Morning Meditation: THE LOVE OF JESUS IN LEAVING HIMSELF FOR OUR FOOD BEFORE HIS DEATH
The Angelic Doctor calls the Most Blessed Sacrament “a Sacrament of love, a token of the greatest love that a God could give us.” “The love of loves,” says St. Bernard. O Divine Food, O Sacrament of love, when wilt Thou draw me entirely to Thyself?
Meditation I:
Jesus, knowing that his hour was come that he should pass out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them unto the end. — (John xiii., 1). Our most loving Redeemer, on the last night of His life, knowing that the much longed-for time had arrived in which He should die for the love of man, had not the heart to leave us alone in this valley of tears; but in order that He might not be separated from us even by death, He would leave us His whole Self as Food in the Sacrament of the Altar; giving us to understand by this, that, having given us this gift of infinite worth, He could give us nothing further to prove to us His love: He loved them unto the end. Cornelius à Lapide, with St. John Chrysostom and Theophylact, interprets the word unto the end according to the Greek text, and write thus: He loved them with an excessive and supreme love. Jesus in this Sacrament made His last effort of love towards men, as the Abbot Guerric says: “He poured out the whole power of His love upon His friends.”
This was still better expressed by the Holy Council of Trent, which, in speaking of the Sacrament of the Altar, said that in it our Blessed Saviour “poured out of Himself, as it were, all the riches of His love towards us.” The Angelical St. Thomas was therefore right in calling this Sacrament “a Sacrament of love, and a token of the greatest love that a God could give us.” And St. Bernard called it “The Love of loves.” And St. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi said that a soul, after having communicated, might say, It is consummated; that is to say: My God, having given Himself to me in this Holy Communion, has nothing more to give me. This Saint, one day, asked one of her novices what she had been thinking of after Communion; she answered: “Of the love of Jesus.” “Yes,” replied the Saint, “when we think of this love, we cannot pass on to other thoughts, but must stop upon love.”
O Saviour of the world, what dost Thou expect from men, that Thou hast been induced even to give them Thyself as Food? And what can there be left for Thee to give us after this Sacrament, in order to oblige us to love Thee? Ah, my most loving God, enlighten me that I may know what an excess of goodness this has been of Thine, to reduce Thyself unto becoming my Food in Holy Communion! If Thou hast, therefore, given Thyself entirely to me, it is just that I also should give myself wholly to Thee. Yes, my Jesus, I give myself entirely to Thee. I love Thee above every good, and I desire to receive Thee in order to love Thee more. Come, therefore, and come often, into my soul, and make it entirely Thine. Oh, that I could truly say to Thee, as the loving St. Philip Neri said to Thee when he received Thee in the Viaticum: “Behold my Love! Behold my Love! Give me my Love!”
Meditation II:
Spiritual Reading: VISITING JESUS IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT
Evening Meditation: THE LOVE OF JESUS IN LEAVING HIMSELF TO US IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT
Meditation I:
Meditation II:
Morning Meditation: JESUS IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT GIVEN AUDIENCE TO ALL
St. Teresa says that all are not allowed to speak to their king: the most that can be hoped for is to communicate with him through a third person. And even if anyone at length succeeds in speaking with a king, how many difficulties has he had to overcome before he could do so! To converse with Thee, O King of Glory, no third person is needed. Thou art always ready in the Sacrament of the Altar to grant audience to all. In this Sacrament Thou grantest audience to all, night and day – whenever we please.
Meditation I:
Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament gives audience to all. St. Teresa says, that in this world all cannot speak with their sovereign; the poor can hardly hope to do so, or even to make their wants known through some third person: but with this King of Heaven no third person is necessary, – all, both high and low, may speak to Him, for He remains face to face with us in this Sacrament. It is for this reason that Jesus is called the Flower of the field and the lily of the valleys. — (Cant. ii., 1). Garden-flowers are shut in and carefully preserved; but the flowers of the fields are open to all. Cardinal Hugo comments on these words, saying, “because I show Myself to be found by all.”
Any one may, then, speak to Jesus in this Sacrament at any hour of the day. St. Peter Chrysologus, describing the birth of our Redeemer in the stable of Bethlehem, says, that kings are not always giving audience; it often happens that a person goes to speak to the prince, and the guards send him away, saying that it is not the hour for admission, and he must come again. But our Lord was pleased to be born in an open cave, without a door, and without guards, that He might receive all, at all hours. There is no attendant to say, “It is not the hour.” And it is the same with Jesus in His Most Holy Sacrament: the churches are always open, and everyone may go and speak to the King of Heaven whenever he pleases; and Jesus wills that we should there address Him with the utmost confidence. It is for this that He has concealed Himself beneath the form of bread. If He were to appear on our Altars on a throne of light, as He will appear at the Last Judgment, which of us would have courage to approach Him? But because Our Lord wishes us to speak to Him, says St. Teresa, and to seek graces of Him with confidence and without fear. He has hidden His majesty under the species of bread: He wishes that we should treat with Him “as one friend with another,” as Thomas à Kempis expresses it.
To converse with Thee, O King of Glory, no third person is needed: Thou art always ready in the Sacrament of the Altar to give audience to all. Whoever desires Thee always finds Thee there and converses with Thee face to face. Since, then, my Jesus, Thou art enclosed in this Tabernacle to receive the supplications of miserable creatures who come to seek an audience of Thee, listen this day to the petition addressed to Thee by the most ungrateful sinner on earth. I come repentant to Thy feet. Change me from a great rebel such as I have hitherto been to Thee, into a great lover of Thee. Thou canst do it. I love Thee, my Jesus, above all things. I love Thee more than my life, my God, my Love, my All!
Meditation II:
Spiritual Reading: VISITING JESUS IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT
Evening Meditation: A GIFT SURPASSING ALL GIFTS
Meditation I:
Meditation II:
Morning Meditation: JESUS DESIRES THAT ALL SHOULD RECEIVE HIM IN HOLY COMMUNION
With desire have I desired to eat this pasch with you. By these words our Redeemer describes His eagerness to unite Himself with each one of us in the Blessed Sacrament. With desire have I desired. This is the expression of most burning love, says St. Laurence Justinian. So that Our Lord said one day to St. Mechtilde: “No bee throws itself with such eagerness on flowers, to suck their honey, as I come to the souls which desire Me.”
Meditation I:
Let us consider the great desire Jesus Christ has that we should receive Him in Holy Communion: Jesus, knowing that his hour was come. — (John xiii., 1). How could He call his hour that in which His bitter Passion was to begin? He speaks thus, because in that night He was about to leave us this Divine Sacrament, that He might unite Himself perfectly to His beloved souls; and this desire made Him say: With desire have I desired to eat this pasch with you. — (Luke xxii., 15). By these words our Redeemer describes His eagerness to unite with each of us in this Sacrament: With desire have I desired. The immense love He bears us makes Him speak thus. St. Laurence Justinian says, “This is the expression of most burning love.” And He has been pleased to veil Himself beneath the species of bread, that so all may be able to receive Him. If He had concealed Himself under the appearance of any expensive food, the poor would have been unable to obtain it; and even if He had chosen some other inexpensive food, it might perhaps not have been found in all parts of the world: Jesus has been pleased to remain under the form of bread, because bread costs little, and is to be had everywhere; so that in all places we may find Him and receive Him.
Our Redeemer’s great desire to be received by us, makes Him not only exhort us in so many ways to come to Him. Come, eat my bread, and drink the wine which I have mingled for you. — (Prov. ix., 5). Eat, O friends, drink and be inebriated, my dearly-beloved. — (Cant. v., 1). But He even imposes it on us as a command to do so: Take ye, and eat; this is my body. — (Matt. xxvi., 26). And that we may approach to Him, He allures us by the promise of eternal life: He that eateth my flesh . . . hath everlasting life; he that eateth this bread shall live for ever. — (John vi., 55-59). And He threatens us with being shut out from Heaven if we do not: Except you eat the flesh of the son of man . . . you shall not have life in you. — (John vi., 54). All these invitations, promises, and threats, spring from the desire Jesus has to be united to us in this Sacrament. Now this desire arises from the great love He bears us; for, as St. Francis de Sales says, the end of love is solely to unite itself to the beloved object, and therefore in this Sacrament Jesus unites Himself wholly to our souls: He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, abideth in me, and I in him. — (John vi., 57). And for this reason He so earnestly wishes us to receive Him. Our Lord said one day to St. Mechtilde: “No bee throws itself with such eagerness on flowers, to suck their honey, as I come to the souls which desire Me.”
Oh, if the faithful would understand the great Good which Holy Communion brings to their souls! Jesus is the Lord of all riches, since He knows that his father had given him all things into his hands. — (John xiii., 3). St. Dionysius says that the Most Holy Sacrament “has a special power to sanctify man’s soul.” And St. Vincent Ferrer writes, that a soul profits more by one Communion than by a week’s fast on bread and water. The Council of Trent teaches that Holy Communion is the great “remedy which frees us from daily sins, and preserves us from mortal sin”; and hence St. Ignatius the Martyr calls the ever-blessed Sacrament “the medicine of immortality.” Innocent III says, that Jesus Christ “freed us by the mystery of the Cross from the punishment due to sin; but that by the Sacrament of the Eucharist He frees us from sin itself.”
O my Jesus, Lover of souls, Thou hast no further proof of love to give to show us that Thou dost love us; what more canst Thou think of to make us love Thee? O Infinite Goodness, I beseech Thee that, from this day forward, I may love Thee with all possible earnestness and tenderness. Who can love my soul more tenderly than Thou, my Redeemer, Who after having given Thy life for me, dost five me Thy whole Self in this Sacrament? My beloved Lord, may I always remember Thy love, so that I may forget all else, and love Thee alone, without interruption and without reserve.
Meditation II:
Spiritual Reading: MORTIFICATION: ITS NECESSITY AND ADVANTAGES
Evening Meditation: REFLECTIONS AND AFFECTIONS ON THE PASSION OF JESUS CHRIST
Meditation I:
Meditation II:
Morning Meditation: “MEMENTO, HOMO, QUIA PULVIS ES.”
It is most useful for our salvation to say often to ourselves: I must one day die! The Church every year on Ash Wednesday brings this remembrance to the faithful: Memento, homo, quia pulvis es et in pulverem reverteris! Remember, man, that thou art dust and into dust shalt thou return!
O my God, give me light, give me strength to spend the rest of my life in serving and loving Thee.
Meditation I:
Remember, man, that thou art dust and into dust shalt thou return! This certainty of death is brought to our recollection many times in the year; sometimes by the burial grounds which we pass upon the road, sometimes by the graves which we behold in churches, sometimes by the dead who are carried to burial.
The most precious furniture that was carried by the anchorites to their caves was a cross and a skull; the cross to remind them of the great love of Jesus Christ for us, and the skull to remind them of the day of their own death. And so they persevered in penitential works till the end of their days; and thus dying in poverty in the desert, they died more contented than if they had died as kings in their palaces.
The end is at hand! The end is at hand! Finis venit; venit finis. — (Ezech. vii., 2). In this life one man lives a longer, another a shorter time; but for everyone sooner or later, the end comes; and when that end comes, nothing will comfort us at death but the thought that we have loved Jesus Christ, and have endured with patience the labours of this life for love of Him. Then, not the riches we have gained, nor the honours we have obtained, nor the pleasures we have enjoyed, will console us. All the greatness of the world cannot comfort a dying man; it rather adds to his pains; and the more he has gained of it, the more does he suffer. It was said by Sister Margaret of St. Anne, a very holy Discalced Carmelite, and daughter of the Emperor Rudolph II: “What profit is a kingdom at the hour of death?”
Oh, how many worldly persons are there to whom, at the very moment when they are busy in seeking for gain, power, and office, the message of death comes: Set thy house in order; for thou shalt die, and not live. — (Is. xxxviii., 1). Why, O man, hast thou neglected to make thy will till the hour when thou art in sickness? O my God, what pain is suffered by him who is on the point of gaining some lawsuit, or of taking possession of some palace or property, who hears it said by the priest who has come to pray for his soul: Depart, Christian soul, from this world. Depart from this world, and render thy account to Jesus Christ. “But,” he cries, “I am not now well prepared.” What matters that? Thou must now depart.
O my God, give me light, give me strength to spend the rest of my life in serving and loving Thee. If now I should die, I should not die content; I should die disturbed. What, then, do I wait for? That death should seize me at a moment of the greatest peril to my soul? O Lord, if I have been foolish in the past, I will not be so for the time to come. Now I give myself wholly to Thee; receive me and help me with Thy grace.
Meditation II:
Spiritual Reading: MORTIFICATION: ITS NECESSITY AND ADVANTAGES
Evening Meditation: REFLECTIONS AND AFFECTIONS ON THE PASSION OF JESUS CHRIST
Meditation I:
Meditation II:
Morning Meditation: THE TERRORS OF THE DYING MAN AT THE THOUGHT OF THE APPROACHING JUDGMENT
How shall a dying man who has spent his life in sin, be able in the midst of the pains, the stupefaction, and the confusion of death, to repent sincerely of all his past iniquities? O God, what terrors and confusion will seize upon the unhappy Christian who has led a careless life, when he shall find himself overwhelmed with sins and the fear of Judgment, of Hell and Eternity! And how should he not tremble who has offended God by many mortal sins and has done no penance for them!
Meditation I:
Consider the fear which the thought of Judgment will cause in the mind of a dying man, when he reflects that in a very short time he must present himself before Jesus Christ, his Judge, to render an account of all the actions of his past life. When the awful moment of his passage out of this world into another, out of time into eternity, arrives, then will there be nothing so tormenting to him as the sight of his sins. St. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi, being ill, and thinking of Judgment, trembled. Her confessor told her not to fear. “Ah, Father,” she replied, “it is an awful thing to appear before Jesus Christ as our Judge!” Such were the feelings of this holy virgin who was a Saint from her infancy. What will he say who has frequently deserved hell?
The Abbot Agatho after many years of penance trembled, saying, “What will become of me when I shall be judged?” And how should he not tremble who has offended God by many mortal sins, and yet has done no penance for them! At death, the sight of his crimes, the rigour of the Divine judgments, the uncertainty of the sentence to be pronounced upon him – what a tempest of horror and confusion will these raise around him.! Let us be careful to throw ourselves at the feet of Jesus Christ, and secure our pardon before the arrival of our accounting day.
Ah, my Jesus and my Redeemer, Who wilt one day be my Judge, have pity on me before the day of justice. Behold at Thy feet a deserter who has often promised to be faithful to Thee, and has as often again turned his back upon Thee. No, my God, Thou hast not deserved the treatment Thou hast hitherto received at my hands. Forgive me, O Lord, for I desire truly to change and amend my life. I am sorry, my Sovereign Good, for having despised Thee: take pity on me.
Meditation II:
Spiritual Reading: MORTIFICATION: ITS NECESSITY AND ADVANTAGES
Evening Meditation: REFLECTIONS AND AFFECTIONS ON THE PASSION OF JESUS CHRIST
Meditation I:
Meditation II:
Morning Meditation: “THERE IS NO PEACE FOR THE WICKED”
Peace! What peace? No, says God, There is no peace to the wicked. — (Is. xlviii., 22). If anyone has a powerful enemy, he can neither eat nor sleep in peace; and can he who has God for an enemy, rest in peace?
Meditation I:
Not only does Solomon say that the pleasures and riches of this world are but vanities that cannot satisfy the heart, but that they are pains which afflict the spirit: Behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit. — (Eccles. i., 14). Poor sinners! They think to gain happiness by their sins, but they find only bitterness and remorse: Destruction and unhappiness in their ways, and the way of peace they have not known. — (Ps. xiii., 3). Peace! What peace? No, says God: There is no peace to the wicked. — (Is. xlviii., 22). In the first place, sin brings with it the terror of Divine vengeance. If anyone has a powerful enemy, he can neither eat nor sleep in peace; and can he who has God for an enemy rest in peace? Fear to them that work evil. — (Prov. x., 29). If there is an earthquake, or if it thunders, how does not he tremble who is living in sin! Every leaf that moves alarms him: The sound of dread is always in his ears. — (Job xv., 21). He is ever flying, though he sees not who pursues him: The wicked man fleeth when no man pursueth. — (Prov. xxviii., 1). And who pursues him? His own sin. Cain, after he had killed his brother Abel, said: Everyone, therefore, that findeth me shall kill me. — (Gen. iv., 14). And although the Lord assured him that no one would injure him – No, it shall not be so – yet, as the Scripture says, Cain was always a fugitive from one place to another: He dwelt as a fugitive on the earth. — (Gen. iv., 16). What persecuted Cain but his own sin?
Moreover, sin brings with it remorse of conscience – that cruel worm that gnaws without ceasing. The wretched sinner goes to the play, the ball, the banquet; but, says his conscience: Thou art at enmity with god; and if thou wert to die, whither wouldst thou go? Remorse of conscience is so great a torment even in this life, that to rid themselves of it, some have even deliberately destroyed themselves. One of these, as we all know, was Judas, who hanged himself in despair. It is related of another, that, having killed a child, he became a Religious to fly from the pain of remorse of conscience; but not having found peace even in Religion, he went and confessed his crime to a judge, and caused himself to be condemned to death.
O my wasted life! O my God, had I but suffered to please Thee the pains that I have suffered to offend Thee, how much merit should I not now have for Heaven! Ah, my Lord, for what did I leave Thee, and lose Thy grace? For brief and empoisoned pleasures, which vanished almost as soon as possessed, and which left my heart full of thorns and bitterness. Ah, my sins, I detest and curse you a thousand times; and I bless Thy mercy, O my God, which has borne so patiently with me. I love Thee, O my Creator and Redeemer, Who hast given Thy life for me; and because I love Thee, I repent with all my heart of having offended Thee.
Meditation II:
Spiritual Reading: MORTIFICATION OF THE APPETITE
Evening Meditation: REFLECTIONS AND AFFECTIONS ON THE PASSION OF JESUS CHRIST
Meditation I:
Meditation II:
Morning Meditation: MARY’S MARTYRDOM LIFELONG
The Passion of Jesus, as St. Bernard says, began with His Birth, so did Mary’s Martyrdom endure throughout her whole life. Wherefore well might Mary say: My life is wasted with grief and my years in sighs. My sorrow is continually before me.
Meditation I:
The Passion of Jesus, as St. Bernard says, began with His Birth. So also did Mary, in all things like unto her Son, endure her Martyrdom throughout her life. Amongst other significations of the name of Mary, as Blessed Albert the Great asserts, is that of “bitter sea.” Mare amarum. Hence to her is applicable the text of Jeremias: Great as the sea is thy destruction. — (Lam. ii., 13). For as the sea is all bitter and salt, so also was the life of Mary always full of bitterness at the sight of the Passion of the Redeemer, which was ever present to her mind. There can be no doubt, that, enlightened by the Holy Ghost in a far higher degree than all the Prophets, she, far better than they, understood the predictions recorded by them in the sacred Scriptures concerning the Messias. This is what the Angel revealed to St. Bridget, and he also added: “that the Blessed Virgin, even before she became His Mother, knowing how much the Incarnate Word was to suffer for the salvation of men, and compassionating this innocent Saviour Who was to be so cruelly put to death for crimes not His own, even then began her great Martyrdom.” Mary’s grief was immeasurably increased when she became the Mother of this Saviour; so that at the sad sight of the many torments that were to be endured by her poor Son, she indeed suffered a long Martyrdom, a Martyrdom which lasted her whole life. This was signified with great exactitude to St. Bridget in a vision which she had in Rome in the church of St. Mary Major, where the Blessed Virgin with St. Simeon, and an Angel bearing a very long sword, reddened with blood, appeared to her, denoting thereby the long and bitter grief which transpierced the heart of Mary during her whole life. Whence Rupert supposed Mary thus speaking: “Redeemed souls, and my beloved children, do not pity me only for the hour in which I beheld my dear Jesus expiring before my eyes; for the Sword of Sorrow predicted by Simeon pierced my soul during my whole life. When I was giving suck to my Son, when I was warming Him in my arms, I already foresaw the bitter death that awaited Him. Consider, then, what long and bitter sorrows I must have endured.”
Meditation II:
Spiritual Reading: MORTIFICATION OF THE APPETITE
Evening Meditation: REFLECTIONS AND AFFECTIONS ON THE PASSION OF JESUS CHRIST
Meditation I:
Meditation II:
