10 June 2013 The love of the Heart of Jesus manifested in the Institution of the Holy Eucharist Jesus has found means to perform a prodigy impossible to human love -- to die for the beloved object, yet without being separated from it. This he did by institution of the Holy Eucharist. Through this ineffable Sacrament, Jesus Christ dwells really in our hearts, and in our midst, though veiled from our eyes. Making himself the ‘companion of our exile’, he multiplies his presence worldwide. From the tabernacle he calls to us, “Come to me, all you that labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you” (Mt 11:28). Let us take advantage of this great feast to offer to the Heart of Jesus our tribute of love, gratitude, and veneration. To make reparation for having so frequently disregarded his loving invitations, so seldom visited him in the Sacrament of his love, so often grieved his Sacred Heart by our coldness and infidelity. This is the second miracle which the love of our Saviour works for us. Through the Holy Eucharist he renews continually in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass the offering which he made on Calvary on Good Friday. As priest and victim, he offers himself by the hands of his minister. The Sacrifice of the Cross is bloody; on our altars, unbloody, Jesus being slain, theologically, “only by the sword of the words of consecration”. We can conclude “that the Sacrifice of the Mass is of equal value with that of the Cross”. (St John Chrysostom) The love of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist is shown most of all by his consenting to become the food of our souls, thus identifying himself with us. In his own words: “Take ye, and eat; this is my Body.” (Mt 26:26) “He that eats my Flesh, and drinks my Blood, abides in me, and I in him.” (Jn 6:57-8) Why is it, after so many Communions we are still so ‘unspiritual, so unlike Jesus Christ’? For want of the right dispositions: such as fervor in our preparation, or thanksgiving; or in receiving the Blessed Sacrament? Mary, more than all other beings together, loves and adores her Son, really present as he is in Heaven and in the Eucharist. She teaches us to have within ourselves the same sentiments she had in Nazareth, in Bethlehem, on Calvary, in the Cenacle. She encourages us to talk to him with the same love that she adores her Son in Heaven and in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. (cf R M Spiazzi, “Mary in the Christian Mystery”) [As we emulate Our Lady’s great piety, we repeat: “I wish, Lord to receive you with the purity, humility and devotion with which your most holy Mother received you, with the spirit and fervor of the saints.” (“Spiritual Communion” in Fr Charles Belmonte and Fr James Socias, “Handbook of Prayers”, 1988 p283)] Ref: Cf “Practical Meditations” by a Father of the Society of Jesus, 1964, pp317-9 The Bread of Life “I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate manna in the desert and yet they died. The bread which comes down from heaven is such that he who eats it never dies.” (Jn 6:48-50) Jesus made this marvellous announcement in the synagogue at Capernaum. Our Lord continued: “I myself am the living bread which has come down from heaven. If anyone eats this bread he shall live forever; and the bread which I shall give is my flesh for the life of the world.” (Jn 6:52) Jesus reveals the great mystery of the Blessed Eucharist. His words are so realistic they exclude any other interpretation. Without faith, his words are meaningless. If the presence of Christ in the Eucharist is accepted by faith, then the revelation of Jesus is clear and unmistakable; and he shows us what God’s infinite love has for us. ‘Adoro te devote, latens deitas, quae sub his figuris vere latitas’: “Godhead here in hiding, whom do I adore, Masked by these bare shadows, shape and nothing more”, we say with St Thomas Aquinas in that hymn adopted by the Church’s Liturgy many centuries ago. It is an expression of faith and of piety that can help us express our love, because it forms a summary of the principal points of catholic doctrine on this sacred Mystery. Our faith in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist has to be firm: “We believe that as the bread and wine consecrated by Christ at the Last Supper were converted into his Body and his Blood, which were immediately offered for us on the Cross, thus also the bread and wine consecrated by the priest are converted into the Body and Blood of Christ, sitting gloriously in heaven. We believe that the mysterious presence of Our Lord, under the appearance of those elements, which continue appearing to our senses in the same fashion as before, is a true, real and substantial presence.” (Paul VI, “The Creed of the People of God”, 24) Ref: Cf F Fernandez, “In Conversation with God”, 2:405-7 The mystery of Faith Our Lord’s words cannot be watered down: ‘the bread which I will give is my flesh for the life of the world. This is the mystery of Faith’, we proclaim immediately after Consecration at Mass: the touchstone of the Catholic faith. By transubstantiation, the species of bread and wine “are no longer common bread and common drink, but the sign of something sacred and the sign of spiritual food. But they take on a new expressiveness and a new purpose for the very reason that they contain a new ‘reality’, which we are right to call ‘ontological’. “For beneath these appearances there is no longer what was there before but something quite different ... since on the conversion of the bread and wine’s substance, or nature, into the Body and Blood of Christ, nothing is left of the bread and wine but the appearances alone. Beneath these appearances Christ is present whole and entire, bodily present too, in his physical ‘reality’, although not in the manner in which bodies are present in a place.” (Paul VI, “Mysterium Fidei”, 3 September 1965) In Holy Communion Christ himself, mysteriously hidden perfect God and perfect man, wishes to communicate divine life to us. When we receive him in this sacrament, his Divinity acts on our soul by means of his glorious Humanity, with a far greater intensity than when he was on earth. Hidden under the sacramental species, Jesus awaits us in the Tabernacle so we can receive him and be strengthened in his love. Let us ask ourselves what our love is like: How do we prepare ourselves for Communion, when so many people neglect Our Lord entirely, receiving him routinely? We must say with Peter: “... we have known and believed that you are the Christ” (Jn 6:70); our ‘raison d’etre’. Ref: Cf F Fernandez, “In Conversation with God”, 2:407-8 • Our Lady of Cranganor, in the East Indies. It is asserted that this church was built by one of the three Magi. — Osorius, t. i„ de Gestis Emman. (“Catholic Gems or Treasures of the Church” Historical Calendar; www.bethlehemobserver.com) • Our Lady of Cranganor, India. The church was built by one of the three Magi (52). (www/divinewill.org/feastsofourlady.htm); (www.iskandar.com/ourlady/ourladyfeasts.html); (www.miraclehunter.com/marian_apparitions/calendar/index.html) • Our Lady of Cranganor (India). (http://mariedenazareth.com); (maryfest.htm / www.starharbor.com/santiago/m_feasts.html)