Photo©Michael Seagriff
“Contemplate it…the sanctuary lamp in your church…it is the silent friend of Jesus and of all Eucharistic souls…
Father Winfrid Herbst, S.D.S. – Eucharistic Whisperings)
Tag: Eucharistic Presence
Only The Lowly Of Heart Can Understand
(Image source: Wikimedia Commons)
“I love silence – look at My sacramental life – and I love those who follow Me into the silence of My Eucharistic presence. The Eucharist is the most silent of the sacraments. Once the words of consecration are spoken, I am present, and My presence is wrapped in a profound silence. I am silent in the Sacrament of My love because there I am humble. There I lower Myself to live hidden, and often forgotten, in a silence that only the lowly of heart can understand.”
(From In Senu Jesus-When Heart Speaks to Heart – The Journal of Priest at Prayer)
This Is No Way to Treat the Savior of the World Whose Birth We Are About to Celebrate
“In the early days of the Church, Christians risked their lives just to attend Mass and to receive Holy Communion. Today, the majority does not attend Sunday Mass. Rarely do they or the thousands who only come on Christmas and/or Easter hear of the eternal consequences for skipping Mass. In some places, it is more important not to offend their “feelings” than to evidence zeal for the salvation of their souls.
Photo©Michael Seagriff
Among those Catholics who do attend Sunday Mass, a majority no longer believes in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist they receive or in the Sacred hosts reserved in their Church’s tabernacles. The prayerful and reverent silence evidencing such a belief is often missing. Many ignore He Who is Love to engage in inane chatter on topics more appropriately discussed at social and sporting events. Some remove our Lord out of bowls as if He were a potato chip and not the Son of God. The actions and demeanor of these individuals are inconsistent with one who professes to believe that Jesus Christ is really and truly present on the altar and in their hands.
(From Forgotten Truths To Set Faith Afire! Words to Challenge, Inspire and Instruct)
Had I Only Known It Was You!
(Source: Wikimedia Commons)
“I recall the strange and touching story of St. Alexis. When he was young he left home and then, because God inspired him to do so, came back to the house of his parents in Rome dressed up like a poor and unknown beggar. There he lived in some miserable old corner of the house for seventeen years; and his parents never knew that it was he.
But when he died they found out. It seems he left a note or something telling them what he had done in penance for his sins, because God wanted him to. How that mother wept when she found out that the beggar was her son. She had missed him so much and had so longed to see him. In agony she cried out: ‘O Alexis, my son! My son Alexis! Had I only known it was you! How I would have loved you and enjoyed your company! Now, alas! it is too late.’
This is a sad story. But I am afraid that if I do not appreciate my Eucharistic Savior here on earth, where He is hidden away in the poor tabernacle, where He is in my very midst and I do not seem to know Him, the time will come, after my death, when I will cry out, seeing His adorable beauty in the life to come: ‘O Jesus, if I had only known it was You! How I would have loved You, Jesus all beautiful!. How I would have enjoyed Your company! Oh, if I had only known!’
But I do know.
Faith tells me.
And I make so little of it…”
(From The Way to God by Father Winfrid Herbst S.D.S.)
Where Are The Crowds?
(Photo©Michael Seagriff)
“Dearest Lord, one would have expected You to be in such request upon the altar; expected that there would be crowding and crushing in Your Presence as in the days of Your earthly life; that we should be see flocking to You, and to pour out our troubles into Your willing ear. Where is our faith to leave You thus deserted?”
(Mother Mary Loyola from Coram Sanctissimo – Before the Most Holy)
Lay Them Down At His Feet
“Lay the tired brain, the strained muscles, the aching head – lay them all down at His feet without a word, just for His eye to rest on and His Heart to help and heal.”
(Mother Mary Loyola from Coram Sanctissimo)
What Is Impossible For One Man to Accomplish By Himself Becomes Entirely Possible With Your Help!
YOU HAVE GOT TO DO SOMETHING VITALLY IMPORTANT!
At the end of this post, I am going to ask you to help get the poignant reflection of Father Mark set forth below into the hands of every Bishop and priest in this country. We can do it!
But first I want to share a few thoughts that have long been embedded in my heart.
That which is most essential for our sanctification and salvation is that which we most frequently ignore – The Eucharist.
The late Apostle of the Eucharist, Father John Hardon, S.J., realized “that everything, everything, quote EVERTHING of our faith (indeed the virtue of faith itself) depends on our faith in God being really present with us today in both His human and Divine nature, united in His Divine Person in the Holy Eucharist”.
The time for mincing words is over. Current polls, as well as what we observe with our own eyes, make it clear that a majority (an overwhelming majority of those identifying themselves as Catholic, perhaps as much as 80 percent, including 80 percent of those few Catholics who bother attending Sunday Mass) no longer believe that our Lord is really, truly and substantially present Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Blessed Sacrament. The sad but truthful reality is that in far too many of our churches we have lost the sense of the sacred and an appreciation for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass that are essential for fostering and maintaining a belief in the Real Presence.
The Power of the Eucharist
(Image source: Wikimedia Commons)
It [the Eucharist] has the force to drive out not only death but also our weakness. In fact, Christ dwelling in us mitigates the law of the flesh that rages in our members, stimulates piety toward God, mortifies temptations, not imputing to us the sins into which we have fallen, but rather curing us as sick persons.
(From On the Gospel of John by St. Cyril of Alexandria)
Reparation to the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus
[The following is printed with permission from Vultus Christi, a place you will want to visit frequently]
I [Father Mark} was compelled to write this prayer about ten years ago. In 2007, while preaching a retreat at the Franciscan Convent of Perpetual Adoration in Drumshanbo, County Leitrim, I proposed it to the wonderful local people who came every evening to Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. On the final evening of the retreat we recited it together before the Blessed Sacrament exposed. Our Lord responded with the customary divine largesse of His Heart.
Prayer of Reparation to the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus
O Lord Jesus Christ present in this wonderful sacrament, I desire at this hour to make reparation to Thy Eucharistic Heart and to open myself to Thy Love for the sake of those who refuse or ignore it.
Increase Thou my faith,that I may believe firmly in the truths and mysteries Thou hast revealed to Thy Church, for the sake of those who do not believe.
By my attention to Thy Eucharistic Heart, I desire to make up for indifference to Thy Love,
for coldness, and for irreverence in Thy sacramental presence.
By my gratitude to Thy Eucharistic Heart, I desire to make up for ingratitude toward Thee
Who remainest hidden and forgotten in the tabernacles of so many locked churches.
By my trust in Thy Eucharistic Heart, I desire to make up for those who do not trust Thee,
for those who are afraid to trust Thee, and for those whose trust in Thy Love has been weakened by sins of scandal, by the weight of life’s hardships, or by painful loss.
By my hope in Thy Eucharistic Heart, I desire to help those tempted to despair of Thy Mercy. Allow me, I beseech Thee, to hope for those who have no hope and, because Thou didst pour out Thy Blood for them, let not one of them be lost.
In spite of my weakness and inconstancy, I desire, by this humble act of reparation
to obtain for all who yearn for Thy friendship, a share in the unspeakable sweetness experienced by Thy beloved disciple Saint John when he rested his head upon Thy Heart on the night before Thy Sacred Side was opened by the soldier’s lance.
Let my desire to be open to the Love of Thy Eucharistic Heart serve to repair the brokenness of the most wounded and fragile members of Thy Mystical Body.
By the mysterious workings of Thy Holy Spirit and the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, let the reparation and adoration Thou hast inspired me to offer in Thy presence
bring reconciliation to those alienated from Thy Church, healing to souls in need of Thy mercy, and choice graces to Thy priests. Amen.
Eucharistic Relection – Stay Near The Sacred Host
“If among those who read these words there be anyone suffering from painful, inexplicable feelings of which bind the soul, oppressing it and spreading over it profoundest darkness, if there be any one weighted down by weariness or dreadful temptations who feel that they are losing everything – Faith, Love, and Hope – that God Himself seems to be turning from them, that Heaven is closed to them and that death is in their souls, I implore you come to the Host. Throw yourself at His feet and cry out to him, “I have none but You, save me by Your love and by the Wound of your Heart.”
Then abandon yourself to Him, Leave your soul in His hands, as the Canaanite woman confided to Christ her daughter who was possessed of an evil spirit…In His name I say to you: “No, you will not perish…” Never during His mortal life nor in His sacramental state has Jesus repulsed or abandoned anyone who had recourse to Him.
However, terrible the state of your soul may seem to you, however unfortunate or even guilty you may feel, do not shy from Him, do not lose courage but cling to your Jesus even as a drowning man clings to a rope. Stay near the Host for His Heart is ever watchful. Who can tear you away if you not wish to leave? Has He not said, that He himself will be your Defender? Remember His Word has never deceived anyone.
I implore you, do not listen to Satan who wishes to drive you away. Stay with Jesus who is there in the Sacred Host, for from Him even as in the days of His mortal life, there will come forth that powerful virtue which heals and saves.
It is for you that He is there, for you that He offers His Blood, His Wounds, and His Merits. It is when you are there prostrate at His feet, that His Blood flows over your soul, that He covers you with His Merits, that He hides you in His Wounds and in His Heart.
If you but understood the gift of God, if you but knew Him who waits for you all day long even as He waited at the well of Jacob for the Samaritan woman, you would realize that it is there that He has desired to cover you with His protection and His love, it is there that He wishes to be your Savior and your Friend, it is from there that He will come to you in your last hour if you have gone to Him during your life and it is there that He will receive you into His Heart to conduct you to eternal happiness.”
(From My Eucharistic Day: Rules and Practices Recommended by Saint Peter Julian Eymard)
I Thirst for Your Love! 
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