment of our souls, in order to unite Himself more closely to us, or rather to unite us more closely to Him. Can we then be possessed of reason, and not be deeply moved at the mere recital of this marvel? Can we still retain any feeling of humanity, and not be all inflamed with love for Jesus Christ, at the sight of such a benefit?   A God feels tenderness for...

Sadly, as noted by Father Croiset in 1863, the lack of appreciation for the gift of Jesus living physically among us is not a recent development: “There have been newly converted Christians, in the Indies and in Japan , who have traveled more than a hundred leagues every year, to have the consolation of once adoring Jesus Christ in the most Blessed Sacrament, of hearing one single Mass; and they thought nothing of the fatigue, of so difficult a journey, that they might have the happiness of spending half an hour with Jesus Christ.   My God! How many will rise up at the day of judgment and will condemn us! We have Jesus Christ in our town; religious persons have Jesus Christ in their own house; and this benefit is esteemed as nothing! And some value it so little, that they only visit Jesus Christ with indifference and even with repugnance, and almost all without devotion.”        (From Devotion To The Sacred Heart by Father ...

                What is Meant by Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Our Lord Jesus Christ…   The particular object of this devotion is the immense love of the Son of God, which has induced Him to die for us, and to give Himself wholly to us in the Adorable Sacrament of the Altar, and this, although He foresaw all the ingratitude and outrages which He was to meet within this state of a victim immolated till the end of ages; preferring rather to expose himself daily to the insults and contempt of mankind, than to fail in showing us, by the greatest of all wonders, to what an excess He loves us.   This is what has enkindled the piety and zeal of many. Reflecting on the little gratitude that is shown for such an excess of love, the little love that is felt for Jesus Christ, and the little value that is set upon His love for us, they have been unable to endure to see Him daily so ill-treated, without protesting...