Daily Reflection – Jesus Longs to Commune With You
A Never-Ending Sacrifice
Meditation for February 28, 2022
“The Eucharist is alive. If a stranger who knew nothing about the Eucharist were to watch the way we receive, would he know this? When you and I approach the Eucharist, does it look like we believe we are about to take into our bodies the living person, Jesus Christ, true God and true man? How many times, Lord, have I forgotten that the Eucharist is alive! As I wait in line to receive you each day, am I thinking about how much you want to unite yourself with me? Am I seeing your hands filled with the graces you want to give me? Am I filled with awe and gratitude that you love me so much as to actually want to come to me in this incredibly intimate way? Or am I distracted, busy with other thoughts, preoccupied with myself and my agendas for the day? How many times, Jesus, have I made you sad, mindlessly receiving you into my body, into my heart, with no love and no recognition of your love? How many times have I treated you as a dead object? The Host that we receive is not a thing! It’s not a wafer! It’s not bread! It’s a person – He’s alive!”
—Vinny Flynn, p. 8
//Catholic Company//
Minute Meditation – Everything is Holy
To be a materialist is to believe fully in the Incarnation: that God so loved the world that God became the world, dwelling within it from the very beginning of creation, and that God delights in and sustains the cosmos at every moment. When you begin to see the world in this way it’s possible to make the leap from experiencing stuff as mere possessions, which implies zero-sum individual ownership and control, to experiencing stuff as sacramental. In the Catholic imagination, a sacrament is something perceivable to the senses—something material—that is at the same time a spiritual reality, opening a window into the presence of the divine. The Eucharist, for example, is bread and wine: fully material, fully the fruit of the earth and the work of human hands, but also shot through with spiritual significance. We know the official sacraments of the Church, but there’s also a broader sense of the sacred. Thomas Merton, the Cistercian spiritual master, captured it well in this simple phrase: “Everything that is, is holy.”
— from the book Making Room: Soul-Deep Satisfaction through Simple Living
by Kyle Kramer
//Franciscan Media//
Morning Offering – The Eucharist Will Transform the Coldness of Our Hearts
“If we but paused for a moment to consider attentively what takes place in this Sacrament of the Eucharist, I am sure that the thought of Christ’s love for us would transform the coldness of our hearts into a fire of love and gratitude.”
— St. Angela of Foligno
//Catholic Company//
Minute Meditation – Be the Jesus Presence
One of the primary Franciscan traditions is to acknowledge the presence of Jesus in our lives. Both Francis and Clare built their lives around this idea. According to the first admonition of St. Francis, the gift Jesus gave us in the Eucharist is the opportunity to expand the work of the kingdom of God to everyone. We are changed dramatically just by being in this living presence and being open to the action of our gracious God. We become instruments of God’s peace, mercy, joy, consolation, or courage. The more we celebrate the small miracles of daily life, the more we realize the very personal action of God in our daily living. The presence of Jesus among us is just that—a widespread presence among all of God’s people. We are able to embed the wonders of the presence of God within us. Each of us can and must be the “Jesus Presence” in this world of ours.
— from the book Eucharistic Adoration: Reflections in the Franciscan Tradition
//Franciscan Media//
Meditation of the Day – God Restores Morality
“No one can fail to understand that the Divine Eucharist bestows upon the Christian people an incomparable dignity. Not only while the Sacrifice is offered and the Sacrament is received, but as long as the Eucharist is kept in our churches and oratories, Christ is truly Emmanuel, that is, ‘God with us’. Day and night He is in our midst, He dwells with us, full of grace and truth. He restores morality, nourishes virtues, consoles the afflicted, strengthens the weak. He proposes His own example to those who come to Him that all may learn to be, like Himself, meek and humble of heart and to seek not their own interests but those of God. Anyone who approaches this august Sacrament with special devotion and endeavors to return generous love for Christ’s own infinite love, will experience and fully understand—not without spiritual joy and fruit—how precious is the life hidden with Christ in God and how great is the value of converse with Christ, for there is nothing more consoling on earth, nothing more efficacious for advancing along the road of holiness.”— Bl. Pope Paul VI, p.52
//The Catholic Company//
Saint of the Day – April 14 – Saint Lidwina of Schiedam
St. Lidwina of Schiedam (1380-1433) was born to a poor family in Holland. She had a devotion to the Blessed Mother and would often pray before the miraculous image of Our Lady of Schiedam. One winter, when she was 15 years old, she fell while ice skating and broke a rib, which she never recovered from. Gangrene spread throughout her body, which became as one big sore, and she was bed-ridden for the rest of her life. No medicine was able to help her. Her gradual physical deterioration was so grotesque that many suspected her of being possessed by the devil. However, when a priest brought her an unconsecrated Host, she was able to discern that it was not the Body and Blood of Christ. She experienced great suffering in this way until she was 53, but God rewarded her with the gift of heightened prayer, mystical visions, and spiritual consolations. Although she was not cured, many miraculous healings were attributed to her intercession. She fasted continuously, eventually surviving on only the Eucharist, and after her death on Easter Sunday the sweet odor of sanctity filled her room. Her grave became a pilgrimage site over which a chapel was erected. St. Lidwina of Schiedam is the patron of the chronically ill and ice skaters. Her feast day is April 14th.
//The Catholic Company//
Feast Day – April 11, 2021 – Divine Mercy Sunday
From ancient times the Easter octave, culminating on the 8th day, has been centered on the theme of God’s mercy and forgiveness. The final day of the octave celebration of Easter is meant to be a day of thanksgiving to God for his goodness to mankind through the Paschal mystery, that is, the Passion, death, and Resurrection of our Savior Jesus Christ. The Second Sunday of Easter was named Divine Mercy Sunday by Pope St. John Paul II following a request from Our Lord in his private revelations to St. Faustina Kowalska. On this day Jesus promised to open the floodgates of his inexhaustible mercy and shower abundant graces on those who participate in this feast day. A plenary indulgence is granted (under the usual conditions of sacramental confession, Eucharistic communion, and prayer for the intentions of the Holy Father) to the faithful who, in any church or chapel, in a spirit that is completely detached from the affection for a sin, even a venial sin, take part in the prayers and devotions held in honor of Divine Mercy, or who, in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament exposed or reserved in the tabernacle, recite the Our Father and the Creed, adding a devout prayer to the merciful Lord Jesus.
//The Catholic Company//