Harvesting The Fruits of Contemplation

[The following is just one of 175 reflections on the Eucharist that are bound to touch your heart and stir your soul. You will find all of them in Godhead Here in Hiding Whom I Do Adore - Lay Dominicans Reflect on Eucharisitc Adoration .] "The first time I witnessed people adoring Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, was because I showed up for a novena where there just so happened to be Exposition - Jesus, in the Eucharist on the Altar, in the Monstrance. I did not know what to do or what it was. I found myself asking the question, “What is this?” I was amazed and I knew in my heart it was extraordinary, but I did not know what the monstrance was etc. I asked God to help me to pray and to understand. Later, I realized the real question to ask is “Who is this?” That was a long time ago. I now attend at least one hour of Eucharistic Adoration weekly and sometimes I ask questions but more often I hear the questions being asked by Jesus left alone on the Altar: “Who do you say that I ...

"In our self-center ed culture and classic American emphasis on work, we often feel we have to accomplish something during our times of prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. We rate our experience by how 'good' our prayer was, how heartfelt our devotion was, or how focused we could remain. Yet prayer and contemplation are fundamentally God's work, in which we are invited to participate. We need only to give Him the opening, and He will do the rest. By coming to adoration, we are handing Him the keys to our hearts, allowing the rays of His love and grace to bathe our souls in the light of His Presence, as the rays of the sun bathe our bodies in light. If we can take the time to pull away from the busyness and distractions of life and just sit at His feet, He will lead us."   (From Manual for Eucharistic Adoration -  Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration )

"My Lord Jesus Christ, who, for the love You bear to mankind, do remain night and day in this Sacrament, full of pity and love, awaiting, calling, and receiving all who come to visit You; I believe that You are present in the Sacrament of the Altar; I adore You from the depths of my own nothingness; I thank You for the many graces You have given me, and especially for having given me Yourself in this Sacrament." (St. Alphonsus de Liguori)

(Image Source:  Wikimedia Commons ) "Silence in front of the Blessed Sacrament is one of the hardest yet most spiritually rewarding moments in a Catholic's spiritual development.- Like a potter to the clay, allowing God to work in you and being comfortable not speaking, not interrupting, but allowing one's soul to conform to the will of God. That sounds easy, but it's really hard." (Shaun Kenny from "Silence In A Cluttered Age" published in the July 24, 2019 issue of  The Wanderer )

" You must spend time in the Presence of God! When you go to church to spend time at Adoration, give your full attention to the Lord. Talk to Him just as if you were talking to a friend or relative. Know that He is there in front of you, waiting for you! All you need to do is to open your eyes and your hearts to God. Even though God knows everything that is in your heart, He wants you to share those thoughts with Him. He is waiting for you to ask Him to help you, your loved ones and others in need. Only He knows what you and they need and what is best for the salvation of your soul and theirs. Be grateful that you can come into His Presence and be with Him. Remember that everything we have is a gift from God. He may not always give us what we request, but God will always give us what we need. Should we not offer all the joys and tribulations of our lives to Him? Should we not worship and love Him as He asks? Should we not ask Him to change our hearts and teach us how to love...

 

 

 

  "Please, make a visit every so often. Just go into your church for a moment and say, 'Hi, Jesus, I’m here. I don’t have much to say.' He knows that...He wants our will, our love, our faith, and our trust. Remember now, you have that, you have everything. Every day, whatever church you belong to, He waits in that tabernacle, hoping when that door opens, it’s you.  (Mother Angelica)

"At this time in history, with news crashing on upon us from every side - mostly bad news, and some of it frankly scandalous in the extreme, as it reveals the callous complicity with, approbation of, and dedication to evil on the part of many in the hierarchy of the Church, who were supposed to be our guides to holiness and our models of it - nothing could be better than for us to go regularly before the Lord in Adoration.  Fair weather or foul, super-busy or at loose ends, it doesn't matter; this is what we should be doing for our Church, for our clergy, for ourselves. This is what Our Lord is waiting for: a sign from us, an unmistakable sign, that we love Him for His own sake, and above all things on earth. When enough of us are taking real steps to love Him in exactly this way - with our whole mind, our whole heart, our whole soul, and our whole strength - we may then count on a new flood of graces inundating the Church." ( Dr. Peter Kwasniewski f rom The Holy Bread...

"The visit to the Blessed Sacrament is a source of so much sweetness because we have in the tabernacle, the same God who is the source of happiness for the elect in heaven. The Eucharist becomes thus an earthly paradise. One asked a saint if it were hard for him to remain so long in the church. 'Ah!' he answered, 'I would spend an eternity there!' He was right. Our Lord is in heaven; He is also in His tabernacle. What a joy! The saints in heaven are they weary of contemplating, adoring and praising Jesus Christ or of remaining in His presence? We ought to experience a happiness like theirs near the tabernacle where the same God dwells. " (From the Eucharistic Meditations of the Cure of Ars )

Jesus to St. Faustina: "My child do you fear the God of mercy? My holiness does not prevent Me from being merciful. Behold, for you I have established a throne of mercy on earth - the tabernacle - and from this throne I desire to enter into your heart. I am not surrounded by a retinue or guards. You can come to Me at any moment, at any time; I want to speak to you and desire to grant you grace." (From Divine Mercy In My Soul - Diary of St. M. Faustina Kowalska )

[The following post is among 175 reflections on the Eucharist  published by the Lay Dominicans of St. Joseph Province in a book entitled Godhead Here In Hiding Whom I Do Adore - Lay Dominicans Reflect on Eucharistic Adoration.   If you want to draw closer to our Eucharistic Lord,  I  highly recommend you get a copy.] God works in mysterious ways. He had a plan for me the instant He thought me into existence. Everything that has happened in my life has been intended by Him to be for the salvation of my soul. Of course, I must willingly consent to follow His plan. He will not force me to do so. It is often hard to discern that plan. Some of us spend a lifetime and may never discover our purpose in life until we are close to standing before His throne of justice. So recently, God let me glimpse back in time so that I could see with absolute clarity, how much He loves me. Looking back nearly seventy-five years, I see God’s ever-present Hand in my life more clearly than I...

“From My tabernacles abandoned by my children, I see so many of them passing by My churches everyday. They don't look at Me but I look at them. I follow them that with My gaze everywhere just in case, by chance, they will turn to look at Me, encountering My gaze. ( Photo by  Josh Applegate  on  Unsplash ) Poor children! I see in their faces the weariness of carrying the heavy crosses. Even in the faces of those who pass by smiling, I can see the same weariness. The cross is very heavy! The incurable illnesses, lack of economic resources, the burden of debts, the suffering of family members, the torture of slander and false accusations, the passions, the remorse for their sins, and the thousands of difficulties of human life place much weight on such weak shoulders! Poor children! And when I see them pass by so overwhelmed, I say to Myself, ‘If they would see Me! If they could just see Me! How well we would understand each other.’ I would pick up the anxiety of their l...

 

"It is happiness to be in heaven, no doubt, because it is to be with Jesus; but have we not almost the same happiness h ere? Do we not possess Him in the Most Holy Sacrament? Did we but know how to profit by His Divine Presence, we should in some way have no reason to envy the inhabitants of the Heavenly City."   Marie Estelle Harpain

 

“We must never lose sight of our holy tabernacles: it is there that we find our strength and our virtue. If human infirmity and affairs allowed, we should pass our whole life at the feet of our Divine Master. At least let us go there as often as possible, and quit so many futile occupations that rob us of precious time claimed for what we owe the love of a God. Photo by Josh Applegate on Unsplash Far from us be disgust, negligence and frivolity. Alas! is it possible that it should be burdensome for us to converse with our Sovereign Lord? Where is one better off than close to one’s Father, to one’s spouse, to one’s all? To live with Jesus – is this not to begin to live on earth the life that we are called to live in heaven? Ah! Can we say that we have faith if we complain of the length of time we spend before the Most Holy Sacrament? What, however, does one see in the world, and perhaps even among us? Poor creatures, fragile nothings, worms of the earth, for which it is such ...