Divine Intimacy: Meditations on the Interior Life for Everyday of the Year

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203. THE INVITATION TO THE BANQUET

SECOND SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

PRESENCE OF GOD - O Jesus, grant that I may always answer Your invitation and participate worthily in Your banquet.


MEDITATION

1. Today’s Gospel (Lk 14,16-24) fits in perfectly with the feast of Corpus Christi. “A certain man made a great supper, and invited many.” The man who makes the supper is God; the great supper is His kingdom where souls will find full abundance of spiritual blessings while on earth, and eternal happiness in the next life. This is the real meaning of the parable, but we can also interpret it more specifically, seeing in the supper and in the man who prepares it a figure of the Eucharistic banquet and of Jesus, inviting men to partake of His Flesh and Blood. “The table of the Lord is set for us,” sings the Church, “Wisdom [the Incarnate Word] has prepared the wine and laid the table” (RB).

Jesus Himself, when announcing the Eucharist, addressed His invitation to all: “I am the Bread of life! He that cometh to Me shall not hunger, and he that believeth in Me shall never thirst.... Your fathers did eat manna in the desert, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven; that if any man eat of it, he may not die” (Jn 6,35.49.50). Jesus does not limit Himself, like other men, to preparing the table for a supper, inviting many, and serving delicious food; His is an unheard-of procedure, which no man, however rich and powerful he might be, could ever imitate. Jesus offers Himself as Food. St. John Chrysostom said to those who wanted to see Christ in the Eucharist with their bodily eyes, “Behold, you do see Him; you touch Him, you eat Him. You would like to see His garments; He not only permits you to see Him, but also to eat Him, to touch Him, and to receive Him into your heart.... He whom the angels look upon with fear, and dare not gaze upon steadfastly because of His dazzling splendor, becomes our Food; we are united to Him, and are made one body and one flesh with Christ” (RB).


2. Jesus could not offer men a more precious banquet than the Eucharist. Yet, how do men answer His invitation? Many, like the unbelieving Jews, shrug their shoulders and turn away, with a skeptical smile on their lips: “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” (Jn 6,53). However, it is not want of faith alone that keeps us from the Eucharist. Very often this is accompanied by, or sometimes derived from, the moral disorders which are mentioned in today’s Gospel: “I have bought a farm and I must needs go out and see it; I pray thee, hold me excused,” replies one. Another says: “I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to try them; I pray thee, hold me excused.” Excessive preoccupation with earthly goods and attachment to them, total absorption in business affairs cause many people to refuse Jesus’ invitation. There is still another reason: “I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come,” replies a third, representing those, who, being immersed in the pleasures of the senses, have lost their taste for the things of the spirit, and go their way, not even asking to be excused.

We cannot help shuddering at the terrible blindness of a man who prefers the things of earth and the vile pleasures of the senses, which vanish as quickly as mist before the sun, to Christ’s Gift, the Bread of Angels and the pledge of eternal life. And yet, how easily can a shadow of this blindness cover the eyes and hearts even of those whom Christ has invited to follow Him, and whom He has called by the sweet name of friend. ‘They do not refuse His invitation, but they often accept it coldly, almost through force of habit. Is it not true
that we pay very little attention to preparing ourselves each day as worthily as we can for the Eucharistic banquet, while we allow ourselves to be absorbed in so many other things: our work, family and friends?

Perhaps Jesus comes to us every morning, but does He always get a warm, delicate, attentive, loving welcome? Alas, too often He finds the hearts of His friends filled with a thousand thoughts, trifles, and worldly affections, while there is so little room for Him, the divine Guest! Yet everything should be reserved for Jesus. The thought of our daily meeting with Jesus in the Eucharist should dominate every other thought!


COLLOQUY

“O Sacrament of mercy! O seal of unity! O bond of charity! He who wishes to live, finds the home and the dwelling where he can live. O Lord, I approach Your table with faith, there to become incorporated in You in order to be vivified by You.

“Grant, O Lord, that I may be inebriated with the riches of Your house, and let me drink from the torrent of Your delights. Since You are the fountain of life, there with You, and not elsewhere, is the source of my life. I will drink of it in order to live; I will not rely upon myself and be lost; I will not be satisfied with what I have and die of thirst; I will approach the source of the spring where the water never fails.

“I will do away with vain excuses and draw near to the banquet which will enrich me interiorly. Let me not become haughty through pride, and do not permit illicit curiosity to draw me away from You! May sensual pleasure never prevent me from enjoying spiritual joy!

“Permit me to approach You and be refreshed. Allow me to come, a beggar, weak, crippled, and blind, for the wealthy and strong scorn Your banquet; they consider themselves on the right path and believe their sight is sure. They are presumptuous, and so much the more incurable the prouder they are. Although a beggar, I come to You because You invite me; You, who being rich became poor for me, so that Your poverty would make me rich. Weak as I am, I shall draw near, for it is not the healthy who need the physician, but the sick. I shall approach you like a cripple and say: ‘Set my feet in Your paths.’ I shall come like a blind person and say: ‘Give sight to my eyes, that I may never sleep the sleep of death ’” (St. Augustine).

204. MYSTERY OF HOPE

PRESENCE OF GOD - Let me hunger for You, O Bread of Angels, pledge of future glory.


MEDITATION

1. Jesus said: “I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever, and the bread that I will give is My Flesh, for the life of the world.” The Jews disliked this speech; they began to question and dispute the Master’s words. But Jesus answered them still more forcefully : “Amen, amen, I say unto you, except you eat the Flesh of the Son of man and drink His Blood, you shall not have life in you ” (Jn 6,51-54). These are definitive words which leave no room for doubt; if we wish to live, we must eat the Bread of Life. Jesus came to bring to the world the supernatural life of grace; and this life was given to our souls in Baptism, the Sacrament which grafted us into Christ. Thus it is a gift of His plenitude, but we must nourish it by a deeper penetration into Christ.

To enable us to do so, He Himself willed to give us His complete substance as the God-Man, making Himself the Bread of our supernatural life, the Bread of our union with Him. St. John Chrysostom says, “ Many mothers entrust the children they have borne to others to nurse them, but Jesus does not do that. He feeds us with His own Blood and incorporates us into Himself completely.” Baptism is the Sacrament which engrafts us into Christ; the Eucharist is the Sacrament which nourishes Christ’s life in us and makes our union with Him always more intimate, or rather, it transforms us into Him. “If into melted wax other wax is poured, it naturally follows that they will be completely mixed with each other; similarly, he who receives the Lord’s Flesh and Blood is so united with Him that Christ dwells in him and he in Christ” (St. Cyril of Jerusalem).


2. By nourishing us with Christ’s life, the Eucharist nourishes in us a life which has no end. By uniting us to Him who is Life, it frees us from death. In fact, Jesus has said, “He that eateth My Flesh and drinketh My Blood, hath everlasting life, and I will raise him up in the last day” (Jn 6,55). Notice that He said, “hath everlasting life,” not will have, because the Eucharist, by giving us an increase of grace—the seed of glory—-becomes the pledge of eternal life for us, life not only for the soul but also for the body. “The sacred Host communicates the seed of future resurrection; Christ’s immortal Body plants within us the seed of immortality which will grow and some day bring forth fruit ” (Pope Leo XIII: Mirae Caritatis). From this point of view, the Eucharist is truly the Sacrament of hope: hope of celestial glory, of the beatific vision, where our “communion” with Christ will have no end. Our eternal “communion” begins here on earth precisely in the Eucharistic communion which is its prelude, pledge, and even, in a slight degree, its foretaste. But the Blessed Sacrament is a source of great hope and confidence in our present life, too, especially in what concerns our spiritual progress; for, by increasing grace in us, it also increases our charity, and with the growth in charity, our passions are subdued.

St. Augustine says, “The increase of charity is the decrease of passion, and the perfection of charity is the absence of passion.” If, then, the struggle against a certain fault or temptation sometimes becomes very violent and difficult; if in spite of all our efforts, we do not succeed in overcoming nature, let us have confidence in the Blessed Sacrament. When Jesus comes to us, He can calm any storm and give us strength to win any kind of battle. “The chaste Flesh of Jesus,” says St. Cyril of Alexandria, “checks the insubordination of ours; by dwelling in us, Christ effectively overcomes the law of the flesh which rages in our members.” The Eucharist, therefore, is our hope both for this life and for the life to come; it sustains us in adversity, fortifies us in the struggle for virtue, saves us for eternal life and brings us to heaven by providing us with the food necessary for our journey.


COLLOQUY

“O heavenly Father, You gave us Your Son and sent Him into the world by an act of Your own will. And You, O my Jesus, did not want to leave the world by Your own will, but wanted to remain with us for the greater joy of Your friends. This is why, O heavenly Father, You gave us this most divine Bread, the manna of the sacred humanity of Jesus, to be our perpetual food. Now we can have it whenever we wish, so that if we die of hunger, it will be our own fault.

“O my soul, you will always find in the Blessed Sacrament, under whatever aspect you consider it, great consolation and delight, and once you have begun to relish it, there will be no trials, persecutions, and difficulties which you cannot easily endure.

“Let him who wills ask for ordinary bread. For my part, O eternal Father, I ask to be permitted to receive the heavenly Bread with such dispositions that, if I have not the happiness of contemplating Jesus with the eyes of my body, I may at least contemplate Him with the eyes of my soul. This is Bread which contains all sweetness and delight, and sustains our life” (T.J. Way, 34).

“All graces are contained in You, O Jesus in the Eucharist, our celestial Food! What more can a soul wish when it has within itself the One who contains everything? If I wish for charity, then I have within me Him who is perfect charity, I possess the perfection of charity. The same is true of faith, hope, purity, patience, humility, and meekness, for You form all virtues in our soul, O Christ, when You give us the grace of this Food. What more can I want or desire, if all the virtues, graces, and gifts for which I long, are found in You, O Lord, who are as truly present under the sacramental species as You are in heaven, at the right hand of the Father? Because I have and possess this great wonder, I do not long for, want, or desire, any other!” (St. Mary Magdalen dei Pazzi).



205. MYSTERY OF LOVE


PRESENCE OF GOD - O Jesus, help me to penetrate the mystery of Your infinite love, which constrained You to become our Food and Drink.


MEDITATION

1. All God’s activity for man’s benefit is a work of love; it is summed up in the immense mystery of love which causes Him, the sovereign, infinite Good, to raise man to Himself, making him, a creature, share in His divine nature by communicating His own life to him. It was precisely to communicate this life, to unite man to God, that the Word became incarnate. In His Person the divinity was to be united to our humanity in a most complete and perfect way; it was united directly to the most sacred humanity of Jesus, and through it, to the
whole human race. By virtue of the Incarnation of the Word and of the grace He merited for us, every man has the right to call Jesus his Brother, to call God his Father and to aspire to union with Him. The way of union with God is thus opened to man. By becoming incarnate and later dying on the Cross, the Son of God not only removed the obstacles to this union, but He also provided all we need to gain it, or rather, He Himself became the Way. Through union with Jesus, man is united to God.

It is not surprising that the love of Jesus, surpassing all measure, impelled Him to find a means of uniting Himself to each one of us in the most intimate and personal manner; this He found in the Eucharist. Having become our Food, Jesus makes us one with Him, and thus makes us share most directly in His divine life, in His union with the Father and with the Trinity. By assuming our flesh in the Incarnation, the Son of God united Himself once and for all with the human race.

In the Eucharist, He continues to unite Himself to each individual who receives Him. Thus we can understand how the Eucharist, according to the mind of the Fathers of the Church, may really be “ considered as a continuation and extension of the Incarnation; by it the substance of the Incarnate Word is united to every man” (Mirae Caritatis).


2. The plan of Divine Love, that is, the desire to bring men to God and to communicate the divine nature and life to them, finds its supreme realization in the Blessed Sacrament. In the consecrated Host, we have not only Christ’s Body, Blood, and Soul, but also the divinity of the Son of God and, therefore, God Himself. What more potent means could God use to unite us to Himself and to make us share His nature and life? Where could we find a more life-giving food than the Body of Christ, which through its personal union with the Word, is the source of all life and grace? By giving Himself to us, Jesus nourishes us with His substance, assimilates us to Himself, and personally communicates divine life to us. Jesus also gives us grace and thereby communicates the divine nature to us by means of the other Sacraments too; but in them, we have His action only, and that, only during the reception of the Sacrament. For example, when the priest absolves us from our sins, Jesus produces grace in us by His operative power; in the Eucharist, however, it is Jesus Himself who is the Sacrament, coming to us personally in the integrity of His Person, that of the God-Man. When we receive the Sacred Host, we not only receive Christ’s action in our soul, but we actually possess His Person, really and physically present. We are given not only an increase of grace, but Jesus, the very source of grace. We not only enjoy a new participation in divine life, we possess the Incarnate Word, who takes us with Himself to the heart of the Trinity.

Furthermore, whereas material food is assimilated by the one who eats it and is changed into that person’s body and blood, Jesus, the Living Bread, has the power to assimilate and change into Himself those who partake of Him. “Holy Communion, the Body and Blood of Christ, tends to transform us into what we eat,” says St. Leo, and St. John Chrysostom notes: “Christ has united Himself to us and infused His Body into us, that we may be one thing with Him as a body is fitted to its head. Such is the union of those on fire with love” (RB).


COLLOQUY

“O eternal Trinity! O fire and abyss of charity! How could our redemption benefit You? It could not, for You, our God, have no need of us. To whom then comes this benefit? Only to man. O inestimable charity! Even as You, true God and true Man, gave Yourself entirely to us, so also You left Yourself entirely for us, to be our food, so that during our earthly pilgrimage we would not faint with weariness, but would be strengthened by You, our celestial Bread. O man, what has your God left you? He has left you Himself, wholly God and wholly Man, concealed under this whiteness of bread. O fire of love! Was it not enough for You to have created us to Your image and likeness, and to have re-created us in grace through the Blood of Your Son, without giving Yourself wholly to us as our Food, O God, Divine Essence? What impelled You to do this? Your charity alone. It was not enough for You to send Your Word to us for our redemption; neither were You content to give Him to us as our Food, but in the excess of Your love for Your creature, You gave to man the whole divine essence. And not only, O Lord, do You give Yourself to us, but by nourishing us with this divine Food, You make us strong with Your power against the attacks of the demons, insults from creatures, the rebellion of our flesh, and every sorrow and tribulation, from whatever source it may come.

“O Bread of Angels, sovereign, eternal purity, You ask and want such transparency in a soul who receives You in this sweet Sacrament, that if it were possible, the very angels would have to purify themselves in the presence of such an august mystery. How can my soul become purified? In the fire of Your charity, O eternal God, by bathing itself in the Blood of Your only-begotten Son. O wretched soul of mine, how can you approach such a great mystery without sufficient purification? I will take off, then, the loathsome garments of my will and clothe myself, O Lord, with Your eternal will!” (St. Catherine of Siena).

206. THE SACRAMENT OF UNION

PRESENCE OF GOD - O Jesus, You who nourish me with Your Body and Blood, grant that I may live by You, live of Your Life.


MEDITATION

1. In His discourse on the “Bread of Life,” Jesus Himself spoke of the Eucharist as the Sacrament of our union with Him. “He that eateth My Flesh and drinketh My Blood, abideth in Me and I in him” (Jn 6,57). It is a true interpenetration: Christ is in us and we are in Christ. Of course, His life and ours, His person and ours, remain distinct; and yet, He so penetrates us with His life, with His Spirit, with His divinity, that we remain immersed in Him and He in us. St. Hilary affirms that “having received, the Body and Blood of Christ, we are in Christ and Christ is in us..... He Himself is in us by His Flesh and we are in Him, and—O marvelous consequence!—with Him, all that we are is in God.” We are never so close to Jesus, so penetrated by Him, transformed, deified, and plunged into the divinity as at the moment of sacramental Communion: “with Him, all that we are is in God.”

By faith and grace we are united to Christ and are in Him as His members, but this union which began at Baptism, is increased each time we receive the Eucharist worthily. By this Sacrament, Jesus “desired even to make Himself one with us; so that not by faith only but in every deed He makes us His own Body” (St. John Chrysostom). Our union with Christ by faith and grace is a real union, but in Holy Communion we have, in addition, physical union with Christ. Then, at least for a few moments, we have Him within us, as the Blessed Virgin had Him in her pure womb for nine months. And if, to this physical union is joined moral union, consisting in the full conformity of our will and our aspirations to God’s will and good pleasure, Holy Communion actually becomes the moment of closest union with God that we can reach on earth.


2. But Jesus speaks of a union which transcends even this physical-moral union, and to explain this close bond established between Him and the soul of the communicant, He does not hesitate to compare it to His union with the Father: “As the living Father hath sent Me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth Me, the same also shall live by Me” (Jn 6,58). Jesus lives because the Father communicates life to Him: He lives by the Father alone; He has no life other than that which He shares with the Father. Similarly, one who is nourished by the Eucharist, lives by the life Christ communicates to him, that is, by Christ’s own life. This life which the soul has already received through Baptism or Penance is increased principally by the devout reception of Holy Communion, for at that time Christ comes Himself in Person, to communicate His life and even to live this life within the soul. Jesus lives by the Father, because the Father is the one and only source of His life; the communicant lives by Jesus, because Jesus, by becoming his Food, becomes the source of his life in the most direct, profound, and intimate manner.

But we can also take another meaning from the words of Jesus. Having received His whole life and all His existence from the Father, Jesus also lives by the Father in the sense that He lives solely for His glory, making use of everything He has received from the Father to accomplish the mission entrusted to Him and to do the Father’s will. So too for the communicant: he should not live for himself, leading a selfish life that is concerned only with earthly cares and interests; but he should live for Jesus, for His interests, for His glory; he should live by Jesus, the source of his life; he should live in Jesus, who by nourishing him daily with His Flesh, binds him and unites him more closely to Himself; he should live for Jesus, by employing all his strength, all his abilities for Him, giving himself totally to His service. This divine life which Jesus communicates to us should find in our souls a favorable ground for complete development, a ground cleared of pride, egoism, and attachment to creatures, one suitable for producing works worthy of Jesus and agreeable to Him. Just as Christ lived for the glory of the Father, “who sent Him” (ibid. 7,18), so must we live for the glory of Christ who, by making Himself our Food, shares His life with us.


COLLOQUY

“O Lord, how far has love brought You? It has brought You even so far as giving Yourself to Your creature, leaving Your Body and Blood for his Food and Drink. And for how long? Oh! my God, You Yourself have said it : “ until the consummation of the world,” so that we can possess You not only once, not once a year, once a month, or once a week, but every day, every morning that we wish we can receive You, we can have You within us and remain with You as much as we like. O infinite bounty of the Word, my Spouse! How wretched I am! I have so many riches and I draw so little fruit from them! Still more miserable is he who does not know this gift, who cares not if he is deprived of it for many years, or who receives it in the state of mortal sin, so that the Bread of Life becomes for him the food of death. For these souls I pray, O Lord; do not look upon their sins, but only upon Your own goodness; convert them so that they may realize the great wrong they are doing to themselves, and to Your infinite bounty.

“But O Lord, when a soul receives You with the right dispositions, may it not be said of it as was said of the Virgin Mary: ‘Blessed art thou, because thou bearest within thee Him whom the heavens cannot contain!’ Like unto Mary, a soul who receives You is clothed with the sun, for You are the Sun, the Sun of Justice, Christ, our God.

“As for me, O Lord, I think I am more obliged to You because You have left Yourself to me as my Food, than because You have created me, for what would I have done if You had created me, but had not given Yourself to me? In the Eucharist, You show how much You wanted to communicate Yourself to us, for You were not content to give Yourself to men only during the thirty years You were on earth; in addition to this, You wanted to leave us Your Body and Blood, so that we might be continually in You and You in us. Thus when You are in a soul, You deify it, so to speak, transforming it into Yourself; You communicate Yourself to it unceasingly, and keep it united to Yourself” (St. Mary Magdalen dei Pazzi).

207. LET US PREPARE FOR UNION

PRESENCE OF GOD - O Jesus, grant that I may derive great profit from the grace of union with You, which You offer me daily in Holy Communion.


MEDITATION

1. The Eucharist unites us to Christ directly; this physical union is the same for all who partake of His Body and Blood. However, it does not produce the same effects in everyone. This is so true that the Sacrament may even become a cause of damnation for those who approach it unworthily: “Whosoever shall eat this bread or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily,” says St. Paul, “eateth and drinketh judgment to himself” (1 Cor 11,27-29). But even in those who receive worthily, the effects of the Eucharist are different, for they are always proportioned to the excellence and perfection of one’s interior dispositions.

Jesus penetrates me, transforming me into Himself only in the measure that I place no obstacles in His way, and insofar as I am disposed to receive the special grace of the Eucharist, the grace of “union with Christ.” Although the physical union with Jesus offered to me in Holy Communion is a tremendous gift, it is, nonetheless, directed to my spiritual union with Him and to my transformation in Him by love. The more perfect the dispositions with which I approach the Holy Table, the more complete this union and transformation will be. These dispositions consist in preparing my heart for an ever greater union with the Lord, a union which requires conformity of aspirations, tastes, sentiments, and wills. How can I enjoy the visit of a friend and spend moments of sweet intimacy with him, moments of real union, if differences of desires, affections, and will separate us? This, then, will be the best preparation for my Communion: to rid myself of everything in my life, no matter how trivial it may be, that might be in disagreement with the divine will, with the sentiments and dispositions of the heart of Jesus. “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” (Phil 2,5), St. Paul tells me; this must be the program of my remote preparation for Holy Communion.


2. In order that the Eucharist may produce its full fruit in me and be the occasion of very close, intimate union with Jesus, it is not enough, as St. Augustine says, for me to eat His Body materially; I also need to eat it “spiritually,” that is, my spirit must be well disposed and prepared to receive the Body of Christ, to let itself be invaded and transformed by Christ. If when Jesus comes to me, He finds my heart, will, affections and sentiments entirely conformed to His own, nothing can prevent Him from giving Himself to me in the most complete manner. His spirit, His life, His divinity will penetrate the innermost fibres of my being and transform me into Him. Then I shall be able to say in all truth with St. Paul: “I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me” (Gal 2,20).

When I receive Holy Communion, my heart must be enlarged by love, so that it will be wide open for the coming of Jesus, and ready to let itself be penetrated and transformed by Him. In addition to the physical presence of Jesus, and because of this presence, each Communion brings me a new increase of grace and charity, but even this increase will be in proportion to my capacity for receiving it. If my heart is closed by selfishness and pride, if it is bound by attachment to creatures, or is too much engrossed by worldly affections and affairs, it will be unable to make room for an increase of divine love, and Jesus will be, so to speak, forced to lessen the outpouring of His charity and to diminish His gifts. Yes, in Holy Communion, Jesus gives Himself completely—His entire Person as God and Man—and He unites Himself entirely to me; but, if I do not give myself entirely to Him, He cannot wholly pour Himself into me, as a friend into the heart of a faithful friend. Every day Jesus offers me in Holy Communion an actual grace to love Him more, to unite myself more closely to Him. Every day I must offer Him a heart always more open to love and union. Intense acts of faith in the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist will help to arouse my love and make me actually love Him, and precisely during this actuality of love, Jesus will pour out the increase of His charity, the living flame of His infinite love.


COLLOQUY

“O my soul, when you receive Holy Communion, try to reanimate your faith, do all you can to detach yourself from exterior things and retire with the Lord into the interior of your being where you know He is abiding. Collect your senses and make them understand the great good they are enjoying, or rather, try to recollect them so that they may not hinder you from understanding it. Imagine yourself at Our Lord’s feet, and weep with Magdalen exactly as if you were seeing Him with your bodily eyes in the house of the Pharisee. These moments are very precious; the Master is teaching you now; listen to Him, kiss His feet in gratitude for all He has condescended to do for you, and beg Him to remain always with you. Even should you be deprived of sensible devotion, faith will not fail to assure you that Our Lord is truly within you.

“If I do not want to act like a senseless person who shuts his eyes to the light, I can have no doubt on this point. O my Jesus, this is not a work of the imagination, as when I imagine You on the Cross or in some other mystery of Your Passion, where I picture the scene as it took place. Here, it concerns Your real presence; it is an undeniable truth. O Lord, when I receive Holy Communion, I do not have to go far to find You; as long as the accidents of bread are not consumed, You are within me! And if, during Your mortal life, You healed the sick by a mere touch of Your garments, how, if I have faith, can I doubt that You will work miracles, when You are really present within me? Oh, yes! when You are in my house You will listen to all my requests, for it is not Your custom to pay badly for the lodging given You, if I offer you good hospitality!

“O Lord, if a soul receives Communion with good dispositions, and if, wishing to drive out all coldness, it remains for some time with You, great love for You will burn within it and it will retain its warmth for many hours” (T.J. Way, 34-35).

208. FEAST OF THE MOST SACRED HEART OF JESUS

FRIDAY FOLLOWING THE SECOND SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

PRESENCE OF GOD - O Jesus, grant that I may penetrate the secrets hidden in Your divine Heart.


MEDITATION

1. After we have contemplated the Eucharist, a gift crowning all the gifts of the love of Jesus for men, the Church invites us to give direct consideration to the love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the source and cause of all His gifts. We may call the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus the feast of His love for us. “Behold this Heart which has so loved men,” Jesus said to St. Margaret Mary; “Behold this Heart which has so loved men,” the Church repeats to us today, showing us that it is truly “in the Heart of Christ, wounded by our sins, that God has deigned to give us the infinite treasures of His love” (cf. Collect).

Today’s liturgy inspired with this thought, reviews the immense benefits we owe to the love of Christ and sings a hymn in praise of His love. “Cogitationes cordis ejus,” chants the Introit of the Mass: “The thoughts of His Heart” — the Heart of Jesus — “are to all generations: to deliver them from death, to feed them in time of famine.” ‘The Heart of Jesus is always in search of souls to save, to free from the snares of sin, to wash in His Blood, to feed with His Body. The Heart of Jesus is always living in the Eucharist to satisfy the hunger of all who long for Him, to welcome and console all those who, disillusioned by the vicissitudes of life, take refuge in Him, seeking peace and refreshment. Jesus Himself is our support on the hard road of life. “Take up My yoke upon you and learn of Me, because I am meek and humble of heart, and you shall find rest for your souls, Alleluia.” It is impossible to eliminate sorrow from our life; yet if we live for Jesus we can suffer in peace and find in the Heart of Jesus repose for our weary soul.


2. Today’s Gospel and Epistle lead us to consider the Sacred Heart of Jesus even more directly. The Gospel (Jn 19,31-37) shows us His Heart pierced with a lance: “One of the soldiers opened His side with a spear,’ and St. Augustine offers this comment: “The fee list says. ..opened, to show us that thereby the door of life was thrown open, through which the Sacraments of the Church flow forth.” From the pierced Heart of Christ, symbol of the love which immolated Him on the Cross for us, came forth the Sacraments, represented by the water and the Blood flowing from the wound, and it is through these Sacraments that we receive the life of grace. Yes, it is eminently true to say that the Heart of Jesus was opened to bring us into life. Jesus once said, “ Narrow is the gate... that leadeth to life” (Mt 7,14); but if we understand this gate to be the wound in His Heart, we can say that no gate could open to us with greater welcome.

St. Paul, in his beautiful Epistle (Eph 3,8-19), urges us to penetrate further into the Heart of Jesus to contemplate His “unsearchable riches” and to enter into “the mystery which hath been hidden from eternity in God.” This is the mystery of the infinite, divine love which has gone before us from all eternity and was revealed to us by the Word made flesh; it is the mystery of the love which willed to redeem us and sanctify us in Christ “in whom we have... [free] access to God.”

Again Jesus presents Himself as the door which leads to salvation. “I am the door. By Me if any man enter in he shall be saved” (Jn 10,9). This door is His Heart, which, wounded for us, has brought us into life. By love alone can we penetrate this mystery of infinite love, but not any kind of love will suffice. As St. Paul says, we must “be rooted and founded in charity.” Only thus shall we be able “to know. ..the charity of Christ which surpasseth all knowledge, that [we] may be filled unto all the fullness of God."


COLLOQUY

“O Jesus, by a divine decree, a soldier was permitted to pierce Your sacred side. As the blood and water came forth, the price of our salvation was poured forth, which flowing from the mysterious fountain of Your Heart, gives power to the Sacraments of the Church to bestow the life of grace, and becomes for those who live in You, a saving drink of living waters, bubbling up to life eternal. Arise, my soul, beloved of Christ, watch unceasingly, place your lips there, and quench your thirst in the Savior’s fount.

“O Jesus, now that I have been brought into Your most sweet Heart, and it is a great good to be here, I do not want to let myself be easily torn away from it. Oh! how good and pleasant it is to dwell in Your Heart! Your Heart, O good Jesus, is a rich treasure, it is the precious pearl which I have found in the secret of Your pierced Body, as in a furrowed field. Who would cast aside this pearl? Rather I will give all the pearls in the world, I will exchange for it all my thoughts and affections and I will purchase it for myself. I shall entrust all my cares to Your Heart, O good Jesus, and without fail it will support me. I have found Your Heart, O Lord, O most benign Jesus : the Heart of my King, my Brother, my Friend! Hidden in Your Heart, what is there that I shall not ask of You? I shall ask that Your Heart be mine also. If You, O Jesus, are my Head, can I not say that it is mine as well as Yours? Are not the eyes of my head also mine? Then the Heart of my spiritual Head is my Heart. What joy for me! You and I have but one heart. Having found this divine Heart which is Yours and mine, O most sweet Jesus, I beseech You, O my God: receive my prayers in that sanctuary where You are attentive to them and, even more, draw me entirely into Your Heart” (St. Bonaventure).

209. DEVOTION TO THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS

PRESENCE OF GOD - O Sacred Heart of Jesus, teach me how to know You and to love You.


MEDITATION

The object of devotion to the Sacred Heart is, properly speaking, the physical Heart of Jesus which is worthy of adoration, because it is a part of His sacred humanity, hypostatically united to the Word. However, the ultimate object of this devotion is the love of Jesus, the symbol of which is His Heart. In other words, “beneath the symbolic image of the Heart, we contemplate and venerate our divine Redeemer’s immense charity and generous love” (Pius VI). This is the real meaning of the devotion to the Sacred Heart by which the Church asks us to honor the Heart of Jesus as the visible representation of His invisible love. “Your charity has allowed You to be wounded by the visible blow of the lance,” the liturgy of the feast sings, “so that we may venerate the wounds of Your invisible love” (RB). Therefore, the principle object of this devotion is the love of Jesus, an uncreated love with which He, as the Word, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, loved us from all eternity, and from all eternity willed to become incarnate for our salvation. It is also the created love of charity with which, as Man, He loved us even to the death of the Cross, meriting for us by His love that same charity by which we are enabled to love Him in return.

Here we find the most profound significance of devotion to the Sacred Heart. St. Teresa Margaret of the Heart of Jesus had such a thorough understanding of this meaning that she made this devotion the center of her life. The process for her canonization says that the Saint “saw the Heart of Jesus as the center, the source of the love with which the divine Word, in the bosom of the Father, loved us from all eternity, and merited for us in time the power to love Him in return, on earth and in heaven, by our sharing in this love.”


2. Other devotions to Our Lord have for their object the mysteries or special aspects of His life, as for example, the Incarnation, the hidden life, the Passion. Devotion to the Sacred Heart, on the contrary, has a more general object, the love of Jesus, which constitutes the profound, essential reason for all His mysteries, the love that is the first and only cause of all He has done for us. In this sense, devotion to the Sacred Heart touches, as it were, the mainspring of all the mysteries of the Redeemer, the essential raison d’étre of His life, His Person. It is the love which explains the Incarnation of the Word, the life of the Man-God, His Passion, His Eucharist. We cannot possibly understand the mystery by which the Son of God became Man, died on the Cross to save mankind, and then became their Food, if we do not admit this infinite love which compelled God the Creator, the Most High, to find a way to give Himself entirely for the salvation of His creatures. The Church gives expression to this interpretation in the hymn at Matins: “Amor coegit te tuus mortale corpus sumere.” “Thy love has impelled Thee”—or rather, has constrained Thee, if we accept the Latin word in its full sense—“ to assume a mortal body, so that as the new Adam, Thou wouldst restore what the old Adam had lost.”

The hymn continues, now praising the eternal love of the Word, now the human love of Jesus; two loves which, in fact, cannot be separated, just as the sacred humanity of Jesus cannot be disassociated from the Word which assumed it. Jesus is both God and Man, hence His love is both divine and human. He loved us and continues to love us as God and as Man. His human, created love is made sublime by the eternal love of the Word, or rather, it becomes the very love of the Word who makes it His own, just as all the sentiments and acts of Christ as Man are raised to a supreme dignity. Thus, His divine love becomes sensible, comprehensible, and tangible
to us by means of the manifestations of His human love. It is always the humanity of Jesus which reveals His divinity to us, and just as we know the Son of God through His sacred humanity, so do we know His divine love through the human love of Jesus.


COLLOQUY

“For this, O Jesus, was Your sacred side pierced, that it might give us an easy entrance. Your Heart was opened that we might dwell there, safe from exterior disturbances. In addition to this, You were pierced by a spear, so that through the visible wound, we could see the invisible one which love inflicted on You, for he who burns with love, is wounded by love. What better evidence of Your ardent love could You have given us than by permitting the lance to pierce, not only Your Body, but even Your Heart? The wound in Your flesh then shows forth the wound in Your spirit.

“Who will not love that Heart so deeply wounded? Who will not return love to One who so loved us? Who will not embrace a Spouse so chaste? Certainly the soul loves You in return, O Lord, who, knowing itself to be wounded by Your love, cries to You: Your charity has wounded me! We too, pilgrims in the flesh, love as much as we can, and embrace the One who was wounded for us, whose hands, feet, side, and Heart were pierced. Let us love and pray: ‘O Jesus, deign to bind our hearts, still so hard and unrepentant, with the chain of Your love and wound them with its dart’ ” (St. Bonaventure).

“O Jesus, a soldier opened Your side with his lance, so that, through the gaping wound, we might know the charity of Your Heart, which loved us unto death, and that we might enter into Your unutterable love through the same channel by which it came to us. Approach, then, O my soul, the Heart of Christ, that magnanimous Heart, that hidden Heart, that Heart which thinks of all things and knows all things; that loving Heart, all on fire with love. Make me understand, O Lord, that the door of Your Heart was forced open by the vehemence of Your love. Allow me to enter into the secret of that love which was hidden from all eternity, but is now revealed by the wound in Your Heart” (St. Bernardine of Siena).