“When we receive Holy Communion, we become ‘living temples of the Most Blessed Trinity,’ as St. Therese of Lisieux said. The Blessed Trinity resides physically within our bodies for about fifteen minutes after we receive Holy Communion. For this reason, the Church encourages the faithful to remain in prayerful adoration and thanksgiving for this length of time after the reception of Holy Communion. Those minutes are the most precious moments of our earthly lives; it is then that we are physically united with the Blessed Trinity, a union that we can attain in no other way.”
(Chantal LaFortune from Missio Dei – April 27, 2024)
I have seen men become rich. I have seen men become poor. None are happy, no one is satisfied. Their idols are sports, and their altars are places of strong drink. They bow down to the work of other sinner’s hands.
Because I love you, my God, they mock and insult me. But I am in mourning for them because I do not want them to die, even though they have already become the walking dead. What am I to do Lord? Please strengthen me.
Let me dwell in your presence O Lord, both in every city and town, where Your Majesty stays enthroned upon the tabernacle of angels and life itself.
Your encased embodied vessel radiates the truth and understanding – a warm comforting presence of knowledge and courage.
Open the doors to the Church and let me in – there is peace, understanding, and truth here. I seek refuge in Your presence.
Outside is the darkness, where the gold toothed merchant sways and peddles his neighbor for sorted gain, the thief breaks in and steals, the sexually immoral mutilate their genitals and appropriate Your bow of the covenant as a symbol for their sexual immorality, and where wicked people sacrifice their children to demons for future professional and financial prosperity.
Your gaze pierces them. Your watchful eye sees them. You knew them from way back then and even until now. Just a little longer – and your plan made perfect!
But hear my petition O Lord, hear my plea and my cry just this one time – a lowly sinner who loves You!
Is there even fifty righteous men and women in Babylon? What about forty who are contrite? Maybe thirty who have potential? How about twenty who are worthy?
Lord My God, will you stay Your hand for the sake of ten righteous men and women in Babylon who will repent and change their ways? And what about for a few devoted souls gathered around Your Eucharistic Presence?
“When I am in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, I remind myself that this is the most important thing I will do today. I have been given the gift of knowing Who this is. So many rush by in their cars not even aware that the Creator of the Universe lies within this church under the guise of simple bread. Jesus is waiting for me. I am in the presence of Angels adoring Him. I am amazed and extremely thankful for this gift. I am sorry for all the times I don’t stop to greet Him and stay a while in His Presence.
I can honestly say that if it were not for His presence in the Eucharist, I would not still be Catholic. It is the one thing that has kept me within the Catholic church all these years. Whenever I had questions about the Faith it came down to “where could I go?” I cannot imagine life without His Eucharistic presence. An empty church just like all the other buildings. I could just pray from my home or out in nature. The thing that was the hardest during the pandemic was going without Holy Communion.
If people truly realized Who was in the Catholic churches, so many would come back. Think of the world we would live in if more and more people realized He was there and stopped to rest in His Presence and converse with Him on a regular basis. Over time we are changed to be more like Him.
I have the privilege to actually receive my Creator disguised under the appearance of a piece of bread. He is in complete charge of the universe and He wants to be in union with me. This thought is incomprehensible, yet it is true. It never ceases to make me realize how undeserving I am of this gift. I pray that He changes me into the person He has created me to be.
“Look on yourselves as people about to receive the adorable Body and precious Blood of Jesus Christ; and rouse in your hearts the sentiments of the centurion to communicate spiritually or sacramentally. The example of the centurion is so much to be admired that it seems as if the Church took pleasure in putting it before our eyes each day at Holy Mass.
‘Lord,’ said this humble soldier, ‘I am not worthy that Thou shouldst come to my house, but, say only the word, and my servant shall be healed.’
Ah! if the good God saw in us this same humility, this same recognition of our nothingness, with what pleasure and with what an abundance of graces would He not come into our hearts. What strength and courage to conquer the enemy of our salvation.”
(From The Eucharistic Meditations of the Cure of Ars)
“ ‘Do you believe that a piece of bread could detach itself and go on its own and place itself on the tongue of one who was coming to receive it?’ I asked this one day of two Protestant ministers who did not believe in the Real Presence of Our Lord. ‘No.’ Then it is not bread.’
Here is a story of which I myself am a witness. A man had temptations against faith in the Real Presence. How does one know it? It is not certain. The Consecration, what is it? What happens on the altar at that moment? But he wished to be delivered from these temptations, and he prayed to the Blessed Virgin to obtain for him a faith simple and peaceful.
Listen now. I do not say that this happened somewhere. I say that it happened to me. At the moment when this man came to receive Communion, the Sacred Host left my fingers while I was yet a good distance away. It went of Itself ‘and placed Itself on the tongue of this man. See how that ought to strengthen our faith! But, my God, what need have we of proofs after the words of Jesus Christ Himself.”
(From the Eucharistic Meditations of the Cure of Ars)
“Withdraw yourself from people and spend at least a quarter of an hour, or a half-hour, in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. Taste and see how sweet is the Lord, and you will learn from your own experience how many graces this will bring you.”
“Observe the earnestness of the Magi in seeking Jesus Christ in the manger. See holy Magdalen, as she eagerly seeks the risen Savior. Do you seek Jesus Christ with the same desire, the. same ardor, and nothing will hinder you from receiving Him. Long to communicate because there is nothing so great as the Eucharist. Put all the good works against one good Holy Communion. By one Communion you give more glory to God than by giving a hundred thousand francs to the poor.
Have a desire to go to Communion because it is the only food which suits perfectly your soul.”
(St. John Marie Vianney from The Eucharistic Reflections of the Cure of Ars)
Before instituting this Sacrament of love, He knew very well to how much scorn and contempt He was exposing Himself. O my Savior, why not remain in heaven after your return there! There, at least, the Angels will love you with a pure and perfect love: but in the Eucharist, the Jews will pierce you again with nails, wicked Christians will receive you unworthily, some without contrition, others without the wish to correct themselves, others perhaps with crime in their hearts.
He knows it: but all that does not hinder His love. “O city of Sion, exclaims the Lord, by the mouth of the prophet Isaias (xii, 6) cry out, thrill with joy, because your God dwells in the midst of you.” Jesus Christ has chosen for Himself the humiliations and at this price has assured to us forever the happiness and benefit of His presence.
(St. John Marie Vianney from The Eucharistic Reflections of the Cure of Ars)
“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 Mediation 5 from The Eucharistic Meditations of the Cure D’Ars)
“Loving souls can find no greater delight than to be in the company of those whom they love. If we, then, love Jesus Christ much, behold we are now in His presence. Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament sees us and hears us; shall we, then, say nothing to Him? Let us console ourselves in His company; let us rejoice in His glory, and in the love which so many enamoured souls bear Him in the Most Holy Sacrament. Let us desire that all should love Jesus in the Holy Sacrament, and consecrate their hearts to Him; at least let us consecrate our affections to Him. He should be all our love and our whole desire.”
I Thirst for Your Love! 
