Harvesting The Fruits of Contemplation

“Our attraction for the tabernacle is a gift for which we cannot be sufficiently grateful…The mystery of that attraction is never an easy comprehension. We simply know it and treasure it in an utterly personal manner. Our eyes gravitate in the direction of the tabernacle when all is quiet because someone is there in that location even as he is silent…We sense in an utterly Catholic manner that this blessed location of the tabernacle is the secret hiding place for the sacred presence that it encloses. He summons us to himself there and we find in a lifetime of prayers before the Blessed Sacrament his ever-penetrating gaze." (Father Donald Haggerty from Conversion: Spiritual Insights into an Essential Encounter with God )

“If you want to experience true peace, come to the Tabernacle.   Oh, what love you will feel.   My Father waits for you: He waits until you are ready to sit and honor His Son.   He waits for you to open your heart: to believe He is there, so that He can give you the warmth of His Love and His Peace.   For if you believe I am there, all things are possible.   What happened?   Your families before you, honored Me.   They sat with Me: talked with Me.   Churches were full, and because of their love for Me, and the one who sent Me, they did all they could for my Church.   A lot has happened in the last 30 [50+] years.   I am the same God, yet there is no reverence for Me or my Son.   You come with your hands in your pockets, not folded in prayer; children eat, laugh and play in the real presence of my Son.   Some look away, as if they don’t know what to do; most don’t know who I am.   Come to the Tabernacle and learn who I am...

" It is nightfall...One by one the lights go out in the dwellings of men...Millions of stars twinkle in the vast vault of heaven...But on earth one only star still glimmers - the tiny star of light in the sanctuary lamp. Its feeble rays struggle through the windows of a little church...it moves unsteadily to and fro...until it reaches you...Do you not see it? Jesus sends it to tell you that He never rests, that day and night, year in and year out, His heart is busy loving you, and the poor, and the unhappy - yes, even those who crucify Him."   ( Eucharistic Whisperings - Father Winfrid Herbst, S.D.S.)

"On the day that we receive Holy Communion we should endeavor to keep our hearts as living tabernacles of our Eucharistic Jesus, and then visit Him often with acts of adoration, love, and gratitude; this is what divine love will teach us." Saint Paul of the Cross 

"There is in every house a place where the provisions of the family are kept: the storeroom. The church is the house of souls. This house belongs to us who are Christians.  Well, in this house there is a storeroom. Do you see this tabernacle? If one asks Christian souls, what is that? Your souls answer: 'it is the storeroom. It is there that the Body and Blood of Jesus is, and this good Savior says to us: ‘Take and eat . . . take and drink’.'  A mortal man, a creature, feeds himself, satiates himself with his God, making of Him his daily food and drink! O miracle of miracles! O love beyond all love! O happiness beyond all happiness! I thank you, O my God, and I ask of you the grace to hunger always for this heavenly food." (St. John Marie Vianney from The Eucharistic Meditations of the Cure of Ars )

[The tabernacle should be a Bethany for us] a quiet and pleasant place where Christ resides. A place where we can tell Him about our worries, our sufferings, our desires, our joys, with the same sort of simplicity and naturalness as Martha, Mary, and Lazarus.    (St. Josemaria Escriva from  Christ is Passing By)   PAUSE AND PONDER : Do I make a daily visit to the Blessed Sacrament a priority in my life? Do I look froward to spending time in His Presence? How comfortable am I in pouring my heart out to Him? [This is just one of the 150 challenging quotations you will find  in  Pondering Tidbits of Truth, Volume 6    to fuel your contemplation.] 

(Image Source- Josh Applegate  at Unsplash.com ) "Be a Eucharistic soul! If the center around which your thoughts and hopes turn is the Tabernacle, then my child, how abundant the fruits of sanctity and apostolate will be!" St. Josemaria Escriva from The Forge )

"What shall I answer if I have not responded to the love of Jesus – and not given Him the whole love of my heart – and not spent myself for Him Who loved me unto death, even unto the death of the Cross? What shall I answer when I find out that throughout my life, every hour of the day and night, Jesus was for me imprisoned in the tabernacle, pleading for me with the Father – wishing for me to visit Him, to unite Himself to me, and to be my faithful, my own God?" ( Meditation on the Passion - A Mistress of Novices of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary) Just one of the 250 soul-searching quotations you will find in Stirring Slumbering Souls

" Virgin Immaculate, who, after the Ascension of thy Divine son, didst console thy exile on earth by the Real Presence of Jesus in the Sacrament and didst spend before the Tabernacle the greater part of thy days and even thy nights, make us comprehend the treasure we possess on the altar. Inspire us to visit often the God of Love in the Sacrament in which He abides to receive the homage that He deserves by so many titles, and to guide, protect and console us in this exile." (From Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament by Saint Peter Julian Eymard)

"[Jesus] He listened to everything. To the petition made in faith and spoken from the heart by the woman with a hemorrhage, to Zacchaeus, to the blasphemous shouts in the Praetorium, to the triumphant Hosanna, and to the false testimony; to the silent weeping of the penitents and to the evil thoughts of His enemies. He listened to everything! He continues living in this way in the Tabernacle: listening to everyone and to everything. But there's a big difference between His way of listening and the way man listens. Man is wont to listen only with his ear- sometimes, maybe, with his mind. Jesus in the Tabernacle listens with His ear and with his mind, that is, with understanding. He also listens with His heart because He loves us. And to think that there are tabernacles where there is no one present to talk to Him. He who is so good! Immaculate Mother, angels of the Tabernacle, speak to the ear of your Jesus in those tabernacles where there is so much painful silence." (Fro...

"Adoration is a furnace and a forge. The soul called to a life of adoration must expect to suffer the intensity of the fiery furnace, and the reshaping of all that is misshapen in her in the forge of My Divine Will. For this to happen, it is enough that the soul offers Herself to My love and remain humble, peaceful, and quiet as I purify and transform My Presence. (St. Agatha's Parish, Canastota, NY) If only souls knew the power to purify and to transform that emanates from My tabernacles! If only My priests knew this they would hasten into My presence and remain there, waiting   for   Me   to   do   in   them   what,   of   themselves,   they cannot do. It is the simple prayer of adoration that renders a priest fit for the sacred ministry by giving him a pure heart and by correcting all that is incompatible with My Divine Holiness and with My Priestly Love in his life. This way of holiness through adoration is a secret revealed to My ...

(Image Source: Wikimedia Commons ) If you want to experience true peace, come to the Tabernacle. Oh, what love you will feel.   My Father waits for you. He waits until you are ready to sit and honor His Son.   He waits for you to open your heart: to believe He is there, so that He can give you the warmth of His Love and His Peace.   For if you believe I am there, all things are possible.   What happened?   Your families before you, honored Me.   They sat with Me, talked with Me.   Churches were full, and because of their love for Me, and the one who sent Me, they did all they could for my Church. A lot has happened in the last 30 years. I am the same God, yet there is no reverence for Me or my Son. You come with your hands in your pockets, not folded in prayer; children eat, laugh and play in the Real Presence of My Son.   Some look away, as if they don’t know what to do; most don’t know who I am. Come to the Tabernacle and learn who I am. I am ...