Tag Archives: Real Presence

Joy and Sorrow

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H/T Franciscan Flowers:

Just as one season moves into another, so are there like seasons in our life cycles. There are times of joy and beauty and times of sorrow and suffering. They sometimes go hand-in-hand. They are companions on our journey. We need to befriend them, not control them. When we hold on to either or both, we stop growth. We stop God’s work in us. Spring, summer, fall, winter–each has its beauty and difficulties; each has its dyings and risings. We need to let God be God. We need to depend on God’s strength in each phase of the journey. “Fear not. I am always with you.”

Sister La Donna Pinkelman, OSF Sylvania, Ohio

Eucharist – God With Us

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Art appeals to the heart on a level that challenges complacency and awakens awe. Hidden in His humility, He in proclaimed by those whose hearts beat with His, and are thus moved to reveal Him in their God- inspired creativity.

St. Teresa of the Andes – Letter 115

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I am having trouble being in the world, but not of it. Paul’s word’s challenge me.  Pope Benedict XVI wants them to push me into the mind of Paul and the arms of the Holy Spirit. “Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.” Romans 12:2

As Pentecost draws near, I’m reminded that it is the Holy Spirit not my spirit that will transform me into conformity with Christ of the Cross and the Resurrection. Tomorrow morning, God willing, I’ll find myself before the Blessed Sacrament once again.  Here are the words I will take with me into the silence:

“How poor, how graceless, as I see it, the worship we offer to God sacramentally present! What scant respect we have for the One before whom the seraphim cover themselves with their wings, prostrating themselves before Him. And He bears it all in silence, remaining without splendor, hidden beneath the bread, that He may live in the midst of those He created. Oh, how good He is! What infinite love He has! Why aren’t we crazy with love for Him?”  St. Teresa of the Andes – Letter 115

Thanksgivings After Communion – St. Therese of Lisieux

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From The Story of a Soul, The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux

What can I tell you, dear Mother, about my thanksgivings after Communion? There is no time when I taste less consolation. But this is what I should expect. I desire to receive Our Lord, not for my own satisfaction, but simply to give Him pleasure. I picture my soul as a piece of waste ground and beg Our Blessed Lady to take away my imperfections–which are as heaps of rubbish–and to build upon it a splendid tabernacle worthy of Heaven, and adorn it with her own adornments. Then I invite all the Angels and Saints to come and sing canticles of love, and it seems to me that Jesus is well pleased to see Himself received so grandly, and I share in His joy. But all this does not prevent distractions and drowsiness from troubling me, and not unfrequently I resolve to continue my thanksgiving throughout the day, since I made it so badly in choir. You see, dear Mother, that my way is not the way of fear; I can always make myself happy, and profit by my imperfections, and Our Lord Himself encourages me in this path.”

The Revelations of Saint Gertrude. Written by the Saint Herself.

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Well worth the effort to get to this pearl:

Book 2: Chapter 5

After I had received the Sacrament of life, and had retired to the place where I pray, it seemed to me that I saw a ray of light like an arrow coming forth from the Wound of the right side of the crucifix, which was in an elevated place, and it continued, as it were, to advance and retire for some time, sweetly attracting my cold affections. But my desire was not entirely satisfied with these things until the following Wednesday, when after the Mass, the faithful meditated on Thy adorable Incarnation and Annunciation, in which I joined, however imperfectly. And, behold, Thou camest suddenly before me, and didst imprint a wound in my heart, saying these words: May the full tide of your affections flow hither, so that all your pleasure, your hope, your joy, your grief, your fear, and every other feeling may be sustained by My love! And I immediately remembered that I had heard a wound should be bathed, anointed and bandaged. But Thou didst not teach me then in what manner I should perform these things, for Thou didst defer it to discover it to me more clearly in the end by means of another person, who had accustomed the ears of her soul to discern far more exactly and delicately than I do the sweet mummers of Thy love.

She advised me to reflect devoutly upon the love of Thy Heart when hanging on the Cross, and to draw from this fountain the waters of true devotion, to wash away all my offenses; to take from the unction of mercy the oil of gratitude, which the sweetness of this inestimable love has produced as a remedy for all adversities, and to use this efficacious charity and the strength of this consummate love as a ligament of justification to unite all my thoughts, words and works, indissolubly and powerfully to Thee. May all the deprivation of those things which my malice and wickedness has caused be supplied through that love whose plenitude abides in Him Who being seated on Thy right hand, has become “bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh!” As it is by Him, through the operation of the Holy Spirit, that Thou hast placed in me this noble virtue of compassion, humility and reverence, to enable me to speak to Thee, it is also by Him that I present to Thee my complaint of the miseries I endure, which are so great in number, and which have caused me to offend Thy Divine goodness in so many ways by my thoughts, words and actions, but principally by the bad use which I have made of the aforesaid graces, by my unfaithfulness, my negligence and my irreverence. For if Thou hast given to one so unworthy even a thread of flax as a remembrance of Thee, I should have been bound to respect it more than I have done all these favors.

Happy Recourse

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It’s cold and damp today and that suited my mood as I hurried out of the house this morning.  It is my day for Eucharistic Adoration. My adoration was broken by returning bits and pieces of my rant against this morning’s news. President Obama will celebrate the overturning of the ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research with an “event”  in the White House. No Friday announcement behind closed doors here.

” What recourse; O Lord! What recourse?”…………… Thankfully, I finally realized, that I was in the place of recourse.

Later, at home after Mass, getting it all out with more inner screaming, and much, much writing, the Anchoress saved me from myself with this.