Eucharistic Reflection - He Will Take Care Of You!

 (Photo by Jacob Bentzinger on Unsplash)

"Holy Communion. How good is the Good God! He can take the place of everybody; He outlives any amount of ingratitude; He remains always the kind Father. Give yourself to Him with a holy abandonment which makes of your soul the blind child of God. His poor and happy beggar. If we knew our Lord better, how strong and full of life we should be! Cast yourself often at His feet, and, still oftener, into the divine fire of His Eucharist, and He will take care of you."

(From A Eucharistic Handbook by Saint Peter Julian Eymard)

 

Eucharistic Reflection - Feel It Beating

"A great many people habitually make the mistake of talking too much in their thanksgiving, that highest of prayers; by over-much speaking they render their Communion ineffective - Do but listen to  our Lord a little after Communion. This is not the time to seek, but to enjoy. This is the time when God makes Himself known through Himself: Et erunt docibiles Dei -"And they shall all be taught of God."

(Photo by Mateus Campos Felipe on Unsplash)

"How does a mother teach her little child what endless love and tenderness she has for it? She is content to show by her devotion that she loves it. God does the same in Communion. Remember that one who does not receive Communion will never know the Heart of our Lord or the magnitude of His love. The heart makes itself known through itself alone; we must feel it beating."

(St. Peter Julian Eymard from Holy Communion)

Pondering Tidbits of Truth - February 27, 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.

St. Peter Julian Eymard

"This is your mission, O Adorers: to weep at the feet of Jesus despised by His own friends, crucified in so many hearts, abandoned in so many places; to console the Heart of so tender a Father, Whom the devil, His enemy, has robbed of His children. A Eucharistic prisoner, He can no longer go after lost sheep, the prey of ravenous wolves. Your mission is to beg forgiveness for the guilty; to ransom them from divine mercy, which needs willing hearts as substitutes; to become victims of propitiation with the Savior Jesus, Who no longer able to suffer since His resurrection, will suffer in you an through you."

(From In The Light of the Monstrance)

Father Donald Haggerty

"The danger is quite real that souls habituated to constant technological stimuli will never be silent with themselves, never alone in a receptive manner, and so never able to discover God in a personal encounter of prayer."

 (From Contemplative Enigmas)

Archbishop Luis M. Martinez

"The Holy Spirit brings about our sanctification in two ways. The first is by helping us, moving us, and directing us, but in such a way that we are actually doing our own work. It is our glory to fulfill our own destiny. God has given us the wonderful and terrible gift of freedom, by which we ourselves are the artisans of our own happiness or or our own ruin.

But the Holy Spirit has another way of directing. It is His personal direction of our deeds, when He no longer merely illuminates us with His light, or warms us with His fire to show us the road that we must follow. In this second way, He Himself deigns  to move our faculties and urge us so that we may perform His work."

(From True Devotion to the Holy Spirit) 

Eucharistic Reflection

The Heart of Jesus therefore lives in the Eucharist, since His body is alive there. It is true that we can neither feel nor see that divine Heart, but things are pretty much the same for all men. This principle of life must be mysterious and veiled; to uncover it would kill it. We can conclude to its existence only from the effects it produces. A man does not ask to see the heart of a dear friend; one word is enough to tell him of his love. But how will the divine Heart of Jesus make itself known? It manifests itself to us by the sentiments with which it inspires us; that should suffice. Besides, who could contemplate the beauty and the goodness of the divine Heart? Who could stand the brightness of its glory, the consuming and devouring flames of this fire of love? Who would dare look at this divine Ark, on which is written its gospel of love in letters which its love has its throne, and its goodness all its treasures? Who would want to penetrate into the very sanctuary of the Godhead? The Heart of Jesus! Why, it is the heaven of heavens, in which God Himself dwells and finds His delights!

No! We do not see the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus! But we possess it; it is ours!

(St. Peter Julian Eymard)

Apostle of the Eucharist

Saint Peter Julian Eymard (1811-1868) founded the Society of the Blessed Sacrament, and the Servants of the Blessed Sacrament. He is often referred to as the Apostle of the Eucharist. His writings, including those on the Eucharist, are extensive and have been compiled into a 17 volume work. Even a cursory review of quotations attributable to him should set any heart afire. Let me share a few of them:

             “Receive Communion often, and Jesus will change you into himself."

 "Be the apostle of the Divine Eucharist, like a flame which enlightens and warms, like the Angel of His heart who will go to proclaim Him to those who don’t know Him and will encourage those who love Him and are suffering."

“…we cannot consider the Most Blessed Sacrament attentively without concluding: ‘I must love Him and come to visit Him. I must not leave Him alone; He loves me too much’…” 

“Unless we have a passionate love for our Lord in the Most Blessed Sacrament, we shall accomplish nothing. Certainly, our Lord loves us passionately in the Eucharist; He loves us blindly without a thought for Himself, devoting Himself entirely for our good. We should love Him as he loves us."   

Oh, but there are some ears desperate to hear these truths and some eyes anxious to see such love. Why don’t they?

St. John Eudes (1601-1680), whose feast day is August 19 not today as I erroneously stated yesterday, offered an explanation - one which was not well received by those to whom it was directed at the time and which is not likely to be well-received today by anyone to whom his observations may apply: "The most evident mark of God's anger and the most terrible castigation He can inflict upon the world are manifested when He permits His people to fall into the hands of clergy who are priests more in name than in deed…”

This frank but good Saint was quick, however, to point out that: “The greatest blessing that God bestows upon a church, the most single manifestation of divine grace, is to have a saintly shepherd, be he bishop or priest. This is indeed a grace of graces and the most priceless of all gifts for it includes within itself every other blessing and grace…The [holy] priest is a sun cheering the world by his presence and bearing. He brings heavenly blessings into every heart. He dispels the ignorance and darkness of error and radiates on every side bright beams of celestial light. He extinguishes sin and gives life and grace to the multitudes. He imparts new life to the weak, inflames the lukewarm, fires most ardently those who are aglow with the sacred flame of divine love…”

The late Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen echoed similar sentiments: "If only all priests realized how their holiness makes the Church holy, and how the Church begins to decline as the level of holiness among priests falls below that of the people!"

We can not have the abundant life God promises us, or the love, reverence, and belief in the Eucharist we ought to have and to which God is entitled, without the example of holy priests. Priests who passionately love the Eucharist and who, by their words and actions, call their flock to passionately love the Eucharist are holy priests! 

Thank God for the many holy priests already in our midst, but let us pray for more.