The Holy Eucharist The Mystery of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ

THE HOLY EUCHARIST

The Mystery of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ

Through baptism we are regenerated to the divine life of grace and become the children of God.

Through chrismation we mystically participate in the descent of the Holy Spirit, who seals (confirms) us in the divine life of God’s children and enriches us with His abundant gifts. However, it is through the Holy Eucharist that we become intimately united to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who becomes our spiritual nourishment, leading us into life everlasting.

In Greek, the word – eucharist means thanksgiving, since at the Last Supper, before changing bread and wine into His Body and Blood, our Lord “gave thanks” (Mt. 26:27). Therefore the central part of the Holy Liturgy is the Prayer of Thanksgiving (in Greek – Eucharistia), in which the celebrant thanks Almighty God for all His benefits, especially for the gift of redemption. In the biblical sense, then, thanksgiving (eucharist) is blessing God for His manifold gifts bestowed on us.

1. The Apostles first called the celebration of the Holy Eucharist the Breaking of Bread (Acts 2.42), since at the Last Supper Jesus “took bread and, after He had given thanks, broke it and said: – This is my body!” (1 Cor. 11 :23-24). And it was “at the breaking of bread” that Jesus was recognized by His two disciples in Emmaus (Lk. 24:30-31). Thus, in apostolic times, the Breaking of Bread became a technical term to indicate the celebration of the Holy Liturgy.

It was also called the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor. 11 :20), since the celebration of the Holy Eucharist was considered a liturgical repetition of the Last Supper, the time Our Lord ordered His disciples to:
“Do this in commemoration of me!” (Lk. 22:19). St. John Chrysostom (+ 407) explains that St. Paul by the expression, “The Lord’s Supper” was referring to “that evening on which Christ delivered the awesome Mysteries” (ct. Homilies on 1 Cor., XXVII, 4).

At the end of the first century a new term Eucharist (Thanksgiving) appeared, as indicated by the Didache, about 96 A.D. : “On the Lord’s Day, as you come together, break bread and offer the Eucharist, having first confessed your sins, so that your sacrifice may be pure” (ch . 14). By the end of the second century the term – Holy Eucharist prevailed.

2. The Holy Eucharist can be considered as a sacrifice of the New Testament, as well as a mystery (sacrament) of the Body and Blood of our Lord .

Since the sacrificial aspect of the Holy Eucharist was already discussed in one of our previous leaflets (cf. Byzantine Leaflet Series, No. 20), in this leaflet we will treat the Holy Eucharist as one of the seven Holy Mysteries (Sacraments) in the tradition of the Byzantine Rite.

The Eucharist is the Holy Mystery of the New Testament instituted by Jesus Christ, in which under the species of consecrated bread and wine we receive the Body and the Blood of our Lord as our spiritual food .

The Holy Eucharist is indeed a mystery (in Greek – mysterion means a secret, a hidden thing to the human eye), since in it, to use the words of St. John Chrysostom, “What we believe is not the same as what we see. One thing we see (bread and wine), and another we believe (Body and Blood of our Lord). And such is the nature of our Mysteries” (cf. Hom. on 1 Cor. VII , 2).

And it is a unique mystery, since by Holy Communion we receive not only the increase of saving grace, by the very Author of grace, our Lord Jesus Christ. Thus we become intimately united with our Savior, who assured us : “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him!” (In. 6:56). Hence the reception of the Holy Eucharist is called – Holy Communion (from Latin – cum + unio, united with), meaning united with the Holy One.

St. Cyril of Jerusalem (+ 386) confirms : “By partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ we become one body and blood with Christ, we become – Christ-bearers (in Greek: Christophers). In this way, according to blessed Peter (2 Pet. 1 :4), we ‘share in the divine nature’ ” (ct. Catechetical Lectures, XXII, 3).

3. The Holy Eucharist was instituted by our Lord at the Last Supper, which was celebrated in the atmosphere of tender love, as testified by St. John : “Jesus, knowing that His hour had come to pass from this world to the Father, He loved His own in the world, He loved them to the end” (In . 13:1).
Prompted then by His infinite love, our Lord took a loaf of bread in His hands and, after giving thanks, He broke it and gave it to the Apostles, saying :

“Take and eat, this is my body, which will be given (broken) for you.” (Lk. 22 :19) Then He took the chalice with wine, gave thanks, blessed it and, giving it to the Apostles, said : “Drink from it all of you, for this is my blood of the New Testament, which will be shed for many for the remission of sins” (Mt. 26:27-28).

After the Apostles received their First Holy Communion, our Lord commissioned them to perpetu ate this Mystical Supper, saying : ” Do this in commemoration of me!” (Lk. 22 :19). St. John Chrysostom explains: ” Therefore, the offering is the same which Christ gave to His disciples, and which now the priests minister. For as the words which Christ had spoken are the same which the priest now pronounces, so also the offering is the same” (cf. Hom. on 2 Tim., II, 4).

This is my body- This is my blood, these are simple words, but they are the words of Almighty God, who by His word created heaven and earth :

“He spoke and they were made, He commanded and they stood forth” (Ps. 33:9). St. Gregory of Nyssa (+ 394) does not hesitate to affirm: “We rightly believe that the bread which is consecrated by the word of God (Jesus) is changed into the body of God the Word,” meaning Jesus (cf. Catechetical Oration, 37).

A similar explanation is also given by St. John Damascene (+ 749): “If heaven and earth, and the whole universe were established by the word of God, then can He not make the bread His body and the wine His blood? The Word of God (Jesus) said: ‘This is my body’ – ‘This is my blood,’ and then: ‘Do this in commemoration of me!’ Thus by His almighty command it is done” (ct. On the Orthodox Faith, IV, 13).

4. In Holy Scripture we read that when the Prophet Elijah was persecuted by the impious Queen Jezebel, he fled into the desert, and hid. After some time on the run, Elijah became very dejected and, at the end of his strength, he asked God to take his life. Then he fell to the ground and soon was fast asleep.

But before long an angel of the Lord awakened him, and, offering him a loaf of bread and a jug of water, he encouraged him: “Get up and eat, for you have a long way to go!” So the Prophet got up and ate. Being refreshed he then walked forty days and nights, until he came to the holy mountain Horeb, where he had a vision of God (1 Kgs. 19:1-18).

Along the road of our life, we too, being persecuted by the enemy of our salvation, often become weary and dejected and at the end of our spiritual strength. Then our Lord, through his messenger (Greek – angelos), the celebrating priest, at the Divine Liturgy invites us: “Take and eat, this is my body!’: and again: “Drink of this, this is my blood!” And after Holy Communion, being refreshed by this “bread from heaven” (In. 6:32) and “the cup of the Lord” (1 Cor. 11 :27), we are ready to continue our pilgrimage toward the holy mountain, to meet God, our Father in heaven.

In the Holy Eucharist, then, Jesus gives us His own body and blood as spiritual food in order to nurture and sustain divine life of grace in us. And He himself assures us: “Just as I have life because of my Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have (spiritual) life because of me” (In . 6:57).

Therefore, St. Ignatius of Antioch (+ 110) calls the Holy Eucharist – “the medicine of immortality, and antidote to ensure that we shall not die but live in Jesus forever” (cf. Epistle to Ephesians, 20).

5. Our Lord did not give any specific instruction concerning the frequency of the reception of Holy Communion, but He warned us: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you will have no life in you!” (In. 6:53). In other words, in order to sustain our divine life of grace, we must “feed our soul” by receiving Holy Communion regularly, as long as we live. Otherwise we run the danger of losing our soul.

From the very beginning, the Fathers of the Church insisted that the faithful receive Holy Communion as often as possible, even daily. Thus, e.g. St. Basil the Great ( + 379) says : “To receive Holy Communion daily and thus partake of the holy body and blood of Christ, is an excellent and most beneficial practice, since Christ distinctly said: ‘He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has life everlasting’ (In. 6:54). And who can doubt that to share continually in the life (of Christ) is nothing else than to enjoy a full divine life?” (cf. Epistle 93).

The practice of frequent, even daily Holy Communion in the Church lasted until the Middle Ages, when the fervor of Christian life began to decline considerably. Consequently, the faithful were warned not to approach the holy altar carelessly, in state of serious sin, referred to in the Holy Scriptures as a “sin unto death” (1 In. 5:16), without first going to confession. Otherwise they would commit a serious offense (sacrilege) against the “body and blood of the Lord” (1 Cor. 11 :27), by receiving the Holy Eucharist “unworthily,” as warned already by St. Paul, saying: “Whoever eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily, eats and drinks for his own condemnation” (1 Cor. 11 :27-28).

6. The faithful, instead of going to confession in order to be ready for Holy Communion, began to abstain from the “spiritual food.” To correct this deplorable practice the Church Fathers established four fasting seasons, before Christmas, Easter, the Feast of SS. Peter and Paul, and the Dormition of the Blessed Mother, in order that the people properly prepare themselves by going to confession, thus being properly disposed to receive Holy Communion at least on those solemn feastdays.

As the moral life of the faithful steadily continued to decline and Holy Communion became more and more neglected, the Church was finally forced to impose a special precept, binding the faithful, under pain of mortal sin, to go to confession and receive Holy Communion at least once a year during the Easter Season. Otherwise, the faithful would expose themselves to the danger of not attaining their salvation since, according to the words of Christ, “unless we eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, we will have no life (of grace) in us” (In. 6:53). Therefore the precept of the Easter duty should be taken very seriously.

The Easter Season which the faithful are able to fulfill their Easter duty extends from the first day of the Great Fast (Lent) until the Sunday after Pentecost, the Sunday of All Saints, so that there would be no excuse to receive the Eucharist at least once a year.

But we should keep in mind that, in the light of the teachings of Jesus Christ, it is not enough to receive Holy Communion only once a year. In order to “have the life (of grace) and have it more abundantly” (In. 10 :10), we must nourish our soul with the “bread from heaven” (In. 6:32) constantly, even daily if possible.

Let us then approach the Holy Table “with fear of God and with Faith”

Eucharistic Stations of the Cross by Saint Peter Julian Eymard

Thy Eucharistic Kingdom Come!

Saint Peter Julian Eymard rated the Stations of the Cross among the most important exercises of a retreat. Long experience had taught him to find in the wounds of Jesus the forgiveness, the peace, and all those graces for which the soul hungers while on retreat. Right up to his death, he made the Stations of the Cross every day, in the evening, after the fullest and most wearisome day's work. 

Therefore he recommended this devotion as one whose full value he knew. In the beautiful words of the Following of Christ: "In the cross is salvation, in the cross is life, in the cross is protection against the enemy, in the cross is infusion of the heavenly sweetness, in the cross is strength of heart, in the cross is joy of spirit.

But to the Eucharistic soul, Calvary is the altar, and the divine Crucified One is Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. It hears round about the outcries of the throng against him who answers only with the silence of the lamb; it sees into the plots of the scribes and the pharisees; it knows the bargaining of these new Judases who sell to the demon in their souls, to their vices, to their self-interest, the good Master who has just given himself to them in the kiss of Communion. Every day it sees Jesus in his Eucharist delivered up, denied by cowardice and human respect. The Holy Eucharist is the Passion continued and renewed!

The only difference is that the dolorous Eucharistic way passes through the whole world, crisscrosses it in every direction, and that the drama has lasted for almost twenty centuries.

What? But Jesus is glorious, immortal, impassable in the Blessed Sacrament! Why picture him to us as suffering, when he can suffer no more and as humiliated when he reigns as King triumphant?

It is true, and very fortunate that Jesus Eucharistic can die no more, that men's hatred could wreak itself upon his sacred person only once at Jerusalem' What priest would cause Jesus to become present upon an altar that would be another Calvary for him?

But do sins, insults, and sacrileges wound the living Heart of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament less grievously because he is beyond the physical reach of the tortures, which our arms of flesh would make him undergo?

He no longer suffers at present; but in the moment when he instituted the Most Blessed Sacrament, there passed before his soul the vision of the outrages, insults, and profanations, which would be heaped upon him in the course of the centuries. 

By his foreknowledge of the future he saw in their very smallest details, in their most secret and delicate subtleties, the acts of indifference, the sacrileges, and the profanations, which our malice held in store for him. He saw and he knew; his Heart felt. He had the power to let his Heart feel in that one instant anguish equal to what he would have had to endure if he had remained sensible of suffering and a prey to our cruelty in the long martyrdom to which men's ingratitude and the fury of evil spirits have tried to subject him.

The connection between Calvary and the Holy Eucharist is so close that no soul can enter truly and at all intimately into union with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament without feeling the need of consoling him, of compassionating sufferings the mode and reason of which it does not understand but which are very real to its love.

To meditate before the Blessed Sacrament on the Passion as it took place in Jerusalem is not enough for this soul: it feels in its heart that the Passion still continues. It is the Eucharistic Passion of Jesus with which it wishes to sympathize.

A sweet inspiration, one, which must give so much joy to the Heart of Jesus! For he complained to Saint Margaret Mary in such poignantly sorrowful terms that he received this compassion too rarely from his forgetful children!

To us who wish to know and honor the mystery of the Holy Eucharist in all its aspects belongs the beautiful mission of meditating frequently upon the Eucharistic Passion; it is for us to compassionate and weep for so many insults and profanations and to undertake reparation for them. Jesus no longer suffers now: he wishes to suffer in us and to prolong in his members, for the glory of God and the salvation of sinners, the martyrdom which he, our glorious Head, first endured so generously: he gave us the example and opened the way to us.

The pious thoughts of Father Eymard will help to guide us in meditating on the Eucharistic sufferings. We may make use of them during an hour of adoration, or meditate upon them while making the Stations of the Cross. With this idea in mind we add the "Pater," "Ave," and "Gloria" and prefix the versicle and response usually said when making the Stations.


First Station -- Jesus is condemned to Death


V. We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you. 

R. Because by your holy Cross, you have redeemed the world.

Jesus is condemned by his own people by the very ones he showered with his favors. He is condemned as a formenter of rebellion, he who is goodness itself; as a blasphemer, he who is holiness itself: as one seeking power, he who made himself the least of all. He is condemned to die on the Cross, like the lowest of slaves.

Jesus lovingly accepts this sentence of death: He came down to this earth in order to suffer and die and to teach us to do the same.

In his Holy Eucharist Jesus is again condemned to death: primarily in his graces, which are rejected; in his love, which is slighted; in his sacramental state, by the unbeliever who denies him, by horrible sacrilege. By unworthy Communion, the bad Christian sells Jesus Christ to the devil, delivers him up to his own passions, casts him at the feet of Satan, king of his heart, and crucifies him in his sinful body.

Jesus is more cruelly treated by bad Christians than by the Jews. In Jerusalem he was condemned only once but in the Blessed Sacrament he is condemned every day and in thousands of places, and by an appalling number of unjust judges.

And yet Jesus allows himself to be insulted, despised, condemned: he still continues his sacramental life in order to show us that his love for us is without condition or reserve, that it is greater than our ingratitude.

O Jesus forgive, I beseech you, all sacrileges! Should I ever have committed any, I want to pass my life making reparation for them and loving and honoring you for those who despise you. Grant me the grace to die with you!

Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be to the Father.

V. Have mercy on us, O Lord, R Have mercy on us.

May the souls of the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace.

Holy Mother, pierce me through. In my heart each wound renew Of my Savior crucified.

Second Station -- Jesus is made to bear His Cross

V. We adore you, O Christ, etc.

In Jerusalem the Jews lay a shameful and heavy Cross upon Jesus. It was the instrument used at that time for the punishment of the basest of men. Jesus joyfully takes upon himself this overburdening Cross; he receives it eagerly, kisses it lovingly, and bears it with meekness.

In this way he wishes to make it sweet to us, lighten it for us, and consecrate it in his Blood.
In the divine Sacrament of the altar, bad Christians lay a much heavier Cross upon Jesus, one much more shameful for his Heart. This Cross is their acts of irreverence in the holy place, their distracted thoughts, their coldness of heart in his presence, their lukewarm devotion. What a humiliating Cross it is for Jesus, to have children so lacking in respect, disciples so worthless!

Jesus also bears my crosses in his Sacrament. He places them on his Heart to sanctify them; he covers them with his love, with his kisses, in order to make them attractive to me, but he wants me to carry them for him, to offer them to him; he is even willing to listen to the outpourings of my grief, to let me weep over my crosses and ask help and consolation of him.

Oh, how light is the cross that comes by way of the Holy Eucharist! How beautiful and radiant it comes forth from the Heart of Jesus! How good it is to receive it from his hands and to kiss it after him! To the Eucharist then I will run for refuge in my troubles; to him will I go for comfort and strength; to him will I go to learn to suffer and to love!

Forgive, O Lord, all who treat you irreverently in your Sacrament of love! Forgive my moments of indifference, of forgetfulness in your presence! I wish to love you; I do love you with all my heart!

Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be to the Father.

Third Station -- Jesus Falls the Third Time

V. We adore you, O Christ, etc.

Jesus has lost so much blood during the three hours of his agony and beneath the blows of the scourge, he is so weakened by the cruel night passed under the guard of his enemies, that after walking a short distance he falls beneath the weight of his Cross.

How many times Jesus Eucharistic falls in particles of the Sacred Species without anyone being aware of it!

But what makes him fall from grief is the sight of a soul sullied by mortal sin!

Ah, how much more painfully Jesus falls in a young heart that receives him unworthily on the day of its First Holy Communion! He falls on that icy heart which the fire of his love cannot melt; on that proud and dissembling spirit without being able to touch it; in that body which is but a tomb full of rottenness. Alas, ought we to treat Jesus like that the first time he so lovingly visits us? O God! So young and already so guilty! 

To begin so soon to be a Judas! How painful to the Heart of Jesus must be the sin of this sacrilegious First Communion!

O Jesus! I thank you for the love, which you showed me in my First Communion: never shall I forget it! I am yours, wholly yours, for you are wholly mine: do with me, as you will.

Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be to the Father.

Fourth Station -- Jesus meets His Holy Mother

V. We adore you, O Christ, etc.

Mary accompanies Jesus to Calvary. She endures a real martyrdom in her soul on the way; but when one loves, one desires to suffer with the beloved.

Today, on his way of suffering, Jesus Eucharistic often meets with the children of his love the spouses of his Heart, the ministers of his grace among his enemies. But far from consoling him as Mary did, they join with his tormentors in humiliating, blaspheming, and denying him. 

How many are the apostates and renegades who forsake the service and love of the Holy Eucharist as soon as that service calls for a sacrifice or for an act of practical faith!

O Jesus, my good Savior, with Mary my Mother, I will follow you amid humiliations, insults, and injuries, and make amends to you with my love!

Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be to the Father.

Fifth Station -- Simon the Cyrenian Helps Jesus Carry His Cross

V. We adore you, O Christ, etc.

Jesus was giving way more and more beneath his burden. The Jews, wishing to have him die on the Cross in order to complete his humiliation, urged Simon of Cyrene to help him bear the Cross. The latter refused and had to be forced to take upon himself an instrument of death so ignominious in his eyes. He yielded and merited that Jesus should touch his heart and convert him.

Jesus calls people to him in his Sacrament, and almost no one responds to his invitations; he invites them to his Eucharistic Banquet, and they have a thousand pretexts for refusing to come to it. The faithless and ungrateful soul refuses the grace of Jesus Christ, the most excellent gift of his love. He has his hands full of graces but nobody wants them; people are afraid of his love!

Instead of the honors due to him, Jesus receives most of the time only disrespect. People are embarrassed at meeting him in the streets; they turn quickly away as soon as thy see him; they have not the courage to give him the outward evidences of their faith.

O divine Savior, can this be so? Alas! It is only too true, and I feel the reproaches of my own conscience. Yes, often, bent upon an earthly pleasure, I have refused to hear your call; often, in order not to be obliged to amend my ways, I have rejected the invitation of your table with which you in your love have honored me. 

I regret it from the depths of my heart; I know that it is better to let everything else go than by my own fault to miss a single Communion, the greatest and the sweetest of your graces. 

Forget the past, dear Savior, and accept my resolutions for the future and by your strength help me to keep them!

Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be to the Father.

Sixth Station -- A Holy Woman wipes the Face of Jesus

V. We adore you, O Christ, etc.

The face of the Savior no longer looks human; the executioners have covered it with mud, spittle, and blood! He, the splendor of God, is unrecognizable, and his divine Face is covered with defilements. Holy Veronica braves the soldiers. Beneath the pollution she has recognized her Savior and her God, and moved with pity, she wipes that august countenance. Jesus rewards her by imprinting his features upon the cloth.

O divine Jesus, your adorable Sacrament is greatly outraged, insulted, and profaned, and where are the compassionate souls who will make up for these abominations? Ah, it is saddening and appalling that so many sacrileges should be committed so lightly against the sublime Sacrament. It would seem that Jesus Christ is nothing more among us than an unregarded or even contemptible stranger!

It is true that he veils his face beneath the appearances of very weak and lowly species: that is in order that our love may discover in them his divine features. O Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, Son of the living God and I adore your holy Face, full of glory and majesty, beneath the Eucharistic veil! Lord, I beseech you to imprint your features in my heart, that wherever I go, I may carry Jesus with me, Jesus Eucharistic!

Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be to the Father.

Seventh Station -- Jesus falls the second time

V. We adore you, O Christ, etc.

In spite of Simon's help, Jesus succumbs a second time to his weakness, and it is a cause of new sufferings for him. His hands and knees are wounded by his falls on this laborious way, and the ill treatment inflicted by his executioners increases with their rage.

Oh, how ineffectual is human aid without the help of Jesus Christ! And how many falls are in store for him that relies on others!

How often the God of the Eucharist falls nowadays by Communion in lukewarm and cowardly hearts that receive him without reverence, and let him go without an act of love and gratitude! Thus Jesus' stay within us is fruitless because of our coldness.

Who would dare to receive one of the great of the earth with as little attention as the King of Heaven is every day received?

Divine Savior, I apologize to you for all my Communions that have been lukewarm and without devotion. How many times I already have received you in my heart. I thank you for them and I mean to be faithful to you in the future; only give me your love, that is enough!

Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be to the Father.

Eighth Station -- Jesus consoles the Women who weep for Him

V. We adore you, O Christ, etc.

It was the Savior's mission in the days of his mortal life to comfort the afflicted and the persecuted. He desires to be faithful to it at the very time of his greatest sufferings. Thus he forgets himself and dries the tears of the holy women who weep over his sorrows and his passion. What goodness!

Very few people come to visit and to adore Our Lord in his Sacrament of divine love. And even fewer people remember to offer him reparation for their own sins and for those of all mankind. He is with us day and night, alone. Oh, if his eyes could weep, what tears they would shed for the ingratitude and neglect of his own! If his Heart could still suffer, what torments he would feel at seeing himself forsaken in this way, even by his friends!

Yet, for all that, as soon as we come to him, he receives us with kindness, listens to our complaints, to the often very long and selfish tale of our woes, and he forgets himself to comfort us and strengthen us. 

O divine Savior, why do I so often depend on human consolation instead of coming to you? I feel that this wounds your Heart, which is jealous of my own. In your Holy Eucharist be my only consolation, my one confidant! One word, one look of your loving kindness will suffice for me. Let me love you with all my heart, and then do with me as you will!

Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be to the Father.

Ninth Station -- Jesus Falls the Third Time

V. We adore you, O Christ, etc.

How greatly Jesus suffered in this third fall! He lies overcome by the weight of his Cross, and his executioners with all their cruelty can hardly raise him up again.

Jesus chooses to fall a third time before being lifted up on his Cross, as though to give evidence of his regret at being unable to carry it over the whole world.

Jesus will come to me a last time in Viaticum before I also leave this land of exile. Lord, grant me this grace, the most precious of all and the completion of all the graces of my life!

But, oh, let me receive you worthily in that last Communion so full of love!
How terrible is it when one dying receives Holy Communion for the last time in the state of mortal sin! In this way he adds the crime of sacrilege to all his past sins, who receives unworthily him who is going to judge him and thus profanes the Viaticum of his salvation!

In what a grievous state Jesus must find himself in a heart that detests him, in a spirit that disdains him, in a sinful body that is given over to the devil!


But what will be the judgment passed on these unhappy souls? One trembles at the thought. Forgive them, O Lord forgive them! We beg of you for all the dying: grant that they may die in your arms after they have received you worthily in Viaticum!

Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be to the Father.

Tenth Station -- Jesus is stripped of His Garments

V. We adore you, O Christ, etc.

How much he must suffer in this cruel and pitiless stripping off of his garments! They tear off his clothing that has stuck to his wounds, they reopen them, they tear his flesh.

How much he must suffer in his modesty, treated as one would blush to treat a low wretch and a slave, who dies at least in the shroud that is to cover him in the grave!

Jesus is, as it were, stripped of his garments also in his sacramental state. Not satisfied to see him stripped, through his love for us, of his glory and his divinity, of the beauty of his humanity, his enemies rob him of the honor of divine worship, pillage his churches, profane his sacred vessels and his tabernacles, and cast him on the ground. 

He, the King and Savior of men, is delivered up to their sacrilegious will as on the day of his Crucifixion. By allowing himself to be stripped thus in the Holy
Eucharist. 

Jesus wishes to lead us to the state of voluntary poverty, wherein we may be clothed with his life and his virtues. O Jesus Eucharistic, be my only possession!

Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be to the Father.

Eleventh Station -- Jesus is nailed to the Cross

V. We adore you, O Christ, etc.

What agony Jesus endures when he is nailed to the Cross! Without a miracle of his power, he could not have suffered it and lived.

But the wood to which Jesus is nailed on Calvary is without fault or defilement, whereas in an unworthy Communion, the sinner crucifies Jesus in his guilty body. It is as though one were to attach a living body to a corpse that is in a state of corruption.

On Calvary, he is crucified by his declared enemies; here, by his children, who crucify him in hypocritical devotion.

On Calvary, he is crucified but once; here every day and by how many Christians!

O divine Savior, forgive me for having failed to mortify my senses; most cruelly do you atone for my fault!

You desire, by your Holy Eucharist, to crucify my nature, to immolate the old man without cease and to unite me to your own crucified and resurrected life. Grant, O Lord, that I may give myself to you without reserve or condition!

Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be to the Father.

Twelfth Station -- Jesus Dies on the Cross

V. We adore you, O Christ, etc.

Jesus dies in order to redeem us. His last mercy is the forgiveness he grants to his executioners; his last gift of love is his Holy Mother; his last desire is the thirst for suffering; his last act is the abandonment of his soul and his life into the hands of his Father.

In the Holy Eucharist, Jesus continues to love with the love he showed to me at his death. Every morning he is immolated in the Holy Sacrifice and loses his sacramental existence in them that receive him: in the heart of the sinner. He dies for that soul's condemnation.

From his Host he offers me the graces for my redemption, the price of my salvation. But in order that I may share therein, he wishes me to die with him and for him.

Grant me that grace, O my God, the grace of dying to sin and to self and of living only to love you in your Holy Eucharist!

Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be to the Father.

Thirteenth Station : Jesus is taken down from the Cross and placed in the arms of His Holy Mother

V. We adore you, O Christ, etc.

Jesus is taken down from the Cross and confided to his Mother, who clasps him to her heart and offers him to God as Victim for our salvation.

Now it is for us to offer Jesus as Victim on the altar and in our hearts for ourselves and for others. He belongs to us. God the Father gives him to us; he gives himself to us, so that we may offer him for our salvation.

How unfortunate it is that this infinite price lies unused in our hands because of our indifference!

Let us offer him in union with Mary and pray this good Mother to offer him with us.

Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be to the Father.

Fourteenth Station -- Jesus is laid in the Sepulchre

V. We adore you, O Christ, etc.

Jesus chooses to undergo the humiliation of the tomb, and he is given over to the custody of his enemies; he is still their prisoner.

But it is in the Holy Eucharist that Jesus is, as it were, entombed; he remains there not just for three days, but for all time, and we are the ones he asks to guard him. He is our prisoner of love.

The corporal covers him like a shroud; the lamp burns before his altar as before the place of the dead; around him reigns the silence of death.

When Jesus comes into our heart in Holy Communion, he is as if entombed within us. Let us make ready for him a sepulchre that is worthy of him, one that is new and white, unoccupied by earthly affections; let us anoint him with the perfume of our virtues.

Let us come to do him homage for those who do not come; let us adore him in his tabernacle, forgotten by those who call themselves his friends; let us beg of him the grace of recollection and of death to the world, that we may lead a hidden life in the Holy Eucharist!

Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be to the Father. 

Credits : http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/prayers/view.cfm?id=1254

A Sermon on the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus

This Feast was approved in the Universal Church by Pope Benedict XV. Its object is the great love of the Lord, of His Sacred Heart in instituting the Most Holy Eucharist and in remaining among us in the Blessed Sacrament, in continuing to renew and offer among us the Sacrifice of Calvary.

We honor the immense love of Christ’s Heart in instituting the Most Holy Eucharist. We gratefully love Him and make reparation to Him for His lasting, abiding Presence, down through the centuries.

The book The Way of Divine Love was approved by Cardinal Pacelli. When he became Pope, he allowed this approval to stand. It recounts the words of Our Lord, revealing His Heart to Sister Josefa Menendez. In it, He speaks of the Last Supper, before He first offered His Sacrifice. Our Lord saw the course of the ages. He saw how people would love and serve Him in the Holy Eucharist. But He also saw the indifference, sacrileges and outrages He would suffer in this Mystery of Faith. His great, burning charity pushed Him to go ahead, regardless.

We worship, adore and thank His Sacred Heart for this great love.

This Presence literally contains everything. Let me just touch on a few:

When we receive Our Lord, we are receiving the same Christ who gives unending and perfect joy to the Blessed in Paradise.

So after Holy Communion, Paradise (Heaven) is inside us. So, at least for a few moments, we have, according to St. Peter Julien Eymard, “a cure for our sadness”. We have a cure for the sadness of this “valley of tears”, a cure, at least for a while, for our particular moments and causes of sadness.

Now, in this next thing, I have no desire to mess up your time with Our Lord. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

In the whole vast universe — in Heaven, on earth, and under the earth — what is the preferred dwelling place of God the Father? His preferred Paradise of paradises, the Heart of His Son: “The Father is in Me, and I am in the Father.”

The Sacred Heart is the “Sacred Temple of God”, of the eternal Father. So after Holy Communion, or when you are before the Blessed Sacrament in the Tabernacle, God the Father is there. Of course, He is everywhere. But in a special way, He is with His Son in the Tabernacle. He comes to us along with His Son, in Holy Communion. And the Holy Spirit, who is the Uncreated Charity, is present.

The prayers taught by the Angel of Portugal is so right, so just, so fitting after we receive Holy Communion:

“My God, I believe, I adore, I hope and I love Thee! I ask pardon of Thee for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not hope and do not love Thee!”

“Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,

I offer Thee the most precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of the same Son, Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for all the sacrileges, outrages and indifference by which He Himself is offended. And through the infinite merits of His Most Sacred Heart, and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg of Thee the conversion of poor sinners,”

So, today and always, let us thankfully adore and adoringly thank the Sacred Heart for this sign of His burning, self-giving love.

Glory to the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus!

Meditations on the Holy Eucharist by Saint Peter Julien Eymard

EUCHARISTIC MEDITATIONS

By St. Peter Julian Eymard

JESUS, MODEL OF POVERTY Beati pauperes spiritu.

Blessed are the poor in spirit. (Matthew v, 3.)

THE spirit, virtue, and life of Jesus are a spirit, virtue, and life of poverty, and of an absolute and perpetual poverty. The Eternal Word adopted it at Bethlehem on His becoming Man, He took what was most humiliating about poverty, the abode of beasts and what was most difficult about it, the stable, the manger, the straw, the cold, the night. He was born far from the homes of men, who offered Him no assistance in His need, in order to be poorer still, the Word made flesh willed to be born during a journey and refused hospitality on account of the poverty of His Parents.

He then spent a portion of His childhood in Egypt, a foreign land hostile to the Jews, so that His parents might be still poorer and more forsaken if that could be. At Nazareth He spent thirty years in the practice of poverty. His home was poor; to be convinced of this, it is enough to see the poverty of that home at Loreto. His furniture was poor; He had only what was strictly necessary, and that was very plain, the kind poor people use; Our Lady's wooden dish, still preserved at Loreto, is a good proof of it. His clothes were poor; His tunic, which we may see at Argenteuil, was of common wool; 

His swaddling clothes were of coarse cloth. His food was that of the poor; it was the fruit of the labour of a poor carpenter, who could earn only the necessaries of life.

Jesus wanted to appear poor in all He did. 

He considered Himself the poorest of all, and always took the last place. He honoured and respected everybody, just as the poor do. He was silent and listened humbly to the instructions in the synagogue. He never made a show of wisdom or of extraordinary knowledge, but lived the life common to those of His rank. He lived like a poor man and went along unnoticed and forgotten like one.

In everything He did and procured for Himself, He sought what was poorest. See Him during His apostolic life. He kept on wearing working clothes and continued living like the poor. He knelt on the bare ground for prayer. He ate barley bread, the bread of the poor. He lived on charity. He travelled like the poor and, like them, experienced hunger and thirst without being able to satisfy it as He pleased. His poverty made Him contemptible in the eyes of the rich and the great; in spite of that He did not hesitate to tell them: Vae vobis divitibusWoe to you, O ye rich men of the earth!

He chose disciples poor like Himself, and forbade them to have two coats, or provisions for the future, or money, or a staff wherewith to defend themselves.

He died forsaken and stripped even of His poor garments. He was buried in a borrowed shroud and laid in a sepulchre offered by the charity of friends.

Even after His Resurrection He appeared to His Apostles in the trappings of poverty.

Lastly, in the Most Blessed Sacrament His love of poverty leads Him to veil the glory of His divinity and the splendour of His glorified humanity. He deprives Himself therein of all freedom and of exterior action, as well as of all ownership in order to have nothing He can call His own. In a way, He is in the Eucharist as in His Mother's womb, wrapped up in the sacred species and hidden beneath them, awaiting from the charity of man the matter of His Sacrament and the articles required for worship. Such is the poverty of Jesus: He has loved it and made it His inseparable companion.

Why did Jesus Christ choose this constant state of poverty?

In the first place, because as a child of Adam He had adopted the state of our exiled nature, which had been stripped of it's rights over inferior creatures; in the second place, because He wanted to sanctify by His poverty all the acts of poverty to be performed in His Church. He became poor in order that through His not caring about earthly possessions He might detach us from them and impart to us the riches of Heaven. He became poor so that poverty, which is our condition our penance, and our means of reparation, might through Him, becomes honourable, desirable and lovable. He remains poor to show us and prove us His love. He remains poor in the Sacrament, in spite of His glorified state, in order always to be our living and visible mode.

And thus poverty, which in itself is not likable, since it is a punishment and a privation, becomes noble and full of charm through Jesus Christ, Who adopted it as His form of life, based His Gospel upon it, and made it the first of the Beatitudes and His divine heiress.

It is holy through Jesus since it was His great virtue, and since it repairs God's glory, destroyed by original sin and our own personal sins. It gives rise to the virtue of penance by the privations, which it entails. It furnishes a natural occasion for the practice of patience, which is quite indispensable for the completing and perfecting of our undertakings. It sustains humility, which it feeds with the humiliations that are its unfailing companions. 

It supposes that one has enough meekness and strength of character to face a long siege of suffering; for suffering without consolation of friendly assistance usually follows upon it. It must be meek, for one does not give anything to an insolent beggar. It must be full of deference and respect towards all those who give it help. It must be grateful, for that is its power. It must pray, for that is its life

And what glory poverty gives to God!

No matter what happens, poverty is content with its condition because it comes from God. It offers as homage to God everything that makes up its condition. It is grateful for trials as well as for good fortune. It adores God in all things and prefers Him to any condition. Its wealth is in the holy will of God. It places itself in the hands of His paternal providence whether this is manifested through mercy, or kindness, or even justice. Jacta super Dominum curam tuam, et ipse te enutriet. 

Cast thy care upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee. Those that are poor supernaturally are God's property.

Oh! How enrapturing is the poverty, which makes us love God above all else! Christian poverty is beautiful, but more beautiful still religious poverty, which honours God by giving up everything and abandoning itself in all things to His goodness. The love of pleasure ruined man; poverty rehabilitates him and restores him to happiness. 

But above all how admirable is the poverty of Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament where He deprives Himself of all glory, of all freedom, of every kind of natural good, and where He depends on the charity of man and is at his mercy! That is true love!

Accordingly, all those who wish to be saints must love poverty, and to become a great saint, one must both love poverty and live in the state of poverty. Perfection or sanctity consists in our always preferring to have less than more, in simplifying our life by cutting down the number of its pleasures, in pauperising ourselves for the love of Our Lord, in imitating His poverty and in making it the law of our interior and exterior life, the form of the life of Jesus in us.

III

Let us consider the spiritual poverty of Jesus Christ; it is the crown and the life of the virtue of poverty.

We are ignorant; consequently we ought to keep quiet and listen. Our Lord, Who knew all things since He was the Word or Intellect of the Father, was silent the greater part of His life, as if He had been totally uninformed .How difficult it is to persuade ourselves we should have that kind of poverty! We are full of spiritual vanity!

Jesus was endowed with all the virtues to the highest degree, and He declared that of Himself He had nothing. We have really nothing worth while in our heart. In the presence of God we are dry and barren like a stone or a beast of burden. Our heart does not know what to say to God; it can produce nothing but thorns and thistles. Is that anything to be proud of? It is a poor soil that can grow only weeds.

Our Lord's power for good was limitless; He nevertheless relied for everything on the power of His Father. We are powerless for good. Our poverty is still more destitute in that than in anything else; for we have done a great deal of evil and very little good, and to make matters worse, we have spoiled with imperfection what little good we have done

Such is the poverty of our soul. We must make a virtue of it. But to do this, we must go to our Lord through this state of poverty and perform acts of it like the child that is weak, ignorant, clumsy, and spoils everything, but is nevertheless at peace with itself and happy near its mother. Its mother takes the place of everything; in like manner, let the poverty of Jesus be all our riches! A poor man is usually without resources, without learning, without power; nevertheless, he lives at peace in his condition. He is fond of his rags, since they entitle him to a share in the charities of the rich. If he has any sores, he takes pleasure in showing them; he earns his bread with them.

But is not our Lord more kind and tender than a mother? Is He not our sweet providence, our light, our all? Let us then serve Him in a spirit of poverty and in true humility of heart. Let us remain in the world without any protection; Jesus in the Sacrament has none, and neither have the poor. Who would not wonder at the interior and exterior poverty of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph?

A poor man has nothing; clings to nothing; can do nothing by himself, and knows he means nothing to others. If the opposite were the truth, he would be very rich; for the goods of the mind are much more valuable than the goods of the body, and there is more glory in our being able to give advice than to give a few pieces of silver.

Interior poverty understood in this sense, becomes a remedy for the three concupiscences within us. It attacks vanity, the desire to know always more, and the sensuality of the mind; we are convinced that we are lacking in mind, in heart, in energy, in constancy, and in strength. We shall practise poverty quite naturally and make it our condition. 

We shall want to depend on God for everything: on His light for our mind, on His grace for our will, on His love for our heart, on His Cross for our body.

But if we are to love this poverty, we must see it and love it in our Lord, Who is so poor in the Sacrament and is forever repeating to us: Sine Me nihil potestis facere.Without Me, you can do nothing, you have nothing. I am your only wealth. Do not seek any other either in yourself or around you.

IV

If we are bound to be poor by our state of life, what is the source of our sins against it? And if we are not in the religious life, what is the source of the antipathy we experience against being poor out of love?

The first source of it is vanity. We want to have beautiful things among our personal belongings. We pick out what is best and precious, and dazzling, under the pretext that things last longer. It would be better to consult Our Lord and the spirit of poverty; one act of this virtue would be more profitable to us than all that would-be economy.

Sensuality also leads us to transgress poverty by the extreme care we take of ourselves. What expensive measures we resort to against the slightest indisposition! Ah! Many of us are more afraid of poverty than of humility or modesty or any other virtue.

We must therefore take to poverty resolutely if we want to resemble our Lord. Let each one of us, according to his condition, aim at having fewer and less expensive things. Let every thing that we buy or receive be a tribute to the holy poverty of our Master Jesus Christ.

CHRISTMAS AND THE EUCHARIST Parvulus natus est nobis

A child is born to us. (Isaias ix 6.)

CHRISTMAS is a lovely feast. We always greet it with joy. Our love gives it a new life, and the Eucharist is its continuation. Bethlehem and the Cenacle are inseparably. linked together; they complete each other. Let us study the relations that exist between the two.

I

THE Eucharist was sown at Bethlehem. What is the Eucharist but 'the wheat of the elect and 'the living bread? Now, wheat must be sown. It must fall into the soil, and spring up, and ripen, and be harvested, and be ground before it can be made into good bread.

When He was born on the straw of the stable, the Word was preparing His Eucharist, which He considered the complement of all His other mysteries. He was coming to be united to man. During His life He would establish with man a union of grace, a union of examples and of merit; but only in the Eucharist would He consummate the most perfect union of which man is capable here below. If we want to understand the divine plan, we must not lose sight of the divine idea, of the purpose our Lord had in mind: a union of grace through the mysteries of His life and death; a physical and personal union through the Eucharist. Both unions were to prepare the consummation of union in glory.

Just as a traveller never loses sight of the goal of his journey and directs every step towards it, so throughout His whole life our Lord secretly prepared the Eucharist and brought it ever nearer.

This heavenly wheat was as it were sown at Bethlehem the 'House of bread. See the wheat on the straw. 

Trodden down and crushed, this straw represents poor humanity. Of itself it is barren. But Jesus will lift it into position in Himself, will restore it to life, and will make it fruitful. Nisi granum frumenti cadens in terramUnless the grain of wheat falling into the ground . . .

This divine grain has been sown. The tears of Jesus are the moisture that will make it grow into beautiful wheat. Bethlehem is built on a hill facing Jerusalem. When this ear of wheat has ripened, it shall lean towards Calvary where it shall be ground and shall be set on the fire of suffering to become a living bread.

Kings will come to eat of it and find it delicious: Praebebit delicias regibus . 'It shall yield dainties to kings. It is fit for the royal nuptials of the Lamb: Currunt Magi ad regales nuptias. The Wise Men hasten . . . to the marriage supper of the King. The Wise Men at that supper represented the kingly and self-possessed souls who today feed on this Bread of the Sacrament .

The relations between our Saviour's birth at Bethlehem and the Eucharist considered as Sacrament exist also between our Saviour's birth and the Eucharist considered as Sacrifice.

It was truly a lambkin that was born at Bethlehem. Jesus was born like a lamb in a stable, and like a lamb knew no one but His mother. He was already offering Himself for the sacrifice; it was His first cry: Hostiam et oblationem noluisti: corpus autem aptasti mihi.Father, Thou no longer desirest the sacrifices and oblations of the Law, but a body hast Thou given Me. Here I am. Jesus needed that body in order to be immolated; He offered it to His Father. 

This little Lamb was to grow up close to its Mother; in forty days she would learn the secret of its immolation. She would feed it with her pure and virginal milk, and would preserve it for the day of sacrifice. This characteristic of victim was so evident in our Lord that when Saint John the Baptist saw Him in the early days of His public life, he had no other name for Him than that of 'Lamb of God.  

Ecce Agnus Dei, ecce qui tollit peccatum mundi. Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who taketh away the sin of the world.

The sacrifice begun at Bethlehem is consummated on the altar at Holy Mass. Oh! How touching is the Midnight Mass in the Christian world! We greet it long beforehand and are always glad to see it come around again What is it that gives to our feast of Christmas its charm and that pours joy into our carols and rapture into our hearts, if not that on the altar Jesus is really born again, although in a different state? Do not our carols and our homages go straight to His very Person? 

The object of our festive celebration as of our love present. We really go to Bethlehem and we find there, not a memory, not a picture, but the divine Infant Himself.

And see how the Eucharist began at Bethlehem. He was even then the Emmanuel, 'God with us, Who was come to dwell among His people. On the first Christmas Day He began to live in our midst; the Eucharist perpetuates His presence. At Bethlehem, the Word was made flesh; in the Sacrament He is made bread in order to give us His flesh without stirring any feeling of repugnance in us.

At Bethlehem He also began practising the virtues of His sacramental state.

He concealed His divinity in order to familiarise man with God. He veiled His divine glory as a first step to the veiling of His humanity. He bound His power in the weakness of a child's body; later He would bind it beneath the Sacred species. He was poor; 

He stripped Himself of every possession; He, the Creator and Sovereign Master of all things. The stable was not His own; charity let Him have the use of it. He lived with His Mother on the offerings of the shepherds and the gifts of the Magi; later in the Eucharist, He would ask man for a shelter for Himself, the matter for His Sacrament, vestments for His priest and His altar. This is how Bethlehem heralds the Eucharist.

We even find there the inauguration of Eucharistic worship in its chief form, adoration.

Mary and Joseph were the first adorers of the Word Incarnate. They believed firmly; their faith was their virtue: Beata, quae credidisti.Blessed are thou that hast believed They adored Him by the virtue of their faith.

The shepherds and the Magi also adored Him in union with Mary and Joseph.

Mary was entirely devoted to the service of Her Son. She was all intent on His service, anticipating His least wishes to satisfy them. The shepherds offered their plain and simple presents, and the Magi their magnificent gifts. They adored Him by the homage of their gifts.

The Eucharist also is the meeting-place for persons of all conditions; it is the centre of the Catholic world. It is the object of that twofold worship of adoration: the interior adoration of faith and love; the exterior adoration through the magnificence of gifts, of churches, and of the thrones on which the divine Host will be posed.

II

The birth of our Lord suggests another thought to me. The angels announced the Saviour to the shepherds in these words: Natus est vobis hodie Salvator.This day is born to you a Saviour. A new era was beginning. Adam's work was about to be overthrown and replaced by a work of divine restoration. 

There are two Adams, each one the father of a great people: the first Adam,of the earth, earthly, de terra terrenus, father of the degenerated world; and the second Adam, 'from heaven, heavenly, 'de coelo coelestis, father of the regenerated world.

The second was come to build what the first had destroyed. Note that this restoration is carried out here below only through the Eucharist. The capital point about Adam's fault, as also the main argument of the diabolical temptation was contained in these words, 'You shall be as gods, and in the feeling of pride they aroused in Adam.

'You shall become like to God! Alas! They became like to the beasts! Well, our Lord came not only to 'take up Satan's promises and repeat them to us, but to fulfil them Satan was caught in his own snares. Yes, we shall become like to God by eating of His Flesh and Blood,

'You shall not die. 

In Communion we receive an unfailing pledge of immortality. 'He that eateth My flesh, and drinketh My Blood, hath everlasting eternal life. We lose our temporal life. But it is not a life worthy of the name; it is only a halt on the journey to true life.

'You shall become like to God. Marrying into a family of higher social rank changes one's condition; by marrying a king, a commoner becomes queen, Our Lord shares His divinity with us by communicating Himself to us. We become His flesh and His blood. 

We receive something of the Creator's divine and heavenly kingship. Human nature was intimately united to the Godhead through the hypostatic union; so does Communion elevate us to union with God and make us partakers of his nature. A less perfect food is transformed into us, but we are transformed into our Lord, Who absorbs us. We become members of God. And in heaven our glory shall be in proportion to our transformation into Jesus Christ through a frequent partaking of His adorable Body.

'You shall know all things. All, that is evil, yes; all that is good, by no means. Where, to His Apostles after having given them Communion: 'I will not now call you servants; . . . but My friends: because all things what soever I have heard of My Father, I have made knownto you. Knowledge is imparted to us in the Eucharist by God Himself, Who constitutes Himself our special and personal teacher. Et erunt omnes docibiles Dei. 

And they shall all be taught of God. He nolonger sends us prophets; He is Himself our teacher. 'You shall know all things, for His is divine Knowledge itself, uncreated and infinite.

That is how the Eucharist completes the restoration begun in the Crib. Make merry therefore on this beautiful day, on which the sun of the Eucharist is rising. Let your gratitude never separate the Crib from the altar, the Word made flesh from the God-Man made bread of life in the Most Blessed Sacrament.

THE MONTH OF THE BLESSED SACRAMENT Mensis iste, vobis principium mensium.

This month shall be to you the beginning of months. (Exodus xii. 2.)

A great number of devout persons consecrate the Month of June in honour of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. For this reason it is called the month of the Sacred Heart.

We wish to consecrate it to the Most Blessed Sacrament, and I think that the name of the month of the Blessed Sacrament is more justified than the other.

Both feasts, that of the Sacred Heart and that of the Blessed Sacrament, usually fall during this month; but the latter is the more solemn and of a superior rite. It is also much more ancient in the Church and should be dearer to us.

It is a very good thing to honour the Sacred Heart as the seat of the infinite love of Jesus Christ; but Eucharistic souls should honour it in the Most Blessed Sacrament. For where is the Heart of Jesus truly and substantially living if not in the Eucharist and in heaven?

Many persons honour the Sacred Heart on pictures and make these representations the object of their devotion. This kind of worship is good: but it is only relative. We ought to go beyond the image to the reality. In the Blessed Sacrament this Heart is living and beating for us. Let then this living and pulsating Heart be the centre of our life. Let us learn to honour the Sacred Heart in the Eucharist. Let us never separate the Sacred Heart from the Eucharist.

In the course of the year the entire thirty days of several months are consecrated to special devotions. For example, there is the month of Mary, which is nothing other than a feast of thirty days in honour of the Most Blessed Virgin. During that month we honour all her virtues and all the mysteries of her life; and we never fail to receive some new favour or other. There is also the month of Saint Joseph. 

A special month will soon be dedicated to the fostering of every important devotion. So much the better! It is an excellent thing of great consequence to Catholic piety.

For we have the time in a month to cover the entire object of the devotion, to consider, it from every angle, and to acquire a correct and thorough knowledge of it. By making daily and appropriate meditations and by centering our acts, virtues, and prayers on the same object for a whole month, we soon get a true and solid devotion to the mystery we are honouring. When everything is focused on one thought, such a thought is powerful and exhaustive.

Our devotion must be strong and valid, and must tend to a single object. Why do not a greater number of devout persons attain noteworthy sanctity? Because they have no unity in their piety. They have not enough food to provide for the nourishment and growth of their spirit of piety. They do not know how to draw up for themselves a set of truths to live by.

You are aware what excellent results a mission produces in a parish which had hitherto remained deaf to the pressing exhortations and the heroic example of its pastor. The reason is that a mission is nothing other than an uninterrupted succession of exercises. It makes use of all the means capable of touching the heart, striking the imagination and forcing one to serious reflection. A mission is a torrent of grace formed by a gathering together of all the means of salvation. Is it surprising that it triumphs over the most hardened hearts?

When all our thoughts and exercises of piety are brought together and concentrated on a single object, they lead us to the highest virtue and overthrow every obstacle.

Let us then have a devotion that is concentrated and continuous. It is said that to correct a bad habit or an ingrained vice, we must first be vigilant and fight against ourselves for some time before starting a movement of progress toward the opposite virtue. Once this initial start is given; we move ahead with giant strides.

The same holds good for the subject in which we are presently interested. It will take us some time before we succeed in loving with a strong and enlightened love the Most Blessed Sacrament, the mother and queen of all other devotions and the sunlight of piety. 

Devotion to Mary is good and excellent, but it must tend and be related to devotion to the Eucharist, just as Mary herself tends and is wholly related to Jesus Christ. Scripture fittingly compares her to the moon, which receives all its light from the sun and reflects it back to the sun

Well, since the month of Mary effects so many conversions, produces so much good in souls, and obtains so many graces of every kind, what will not the month of the Most Blessed Sacrament do, since you are asked to honour the virtues, the sacrifices, and the very Person of Jesus Eucharistic? If you know how to direct your readings, aspirations, and virtues to the Eucharist, you shall have won some great victory over yourself by the end of the month. Your love shall have grown; and your grace will be more powerful

Our Lord has said that he who eats His Flesh and drinks His Blood shall have life in him. What will it be if you supplement your sacramental Communion by a continuous communion of thirty days to His love, His virtues, His holiness; and His life in the Most Blessed Sacrament?

That is what we mean by unity in piety. Without it you can have good thoughts, but you will not have a real principle of life. A passing rainstorm merely skims over the soil, but a fine, persistent rain soaks into the earth and makes fertile. The thought, of the Eucharist, fostered consistently for a whole month, will become a rich fountainhead that will make your virtues thrive, a divine force that will make you advance rapidly on the road to holiness. Basing our stand on pure reason and natural philosophy, we can assure you that if you train your mind for one month on the same subject, you will have acquired the habit of it.

Do not fear lest concentration on a single thought narrow your outlook. The Eucharist contains all the mysteries and all the virtues; it offers you the means of making them live anew and of considering them in action in their living exponent, present before you. This greatly facilitates meditation. For you see Jesus Christ in the Eucharist; you see His sacramental garment; you know through your very senses that He is there. The Host speaks to you; it rivets your attention; it presents our Lord to your senses.

May this month then be a month of happiness for you, during which you can live in close intimacy with Jesus. You know His conversation is never boresome.  

Non habet amaritudinem conversatio Illius.His conversation hath no bitterness. 'May He make you take a giant stride toward sanctity!

HOW should you spend this month in order to derive real profit from it?

You must in the first place have some book on the Blessed Sacrament and read a little of it every day. 

Do not be afraid of exhausting the subject matter; the depths of the love of Jesus are unfathomable. Jesus is the same in the Eucharist as in heaven; He is ever beautiful, ever new, ever infinite. You need not, fear lest this Infinite source should run dry; Jesus has so many graces, so much glory to give us!

Take a book, therefore, that treats of the Eucharist. I am fully aware that books do not make a saint, and that on the contrary it is saints that make good books. For this reason I recommend books only as a means to instruct you and awaken thoughts in you, which you are to develop and use as food for meditation.

Take for example the fourth book of 'the Imitation of Christ. It is so beautiful! It must certainly have been an angel that composed it!

Take the Visits to the Blessed Sacrament, by Saint Alphonsus de Ligouri. When this book was first published, it revolutionised piety. It has produced and continues every day to produce the most abundant fruits of salvation.

There are so many others to choose from. Pick one out that pleases you. Drop your other devotions during this month; you will loose nothing by plunging wholly into the sun.

Pay more frequent and longer visits to Blessed Sacrament.

Receive Communion with greater fervour.

Practise some virtue that is related to the state of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament: silence, or His meekness, especially His life of prayer in His Father, and His self-abasement.

Make some special sacrifice for the Blessed Sacrament. Have some fresh flower to offer Him every day. He deigns to let us draw near His adorable Person to present our offering to Him. Indeed, the great ones of earth are not so easy to approach. Let us not reject his favour of His love and our right as children of the family.

I sum up what I said: To spend this month well you must practise a Eucharistic virtue and do some reading on the Blessed Sacrament. That is more necessary than you think. With a book, you will have new ideas. Without a book, you will fall into spiritual dryness, saying the same things over and over again . . . . . . ut jumentum. ('I am become as a beast before Thee.) The book alone is nothing; but if you draw it close to your heart, you will give it life. Holy Writ itself must be read with the heart; if it is read without faith or love, it will be a source of ruin for us just as it hardens the heart of certain unbelievers who read it every day.

Perhaps you will say: 'I do not like books because I do not find in them everything my soul is seeking for. They do not satisfy me. It is fortunate they do not. It would be a great pity if books were to constitute our whole prayer and be exhaustive of all we have to say; we would become mere talking machines. Our Saviour will not let books satisfy us altogether in prayer. 

We must earn His grace by our own labour, at the sweat of our brow. Never will the life of a saint, be he the greatest in the Church, entirely suit you. And why? Because you are not that saint; because you have a personal grace adapted to your nature; because you possess a personality of your own which you cannot completely ignore.

Read, therefore, but expect the full fruit of your reading only from your own meditation.

'I would indeed make my adoration, or a visit, but I cannot come to the church during the day. Do not let that stop you. Our Lord sees as far as your home; He listens to you from His tabernacle. He can see us from heaven; why could He not see us from the Sacred Host? Adore Him from where you are; you will make a good adoration of love, and our Lord will understand your desire.

It would indeed be unfortunate if we could be in touch with Jesus Eucharistic only in His churches. The light of the sun envelops and illumines us even when we do not stand directly beneath its rays. In the same way, from His Host our Lord will find the means to send some rays of His love into your home to bring you warmth and strength, There are currents in the supernatural order as in the natural. Do you not at times feel unexpectedly recollected and transported with love? 

The reason is you have come upon a beneficent ray, a current of grace. Have confidence in these currents, in these relations that can be had with Jesus, even from a distance. It would be a sad thing were Jesus to receive adorations from us only when we come to visit Him in church. No, no! He sees everywhere, He blesses everywhere, He unites Himself everywhere to those who want to communicate with Him. 

 Adore Him therefore from everywhere; turn in spirit toward His tabernacles.

Let your thoughts, therefore, be for Him during this month! Let your virtues and your love remain in this divine centre, and this month will be one of blessings and graces.

The Eucharistic Vocation

'If Christians continue abandoning Jesus Christ in His temple, will not the Heavenly Father withdraw from them His Beloved Son, Whom they thus despise? Has He not already so withdrawn Him from many kings and peoples, now bewailing their lot sitting in the very shadow of death? 

To ward off this greatest of all calamities, let faithful souls arise and unite! Let them become adorers in spirit and in truth of Jesus Christ in the Most Blessed Sacrament! Let them form a guard of honour around the Sovereign of Kings. And a devoted court around the God of love.

'St Peter Julian Eymard.

Imprimi Potest:

ARTHUR J ALPHONSE PELLETIER, S.S.S.,

Nihil Obstat:

ARTHUR J. SCANLAN, S.T.D.,

Imprimatur:

@ PATRICK CARDINAL HAYES Archbishop of New York,

Imprimatur:

+ DANIEL MANNIX, D.D., Archiepiscopus Melbournensis.

October 27, 1944

Eucharistic Adoration in the City by Bishop James Foley

For 500 years, Christians have been martyred in China. Since the first Jesuit missionaries arrived in China, Christians have been put to death for proclaiming Jesus Christ. Emperors, Nationalists, and Communists have persecuted Christianity, often by the sword. 

Martyrs may one day convert China. But there is one Chinese martyr whose life and death may have already converted millions.

During the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, nationalist forces sought to usurp economic and political control of China from Western powers. Christianity was viewed as a symbol of Western colonialism; so Chinese soldiers were ordered to destroy Catholic churches across the country.

They took tabernacles and sacred vessels, and imprisoned Catholic priests. There was one church in the Chinese countryside that was destroyed, while a small girl hid in the back, unnoticed but observant. She watched as the priest was arrested, as the tabernacle was torn away, and as the Sacred Hosts, stored within a ciborium, were strewn across the floor.

The girl noticed where the Hosts landed, and noticed that the soldiers never bothered to pick them up.

She went back to her home that afternoon, and told her parents what she had seen. And that night, slipping past guards and police officers, she snuck back into the Church, knelt before the discarded Hosts, and spent an hour in adoration.

After she had spent time in prayer, she consumed one of the Hosts, and secretly made her way back home.

Thirty-two hosts had been thrown across the church floor, and for 32 consecutive nights the young girl went back to the Church. Spending time in adoration, one by one, she consumed the Holy Eucharist.

On the last night, after the girl had received the Eucharist, she accidentally woke a sleeping guard, who chased her down and beat her to death. The parish priest, under house arrest but watching from his window, stood by helplessly as the girl became a martyr.

The story of the girl’s martyrdom was passed from home to home, and from priest to priest, and eventually it was heard by the young Father Fulton Sheen, the man who would become an archbishop and one of the most effective evangelists in the history of the United States.

When Father Sheen heard the story of this young martyr, he resolved that he would spend an hour in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament every day for the rest of his life, and promote adoration of Christ in the Eucharist. He did so, with radio and television programs that reached millions of American homes.

The graces of that martyr’s witness helped bring Christ to millions of Americans. But few had ever heard of her.

Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament can have a profound effect. Adoration can transform cities and nations, and it can transform hearts. But the impact of adoration often goes unnoticed. Humble, quiet, simple prayer, which begins every good work, is often forgotten, or dismissed.

The Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska, is known across the country for its vibrant Catholic life.

Everywhere I go, people have heard about our parishes, our priests and seminarians, and about our devout, generous families. But few realize that the successes of the Diocese of Lincoln are a tribute to the power of Eucharistic Adoration.

We are blessed, beyond measure, in this diocese, by the prayers of two houses of contemplative nuns, whose very lives are dedicated to the adoration of Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. We’re also blessed by parishes where adoration is a long-standing custom, and the practice of regular Eucharistic adoration is passed from grandparents, to parents, to children.

However we have been blessed in the Diocese of Lincoln, we have been blessed because of the men and women who commit to spending time before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament–specially when Christ is exposed in a monstrance–exposed for our contemplation.

In 1996, Saint Pope John Paul II wrote that “when we contemplate him present in the Blessed Sacrament of the altar, Christ draws near to us and becomes more intimate to us than we are to ourselves. He grants us a share in his divine life in a transforming union and, in the Spirit, he gives us access to the Father.” Adoration of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament will draw us each into an intimate union with the Most Holy Trinity.

Credits : Zenit News from Rome