Eucharistic Reflection - The Bread For Which Humanity Was Famishing

 

“Ah, yes! The Eucharist began at Bethlehem in Mary's arms. It was she who brought to humanity the Bread for which it was famishing, and which alone can nourish it. She, it was who took care of that Bread for us. It was she who nourished the Lamb whose life-giving Flesh we feed upon. 

She nourished Him with her virginal milk; she nourished Him for the sacrifice, for she foreknew His destiny. Yes, she knew from the beginning, and every day she realizes it more fully, that her Lamb is only for immolation. She accepts God's will, and bearing Him in her arms, herself prepares for us the victim at Calvary - that Victim of our Altars.”

(From Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament by Saint Peter Julian Eymard)

Eucharistic Reflection - Become An Interior Soul

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

“Hence I say, if we wish to become saints, we must become interior souls. We are obliged thereto by our vocation as adorers. Without this interior spirit, how can we pray? If in the presence of our Lord we cannot spend a single instant without a book, if we have nothing to say to Him from our own heart, what are we going to do at Adoration? What can we never speak to Him from the abundance of our own heart? Must we always borrow the thoughts and words of strangers? No, no! Let us strive to become recollected interior souls.

No one can be this in the way that Jesus and Mary were; but everyone can become recollected in the degree given him by grace. Without the interior life, we shall never receive any consolation, encouragement in prayer; we shall only be unhappy at the feet of our Lord. If you wish to become true adorers, we must have this interior spirit. We should talk to our Lord when kneeling in His presence, ask Him questions, await His reply; we should enjoy God's presence. We should be happy in His company, happy in His service; we should take pleasure in His familiarity, so sweet, so encouraging. But to discover the Heart of Jesus we must be interior.

After all, what does it mean to be interior? It means to love, to converse, to live with Jesus. But Jesus does not make Himself heard by bodily ears, nor seen with bodily eyes; He speaks only to the recollected soul. He is wholly interior in the Blessed Sacrament: He no longer enters into the heart through the sight, as during His mortal life; He now enters the soul direct and speaks to it alone. When the soul does not expand in His presence it is because He does not act upon it - there is some obstacle in His path.

Ah! Do not make our Lord out to have said what is not true! He has said that His yoke is sweet and His burden light. But it is only so for him who carries it in a prayerful, recollected spirit; otherwise, he will find it heavy and fatiguing. When we do not lead interior lives, everything we do goes haltingly. Oh, how I should wish to see accomplished in us what was so fully realized in the Blessed Virgin: ‘The Kingdom of God is within you’ - the Kingdom of love, of virtue and of interior graces. Then indeed shall we begin to be adorers and saints. The grass of the field dies yearly because its roots do not lie deep in the soil; but the oak, the olive and the cedar stand year after year because their roots run deep into the earth. In order to grow strong, to endure, we must descend to the very depths, even to self-annihilation…There we shall find Jesus. He is there annihilated... it was such that Mary found Him. Oh, may that Blessed Mother, our perfect exemplar of the interior life, make us live, as she did, in Jesus! May we, like her, remain always in Him and never leave Him!”

(From Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament by Saint Peter Julian Eymard)

Pondering Tidbits of Truth - February 24, 2022

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 Louis of Granada, O.P.

“What can equal the blindness of him who sells eternal happiness for the fleeting and bitter pleasures of this world? How incomprehensible is the ignorance of him who neither fears Hell nor strives for Heaven; who feels no horror for sin; who disregards the menaces as well as the promises of God; who makes no preparation for death, which hourly seizes its victims; who does not see that momentary joys here, are laying up for him eternal torments hereafter! ‘They have not known or understood; they walk on in the darkness.’(Psalm 81:5) of sin through this life, and will pass from it to eternal darkness of the life to come.”

(From The Sinner's Guide)

 

 

James Monti

 “At a time when Catholics who love the Traditional Latin Mass are being marginalized and treated as outcasts whose very presence on parish grounds is being circumscribed lest they ‘contaminate’ their fellow Catholics, those who openly reject the most fundamental moral values of our faith are being invited to have a say in discussions as to what the future of the Church ought to be. Is this by any definition of the word ‘communion’?

No, the purveyors of heresy and moral depravity should not have any say in the formulation of Church doctrine. Abortion advocates and same-sex marriage propagandists do not deserve a place at the table in deciding what we as Catholics ought to believe. When our Lord dined with sinners, it was not for the purpose of making a compromise with them, of cutting a deal with them that would legitimize their life of sin and pass it off as just a different form of discipleship.

Both Pope St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI taught us that there are innumerable dogmas that are non-negotiable, that heresy must be called out for what it is and refuted, and that the Church’s engagement with the world will often require challenging and confronting the world.”

(From The Church Cannot Dialogue with Satan which appeared in Monti's February 10, 2022 column Restoring The Sacred,  in The Wanderer)

 

 

Laura Catherine Worhacz

“Mary lived a life of perpetual giving, perpetual offering, and perpetual serving. Mary's life was filled with a never-ending gift of herself to God; it pleased her to provide. By this example, we see how life can become a living prayer. When we become aware of the presence of God in every moment, we are taking part in a life of love. Offering one's daily duties to God obliges us to labor for the salvation of the souls whom He has entrusted to us. Each and every encounter, each and every person placed in our path is an opportunity for us to love Jesus.”

(From Consecration to Jesus Through Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament – 33 Days with Saint Peter Julian Eymard, Apostle of the Eucharist.)