The Eucharist, the Mass, the Lord’s Supper, the Breaking of the Bread, the Divine Liturgy. Whatever it has been called throughout history, the sharing of bread and wine has been seen by nearly all Christians to be an important celebration of the Christian Faith. For most of those outside of the Catholic fold, this sharing has been understood as only symbolic of some indefinable sharing in the life and work of Jesus; some have gone so far as to abandon wine in fa...

Happy is he who, back at his seat after Communion, does not need any words, but adores and is silent. On the evening of Holy Thursday, the beloved apostle had rested his head on the breast of Christ; since Holy Thursday, Christ has been resting in the breasts of His friends, not only once but every morning, if they are pure of heart.

The faithful must refrain from giving too much importance to sensible favors received in Communion. Often, a person who suffers from aridity at the Holy ...

Every time I hear anyone speak of the Sacred Heart of Jesus or of the Blessed Sacrament I feel an indescribable joy. It is as if a wave of precious memories, sweet affections and joyful hopes swept over my poor person, making me tremble with happiness and filling my soul with tenderness. These are loving appeals from Jesus who wants me whole-heartedly there, at the source of all goodness, his Sacred Heart, throbbing mysteriously behind the Eucharistic veils. The devotion to the Sacred Hear...

But after lots of prayer and study, I realized that Jesus could not have been speaking figuratively when he taught us to eat his flesh and drink his blood. The Jews in his audience would not have been outraged and scandalized by a mere symbol. Besides, if they had misunderstood Jesus to be speaking literally–when he meant his words to be taken figuratively–he could have easily clarified his point. In fact, since many disciples stopped following Jesus because of this teaching (v. 60), h...

The term "covenant" refers to the historic event at Mount Sinai when the tribes of Israel were formed into one people (Exodus 24:1-11). That covenant was in blood, the blood of animals that were offered in sacrifice. For Israelites and other ancient peoples, blood was the symbol of life. Sprinkling the blood of the sacrificial animals on the altar and on the people symbolized the union of God and people, now sharing in the one life that was offered to God. So it is that the covenant at Sin...

The attitude of those who heard Christ's promise and His reaction furnish an argument for the Real Presence. It is very evident that they understood Our Lord to be referring to His own body and blood, and not to a mere symbol.

Now, from Christ's manner of acting on other occasions we can conclude that if they had interpreted Him wrongly He would have set them right. Thus, when the disciples understood literally His announcement: "Lazarus sleepeth," He told them plainly: "Lazarus is dead."...

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The Old Testament predicts that Christ will offer a true sacrifice to God in bread and wine–that He will use those elements. And this prediction is every bit as clear as the prediction that He will also offer Himself upon the Cross. Thus Gen XIV: 18, tells us that Melchisedech, King of Salem, was a priest, and that he offered sacrifice under the form of bread and wine. Now Ps. 109 predicts most clearly that Christ will be a priest according to the order of Melchisedech, i.e., offering a ...

Almost invariably the Lord showed Himself to me in His resurrected body, and it was thus, too, that I saw Him in the Host. Only occasionally, to strengthen me when I was in tribulation, did He show me His wounds, and then He would appear sometimes as He was on the Cross and sometimes as in the Garden. On a few occasions I saw Him wearing the crown of thorns and sometimes He would also be carrying the Cross–because of my necessities, as I say, and those of others–but always in His glori...

A nonbeliever in the Real Presence said: "If I could believe that God is really there on the altar, I think I would fall on my knees and stay there forever." Jesus is probably not demanding this of us, because we also have duties to charity and service to our brothers and sisters. He is probably not asking us to stay kneeling physically, but spiritually he is asking us to do so. In our hearts we can stay in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament while our hands are working, writing, absolving....

My dear child, today I wish to speak further on the Eucharist, My Presence in the host you receive.

My dear one, how I long for My people to come and receive Me openly and sincerely. I wish for them to tell Me their most intimate feelings, thoughts and worries. I wish for them to share their joyful events, their sorrows and their struggles. I long to advise them, counsel them and comfort them. Oh, if only they would realize it is I they receive and not a piece of man-made host. It is I, i...

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One time, during the celebration of Holy Mass in the Church of St. Paul at the Three Fountains in Rome, St. Bernard saw an unending stairway which went up to Heaven. Very many angels went up and down on it, carrying from Purgatory to Paradise the souls freed by the Sacrifice of Jesus, renewed by priests on the altars all over the world.

Thus, at the death of one of our relatives, let us take much more care about having celebrated, and assisting at, Holy Masses for him, rather than about t...

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A man who lived near the church wondered what the new Cure was doing in there so very early each morning. One morning, long before dawn, when the man saw a tiny candle making its way from the rectory through the darkness across the cemetery, he sneaked over to the church and peeked in to find out for himself. There was the pastor, pouring out his heart to Jesus hidden in the Blessed Sacrament! "Ah," said the man, "he is not like other men!" What did the Cure say to his blessed Jesus? Henri...

When he was stationed at Paris, the other Doctors of the Sorbonne put before him a problem about the nature of the mystical change in the elements of the Blessed Sacrament, and he proceeded to write, in his customary manner, a very careful and elaborately lucid statement of his own solution. Needless to say, he felt with hearty simplicity the heavy responsibility and gravity of such a judicial decision; and not unnaturally seems to have worried about it more than he commonly did over his w...

The Holy Mass of Padre Pio in the little chapel was his life, his calvary, his crucifixion, his paradise. It lasted about three hours. I would follow him with great attention and emotion in the various phases of the celebration. At the Memento for the Living, his meditation was deep, lengthy, interminable, and interrupted only by some painful sighs. He proceeded slowly in the painful ascent of his mystical calvary, and he arrived exhausted to his crucifixion. The moment of Consecration was...

The great evil of the times is that people do not go to Jesus Christ as their Savior and their God. The sole basis, law, and grace of salvation is set aside. The malaise of sterile piety is that it does not share or draw its vitality from Jesus Christ; it stops short along the way; it distracts itself with externals. But divine love has its life, its center uniquely in the sacrament of the Eucharist...

What must be done? Return to the source of life: not merely to Jesus of history in Jude...

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When I was vested, the name of Jesus impressed itself upon me more and more; I felt fortified against all attacks. I wept and sobbed afresh... When I had begun the Holy Sacrifice, I received many graces and pious emotions and gentle tears, which lasted long. As the Mass continued, many inspirations confirmed what I had resolved; and when I raised the Sacred Host, I felt as it were an inward suggestion, and a powerful impulse never to abandon Our Lord, in spite of all obstacles; and this wa...

When the bee has gathered the dew of heaven and the earth's sweetest nectar from the flowers, it turns it into honey, then hastens to its hive. In the same way, the priest, having taken from the altar the Son of God (who is as the dew from heaven, and true son of Mary, flower of our humanity), gives him to you as delicious food. When you have received him, stir up your heart to do him homage; speak to him about your spiritual life, gazing upon him in your soul where he is present for your ...

One of the earliest reports of a mystical reception of the Eucharist is that of St. Clement, Bishop of Ancyra, who suffered a long imprisonment and torture for the Faith during the fourth-century persecution of Diocletian. After being persecuted elsewhere, he was imprisoned in Rome, where he so impressed his fellow prisoners with his patience, his inspired words and his compliance with the will of God, that many asked for Baptism at his hands. Instructions in the Faith and Baptisms took pl...

Her meditation over, Mother joined her clear, melodious voice with those of the sisters who were reciting the Office. When she thus recited the Office with them all the sisters felt exhilarated in their devotion. The penetrating accentuation with which she recited the psalms manifested audibly how deeply she felt the meaning of these inspired hymns. Who of her daughters does not remember, as they heard it exemplified, the special emphasis with which she used to pronounce the words: "Si ini...

On the Feast of St. Augustine, as God showed Gertrude the merits of many saints, she desired to know something of the merits of St. Agnes, whom she had loved from her very infancy with the greatest tenderness and devotion. Our Lord yielded to her desire and prayer and showed her that great Saint, so united to His Heart as to indicate her extraordinary innocence and to manifest the truth of what has been said by the Wise Man, that "Incorruption bringeth near to God" (Wis 6: 20). She seemed ...

At last the most wonderful of all days arrived. Every little detail of those heavenly hours is with me still. I remember how joyfully we woke at dawn, the grave and tender kisses of the nuns, the dressing room where we were all clothed, and, above all, our entering the chapel and singing the morning hymn: "O blessed altar, ringed with angels."

Oh, how sweet the first kiss of Jesus was! It was a kiss of love. I knew that I was loved and I declared: "I love You and I give myself to You for ...

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After Communion today, Jesus told me how much He desires to come to human hearts. "I desire to unite Myself with human souls; My great delight is to unite Myself with souls. Know, My daughter, that when I come to a human heart in Holy Communion, My hands are full of all kinds of graces which I want to give to the soul. But souls do not even pay any attention to Me; they leave Me to Myself and busy themselves with other things. Oh, how sad I am that souls do not recognize Love! They treat M...

Noah, a good man (Gen 6:9), is said to have worked a hundred years to build the ark, so that he and a few others might be saved (I Pet 3:20.). How, then, can I in one short hour prepare myself to receive with reverence the Creator of the world? Moses, Your great servant and especial friend, constructed an Ark of imperishable wood (Exod 25:10), and covered it with purest gold, in order to house the Tablets of the Law:and how shall I, a corruptible creature, dare so lightly to receive You, t...

Saint Maximilian was deeply touched by the real presence of Jesus, the God-Man, under the eucharistic species. Before the Blessed Sacrament altar, he acted as though he saw the Savior. "God dwells in our midst", he exclaimed, "in the Blessed Sacrament of the altar". "He remains among us until the end of the world. He dwells on so many altars, though so often offended and profaned". But even more, the founder of the MI was fascinated by the fact that Jesus in the sacrament gives Himself to ...

Dearest daughter, contemplate the marvelous state of the soul who receives this bread of life, this food of angels, as she ought. When she receives this sacrament she lives in me and I in her. Just as the fish is in the sea and the sea in the fish, so am I in the soul and the soul in me, the sea of peace. Grace lives in such a soul because, having received this bread of life in grace, she lives in grace. When this appearance of bread has been consumed, I leave behind the imprint of my grac...

A young priest phoned me, very anxious and afraid. He had just found out he had cancer of the vocal chords and he had to have his voice box removed in three weeks. He was telling me he was desperate. He had been ordained only about six years.

As I prayed with him, I felt the Lord wanted me to tell him about the Eucharist. I said, "Father, I can pray with you now on the phone, and I will, but this morning, didn't you meet Jesus? Don't you meet him every day?"

What I didn't know was that t...

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Did you know that every Sunday, at all the masses in all the Catholic churches in the world, millions of people join in prayers for healing?

The fact that most people are surprised by that statement merely shows our lack of attention to the words we pray. For every Catholic immediately recognizes the prayer I am talking about, which the priest and congregation recite together just before Communion: "Lord, I am not worthy to receive you. But only say the word, and I shall be healed."

As e...

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The secret of Therese Neumann's abundant life despite her complete abstinence from all earthly food is revealed in her statement that she is sustained by a heavenly food, the Body of her Eucharistic Lord.

On Palm Sunday evening, 1930, the third year of absolute fast, Father Hartl asked Resl if she was hungry. "You know very well that I do not eat," she answered. The curate of the village church then asked, "Do you wish to be greater than the Saviour? He ate when He was on earth." Therese ...

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It is this intense desire of God to enter into the most intimate relationship with us that forms the core of the Eucharistic celebration and the Eucharistic life. God not only wants to enter human history by becoming a person who lives in a specific epoch and a specific country, but God wants to become our daily food and drink at any time and any place.

The Lord Jesus came among us to share in all our miseries and humanity. By His love, He transformed suffering into sacrifice, bringing salvation to all of us. Now He invites you and me to unite our sufferings with His, with even the little love we can muster up, to be a sacrifice bringing His salvation to those in need. He invites all of us to be partners in His continued work of redemption...

The teaching about offering our own selves along with the Immaculate Victim is made even more ex...

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The Fourth General Council of the Lateran, in 1215, defined that "the Body and Blood of Christ are truly contained in the Sacrament of the Altar by Transubstantiation." Transubstantiation is a changing across from one substance to another. A transcontinental railroad will take a person from New York to San Francisco but it does not change New York into San Francisco. Take the word "transformation." A carpenter can transform a log of wood into all kinds of furniture. He gives the wood anoth...

Imagine the Pope inviting you to Rome to spend an hour with him; you would feel like the most important person in the world. Who would not see this as a great honor and do anything to get there? Yet it is a much greater honor to spend an hour with Jesus Himself.

Those who kept company with Jesus in the gospel stand out as men and women of great faith–they were His chosen friends who really believed in Him. They were ridiculed then, but are admired now. Those who keep company with Jesus ...

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Christ is present in his church and through it proclaims the Gospel, worships the Father, shows concern for the world and its problems. Caring for our neighbor and working for peace and justice follow upon the celebration of the Eucharist. Pope John Paul II, in his encyclical "On Social Concern," brings this out: "The kingdom of God ( salvation) becomes present above all in the sacrament of the Eucharist, which is the Lord's sacrifice. All who take part in the Eucharist are called to disco...

Now he was at the altar, in his white vestments, opening the book. I was kneeling right at the altar rail. The bright sanctuary was all mine. I could hear the murmur of the priest's voice, and the responses of the server, and it did not matter that I had no one to look at, so that I could tell when to stand up and kneel down again, for I was still not very sure of these ordinary ceremonies. But when the little bells were rung I knew what was happening. And I saw the raised Host–the silen...

Loving his Eucharistic Lord and wishing to dramatize the Blessed Sacrament and to center spiritual life in his diocese around It, Saint John Neumann dreamed of bringing the Forty Hours Devotion to the United States.

At first the idea was received coldly: "You can't do that! If you left the Blessed Sacrament exposed in churches for forty long hours, don't you know what would happen? The ignorant and the impious would profane and dishonor It."

The idea might have died there except for what...

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As a young Episcopalian widow visiting Italy, Elizabeth Seton attended Mass with Italian friends and heard an Englishman mutter at the elevation of the Host, "This is what they call their Real Presence." She was deeply disturbed by the remark and later wrote in her diary of the "unfeeling interruption."

Shortly afterward she wrote her sister-in-law: "How happy we would be if we believed what these dear souls believe, that they possess God in the Sacrament and that He remains in their chur...

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The references of St. Ignatius of Antioch (d. 107) to the Eucharist in the seven authentic letters he wrote while on his way to Rome to suffer martyrdom are sufficient to indicate that the Mystery of the Lord's Body and Blood was a most significant aspect in his thought and in his own spiritual life. In his letter to the Christians of Tralles, for example, he apparently compares the virtues of faith and love to the Eucharistic Mystery when he writes: "Therefore, arming yourselves with gent...

The sacrifice of the Cross is so decisive for the future of man that Christ did not carry it out and did not return to the Father until he had left us the means to take part in it as if we had been present. Christ's offering on the Cross–which is the real Bread of Life broken–is the first value that must be communicated and shared. The Mass and the Cross are but one and the same sacrifice. Nevertheless the eucharistic breaking of bread has an essential function, that of putting at our ...

Cana is a delightful story of loving concern. Mary's maternal solicitude moved her to intercede with her Son even though his hour had not yet come. The loving heart of Jesus could not turn a deaf ear to his Mother's intercession.

Jesus used this occasion to reveal to us the power of his Mother's intercession; also, to teach us Mary's role as Mother of the Church and intercessor for her children. Changing water into wine is a symbolic sign and a remote preparation for the Eucharist.

At th...

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After Holy Mass, we are called upon to live in the Spirit and to continue the struggle against the limitations of the body. In this struggle for life there are both victories and defeats; sins are committed and wounds are received. But, love and the healing of the wounds are active and effective. So, we go to the Mass that Jesus celebrates for us and leave it renewed and ready to go out into the world.

Hence, we can say that at the first step the Church takes, at the moment when Jesus cel...

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As we consider the wonder of the Eucharist and the enormous value of the Mass in our lives, we must never forget that the Lord, in His extraordinary love for us, has not only given us the Eucharist, but has desired that this Eucharist be maintained as a living and lasting memorial in our tabernacles. In the document Holy Communion and Worship of the Eucharist outside Mass we read: "The celebration of the Eucharist in the Sacrifice of the Mass, moreover, is truly the origin and purpose of t...

All my life I've been saying the Kyrie Eleison at Mass. Finally one day it dawned on me, many years after I was ordained into the priesthood, "Lord, have mercy!" I never heard it so deeply before. We are like sponges floating on an ocean of mercy, crying "Mercy." All we need is the capacity to receive, like the sponge. When a sponge has a capacity to receive, water rushes in and the sponge is filled. As we forgive, and receive His forgiveness, then we can soak up the mercy. Mercy means lov...

But just as He stood quietly among His apostles in the amazing beauty of His resurrection, and said, handle Me and see, so does He abide with us in the Blessed Sacrament, that we may get to know Him, to outlive our tremulous agitation, and the novelty of our surprise, and to grow familiar with Him, if we can, as our life-long Guest. There we can bring our sorrows and cares and necessities at all hours... We can choose our own time, and our visit can be as short or as long as duties permit ...

Although the beloved disciple John loved much, it was God who first loved him (cf. 1 Jn 4:10). The Father graced him with an unbreakable bond of friendship with his Son. Jesus loved the beloved disciple, called him, ate with him, held him in his gaze, died for him, and rose for him.

This friendship celebrated in Scripture excites a passion in us that causes us to wish that Jesus will rejoice in the Holy Spirit because of us "as he said to them privately, 'Blessed are the eyes that see wha...

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(During Communion)

My dear one, I am now within you. It is in the Eucharist that I am consecrated to you and you to Me.

Many of My people do not realize what it means to receive My Body. My people do not realize the power they receive when they receive the Eucharist.

It is My power... the power of Christ!

I, in you, shall grant your heart's desire. It is I, through Eucharist, Who makes your image one in the likeness of God, because you are receiving My Body. I grant you special graces, no...

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What is Holy Mass? It is Christ, the God-Man, the Son of God and the Son of Mary, offering on the calvary of the altar the thanksgiving due to God His Father; making atonement for sin; the only perfect divine atonement and thanksgiving, with you and for you.

What is Holy Mass? It is Christ, the Judge of the living and the dead, the God-Man, Son of God and Son of Mary, imploring, with you and for you, a deluge of graces and blessings, through the power of His wounds, through the power of H...

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Sister Faustina recounts the joy of her total union with God, uninterrupted in spite of the busy preparations for the Feast of Christmas; and the added joy of being allowed to spend the three hours preceding Christmas Midnight Mass in adoration: "I was allowed to stay up and wait for the Midnight Mass. I was delighted to have free time from nine until midnight. From nine to ten o'clock I offered my adoration for my parents and my whole family. From ten to eleven, I offered it for the inten...

I am the lover of purity and giver of all holiness. I seek a pure heart, and there will I dwell (Acts 7:49; Isa 66:1). Prepare and make ready for Me a large upper room, and there will I and My disciples eat the Passover (Mark 14:15; Luke 22:12) with you. If you wish Me to come and dwell with you, purify the old leaven (1 Cor 5:7), and cleanse the dwelling of your heart. Exclude the whole world and its sinful clamour; sit there alone, like a sparrow on the roof-top (Ps 52:7), and consider y...

The Holy Eucharist is the continuation of Christ's incarnation on earth. The mystery of the Eucharist gives us the joy of having Christmas everyday. When we come to the Blessed Sacrament we come to Bethlehem, a name which means "house of bread." Jesus chose to be born in Bethlehem because He would dwell with us forever as the "Living Bread" come down from heaven. When the shepherds and Magi came to adore Him, they brought Him so much joy with their humble visit to Bethlehem that their visi...

Clare was too ill to go to Midnight Mass services with her Sisters... She lay there, her heart breaking as she was to be deprived of our Lord Jesus in the Eucharist on this special night. Her thoughts brought her back to the time in Gubbio, when Francis made the first Nativity Scene, after which all Nativity scenes in the future would be fashioned. Christmas had always been a joyous time for both Clare and Francis...

She looked about the bare room that served as the sleeping quarters for ...

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From the Consecration to the Communion of the Midnight Mass of 1927 Therese saw the glorified Christ Child, though she was at home and abed because of the extreme weakness following Passion ecstasies. She became ecstatic now when the church bells were heard announcing the Consecration. The infant Saviour as she saw Him measured about 40 centimeters and was dressed in a shirt of dazzling whiteness. He stood on a bright cloud and held out His arms and smiled. His hair was fair and curly, his...

Another healing involving the Eucharist happened in Sydney, Australia. A woman came to a place where Father Kevin and I were speaking. She came up to me in a hallway to ask me to pray with her. She was desperate because she was suffering from stomach cancer. She had a tumor which caused great swelling. The doctors had told her there was little point in operating because it had spread too extensively. I knew there was a Mass that afternoon, so I told her I'd pray with her, but I also told h...

"Standing in front of the congregation holding the wine cup was not a difficult job, nor did it make me nervous. However, as I held the cup during communion at one Saturday evening Mass, I was given an insight as to what it contained. That little glass cup held the blood of Jesus Christ. Not wine and water, but the same Blood that dripped from Jesus' wounds and crown of thorns some 2,000 years ago. Although it has a different form now, it is, to Catholics, the same Blood that fell from His...

Many priests owe their vocation to a saintly mother's prayers. There can be little doubt that Herbert Cardinal Vaughan (Archbishop of Westminster, England) owed his vocation to the Priesthood to his mother's prayers before the Blessed Sacrament. When he was a young man of twenty-one, he wrote: "During the day my mother was often before the Blessed Sacrament. Every morning before breakfast she was in the chapel for half an hour or three-quarters of an hour. After breakfast an hour in the mo...

Q. A Protestant told me that the early Church believed that Jesus was only symbolically present in the Eucharist and that the doctrine of the Real Presence came about eleven centuries later. Is he correct?

A. Not true! Jesus' own words in Scripture tell us: "Take and eat; this is My Body. Take and drink; this is My Blood of the New Covenant which shall be shed for many" (cf. Matt. 26:26-27; Mark 14:22, 24; Luke 22: 19-20) and "... Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life...

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Once, when I was about to communicate, I saw, with the eyes of the soul, more clearly than ever I could with those of the body, two devils of most hideous aspect. Their horns seemed to be around the poor priest's throat; and when I saw my Lord, with the Majesty which I have described, in the hands of such a man, in the Host which he was about to give me, I knew for a certainty that those hands had offended Him and realized that there was a soul in mortal sin... This upset me so much that I...

St. John of the Cross, who with St. Teresa of Avila restored the unmitigated rule to the Carmelite Order and founded the Discalced branch of this order, was occasionally irradiated with light. It is claimed that after one of his Masses a student saw him aglow and was so impressed that he eventually entered the religious life.

At the convent of Caravaca, when a new prioress was to be elected, St. John offered holy Mass and prayed that the newly elected would be blessed with the wisdom and ...

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St. John Chrysostom wrote a remarkable passage in which he brought out the intimate connection between the Eucharistic Body of Christ and the Mystical Body which is the Church. Speaking of the precious vessels of the altar and of the other liturgical objects by which we surround the Blessed Sacrament with honor, the Greek Father pointed out that it was even more important to honor the body of Christ by giving alms to poor. In this way, we are not only doing good to Him in the person of the...

Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

"I vividly desire that a church be built on this site, so that in it I can be present and give my love, compassion, help and defense, for I am your most devoted mother... to hear your laments and to remedy all your miseries, pains and sufferings."

Prior to Our Lady of Guadalupe's conversion of millions, the major empires in the Americas were evil, resisting the efforts of the conquistadors to conquer them, or the efforts of the missionaries to convert them. On...

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And if Our Lord took such delight in Gemma's Communions, was it possible for His Sweet Mother, who in her turn so tenderly loved this angelic girl, not to take the same delight in them? After the many marvels we have seen up to this, I do not think anyone will be tempted to doubt the veracity of another fact that I am about to relate. It is of the Blessed Virgin, who sometimes joined the Angels of the Eucharist to assist at Gemma's Holy Communion. At the unexpected vision the good child we...

In the Old Testament the Messiah was announced as the "Prince of Peace" (Isaiah 9:5). His birth was proclaimed as the new era of peace "to guide our feet into the way of peace" (Lk 1:79). Jesus himself established his kingdom as a reign of peace. "Peace is my farewell to you, my peace is my gift to you" (Jn 14:27). After his resurrection, his first greeting was, "Peace be with you."

Through the Eucharistic celebration, Jesus continued his work of establishing and implementing his peace in...

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The next morning we all met at the Motherhouse of the Cenacle Nuns where I was to celebrate my first Mass. Once again the chapel was filled with friends... The procession formed and we entered to the singing of Cardinal Newman's hymn, Lead, Kindly Light. I still couldn't believe it was I who was saying Mass. "In the Name of the Father, and of the... ," I bowed low for the prayers at the foot of the altar... Tomorrow, I say Mass at St. Peter's. I contrasted the splendor of St. Peter's with ...

St. Ambrose was born at Trier (today in Germany) between 335 and 340. He became a lawyer and a Roman administrator in Milan. There he was chosen as bishop by popular acclamation, although he was only a catechumen. He thus received all the Sacraments of Initiation and the episcopate within one week. He died in Milan in 397. Ambrose, who may well be the first to refer to the Eucharistic Mystery as the Mass" (Ambrose, in Epistola, 20, 4 (PL, 16, 995), remarks, "I, however, remained at my task...

The "Miracle of the Eucharist" took place in Betania on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, December 8th, 1991.

Father Otty, a priest from Colombia and the Chaplain for Betania, was celebrating Mass for the vigil of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. It was a midnight Mass. At the time of the Consecration about fifteen thousand people present saw a bright, rose light over the Host... At the time of Communion Fr. Otty broke the Host in half and broke off a small particle to put into ...

When I reached the prison camps of Siberia, I learned to my great joy that it was possible to say Mass daily once again. In every camp, the priests and prisoners would go to great lengths, run risks willingly, just to have the consolation of this sacrament. For those who could not get to Mass, we daily consecrated hosts and arranged for the distribution of Communion to those who wished to receive. Our risk of discovery, of course, was greater in the barracks, because of the lack of privacy an...

"From the Elevation to the Agnus Dei, she prayed for the souls in purgatory, presenting Jesus on the Cross to His Father that He might accomplish what she could not. At this moment, she was often rapt out of herself and, indeed, she sometimes fell into ecstasy even before the Consecration.

"At the Communion, she reflected on Christ laid in the tomb, and begged Almighty God to annihilate in us the old man and clothe us with the new.

"If at Mass or any other service, she listened to the music...

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On November 18, 1875, the future, modern apostle of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Father Mateo Crawley-Boevey, SS.CC., was born in Arequipa, Peru, in South America.

After joining the religious Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, Fr. Mateo as a young priest, due to ill health, got permission to make a pilgrimage to Rome, and then to Paray-le-Monial in France to prepare for an early death. He was then 32 years old.

In Rome, in a private audience with Pope St. Pius X,...

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"How is it possible," an educated Mohammedan asked a missionary bishop, "that the bread and wine should become the Flesh and Blood of Christ?"

The bishop answered, "You were small when you were born. You grew big because your body changed the food you took into flesh and blood. If a man's body is able to transform bread and wine into flesh and blood, then God can do it far more easily."

The Mohammedan then asked: "How is it possible for Jesus to be wholly and entirely present in a little ho...

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There is no more moving an example of the way contemplation of Christ's love in the Eucharist leads to discernment of his presence and service of him in "the distressing disguises of the poor" than that shown by Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Because of her closeness to Jesus in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament this woman who believes in Love has been able to translate the tenderness of loving into practice, as she simple recalls in the many stories of her "encounters" such as the following:

"...

The testimony of the Fathers of the Church also assures us of the Real Presence in the most Holy Eucharist. There is no writer or teacher of the Apostolic times who would doubt, or would fail to affirm that truth.

The first to give such testimony is St. Andrew, the Apostle. Witnesses of his martyrdom tell us that the dying saint thus addressed Edeus, who ordered him to offer sacrifice to the gods: "I offer daily to the Almighty God, the Immaculate Lamb. Though he is really offered, and the f...

Moreover, in the Blessed Sacrament our Lord Himself is the light which manifests Him as our model and reveals His beauties to us. He is Himself His light, His means of being known, just as the sun is itself its own proof. To make Himself known, He has only to show Himself. Recognition of Him need not come from its being reasoned out. A child does not have to discourse with himself to recognize his parents. Our Lord reveals Himself through His presence, just as parents do. But as we grow to...

On Trinity Sunday, June 6, 1830, Sister Laboure was given a special vision of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, or more specifically of Christ as King. This time she is precise as to the moment of the vision. Our Lord appeared to her, robed as a king, with a cross at His breast, during the Gospel of the Mass. Suddenly, all His kingly ornaments fell from Him to the ground–even the cross, which tumbled beneath His feet. Immediately her thoughts and her heart fell, too, and were plunged into ...

Each day we hear His command, "Do this in remembrance of me." This is the most startling word of the Eucharist–that each Christian is to learn to consecrate, to be drawn into Christ's action so deeply that he becomes a Eucharist! We are to parallel Christ; what He did with His life we are to do with our lives. What a mystery this is, to consecrate ourselves, to become Eucharists! This is what the Christian life is all about; this is the ultimate conclusion and action of following Christ�...

Visiting the Blessed Sacrament we, like John at the Last Supper, rest our heads on his loving heart. In partaking of the Eucharist we build our house on Christ and he blesses us with his immense graces, which weaken our yearning for sin, the food of swine.

In the Holy Eucharist Jesus has bound himself to us unreservedly, a pact of love. We are weak, he is strong. We are cowardly, he gives us courage. It is no doubt bold for us sinners to approach Christ, but it is he who gives us our ...

Although this blessed child was always deep in thought, and always found herself in spirit before the sacred Tabernacle, yet she was not fully satisfied unless she could go to church, and there adore her hidden God... she contented herself with going to Church only twice a day. In the morning when she went to hear Mass and receive Holy Communion, and in the evening for the public Adoration. "I am going to Jesus," she used to say, "let us go to Jesus. He is all alone and no one thinks of Hi...

Only during the war could Father Kolbe realize his lifelong dream: daily adoration of the most Blessed Sacrament. Brother Benedict Mieczkowski recounts:

Immediately after his return from prison [1939], Father Maximilian introduced adoration of the most Blessed Sacrament throughout the entire day. He regarded this as the most efficacious means for meeting the needs of Niepokalanow and of his country. He announced this in the refectory and ordered me to assign groups of friars from each work s...

Multitudes of angels assist at every Mass. St. Gregory: "The heavens open and the multitudes of angels come to assist at the Holy Sacrifice." St. Augustine: "The angels surround and help the priest when he is celebrating Mass." St. John Chrysostom: "When Mass is being celebrated, the Sanctuary is filled with countless angels who adore the Divine Victim immolated on the altar."

The efficacy of the Mass is so wonderful, God's mercy and generosity are then so unlimited that there is no moment s...

"Contemplate Me in the prison where I spent the greater part of the night. The soldiers came and, adding words to injuries, insulted Me, mocked Me, outraged Me, and gave Me blows on My face and on My whole body.

"Tired of their sport, at length they left Me bound and alone in the dark and noisome place, where, seated on a stone, My aching body was cramped with cold.

"Compare the prison with the Tabernacle... and especially with the hearts that receive Me. "In the prison I spent only part...

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In Europe I have known a poor little peasant girl who like Bernadette used to take care of sheep. I met her through the Archbishop who invited me to talk with her and to give my opinion about her case. He told me he had her case examined by five eminent theologians. They all told him she was a second Margaret Mary. She spoke to me simply, plainly and at great length, for she had confidence in me. She enjoyed an extraordinary privilege, that of seeing what goes on at the altar as you see me...

Sometimes–almost habitually, indeed, or at least very frequently–I would find relief after communicating. There were times, in fact, when the very act of approaching the Sacrament would at once make me feel so well, both in soul and in body, that I was astounded. I would feel as if all the darkness in my soul had suddenly been dispersed and the sun had come out and shown me the stupidity of the things I had been saying and doing. At other times, if the Lord spoke only one word to me (if, ...

In a beautiful essay on the Eucharist, written in 1916 during the First World War, Teilhard de Chardin gives us the fruit of a meditation made in front of the Blessed Sacrament. Entitled "The Monstrance," the essay describes how, while kneeling in prayer, a person (probably the author himself) suddenly had the sensation that the Host began "to expand and grow bigger". The white Host soon enveloped not only the one in prayer but all reality as it continued to grow. Soon "through the mysterious...

"During the celebration of Holy Mass, I am hanging on the cross together with Jesus, and I suffer all that Jesus suffered on Calvary, as much as is possible for a human nature."

After the Consecration, with tears in his eyes and some sobbing, he slowly continued the Holy Mass.

The Memento for the Dead was also very long.

How many souls, deprived of the full possession of God, did he remember in the infinite mercy of God, offering his blood and his sufferings, united to the blood and suffer...

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In the year 1453, a fierce war was raging amongst the French, the Savoyards and the Piedmontese. At the sack of the little town of Exilles a robber entered the church, broke open the door of the tabernacle, and took out the ostensorium containing the Host. He hastened away with this and other objects, concealing them in a sack. He loaded the objects on a mule and hastened to Turin to effect the sacrilegious sale of them. But the hand of the Lord was present! Having reached the square of...

After her Communion, as she recollected herself interiorly, our Lord appeared to her under the form of a pelican as it is usually represented, piercing its heart with its beak. Marvelling at this, she said: "My Lord, what wouldst Thou teach me by this vision?" "I wish," replied our Lord, "that you would consider the excess of love which obliges Me to present you with such a gift. After having thus given Myself, I would rather remain dead in the tomb, so to speak, than deprive a soul wh...

The manna by which the Chosen People were nourished in the wilderness was a figure of the Eucharist, the spiritual food by which we are sustained and illuminated in the desert of this world.

Jesus, in His discourse on the Bread of Life in the synagogue of Capharnaum (John 6) proclaimed that He was the true manna, the "food that endures for life everlasting," the "Bread of God which came down from heaven and which gives life to the world" (John 6: 27, 33).

... Jesus makes clear that t...

Not only have angels functioned as ministers of the Holy Eucharist, but in at least one incident an angel was assisted by a saint. This occurred to St. Stanislaus Kostka (d. 1568) during the time he was preparing for his admission into the Society of Jesus.

A violent and dangerous sickness overtook Stanislaus while he was on a journey, and he was forced to stay for a time in the home of a Lutheran couple, who would not permit the Eucharist to be brought into their house. Since the phy...

The Order of the Day for the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus begins at five o'clock in the morning. Mother's began an hour earlier. On the night before, she was accustomed to placing her alarm clock under her pillow, so as not to fail in her appointment with Jesus at four o'clock, the hour of her meditation. Frankly speaking, Mother was much too frail to interrupt her sleep so early, but the hour of meditation prescribed by the rule did not satisfy the yearning of her b...

The secret lies in a total offering of self, withholding nothing. Jesus was a total oblation on the Cross. There wasn't a cell of his body or sentiment of his heart that he didn't offer to the Father. Anything we withhold for ourselves is lost, because we only possess what we give. St. Francis of Assisi who, because of the elevated fervor of his devotion to the Eucharist can be considered a special guide on the topic, ends his wonderful discourse on the Eucharist with this exhortation:...

O dearest daughter, open wide your mind's eye and look into the abyss of my charity. There is not a person whose heart would not melt in love to see, among all the other blessings I have given you, the blessing you receive in this sacrament.

And how, dearest daughter, should you and others look upon this mystery and touch it? Not only with your bodily eyes and feeling, for here they would fail you. You know that all your eyes see is this white bit of bread; this is all your hand can t...

Mary Ann Cortes was healed through the Mass. She spent seventeen years in mental hospitals in the New Orleans, Louisiana area, on every drug treatment program available for manic depressive patients except shock therapy. She encountered the healing Jesus during Mass, and over the course of several months was totally healed. The Lord took away the illness, and took away the fear, so that she could truly say, "I'm not afraid of the morning anymore." The Lord accomplished what no psychiatrist ha...

Oh, how high and honorable is the office of priests, to whom is given power to consecrate with sacred words the Lord of majesty, to bless Him with their lips, to hold Him in their hands, to receive Him in their mouths, and to communicate Him to others. How clean should be the hands, how pure the lips, how holy the body, how spotless the heart of a priest, into whom the Author of all purity so often enters. From the mouth of a priest, who so often receives the Sacrament of Christ, no...

In the time of St. Bernard, a monk of Clairvaux appeared after his death to his brethren in religion to thank them for having delivered him from Purgatory. On being asked what had contributed most to free him from his torments, he led the inquirer to the church, where a priest was saying Mass. "Look," said he, "this is the means by which my deliverance has been effected; this is the power of God's mercy; this is the salutary sacrifice which takes away the sins of the world." Indeed, ...

I find myself so weak that were it not for Holy Communion I would fall continually. One thing alone sustains me, and that is Holy Communion. From it I draw my strength; in it is all my comfort. I fear life on days when I do not receive Holy Communion. I fear my own self. Jesus concealed in the Host is everything to me. From the tabernacle I draw strength, power, courage and light. Here, I seek consolation in time of anguish. I would not know how to give glory to God if I did not hav...

In the words of the Holy Father at the Eucharistic Congress, referring to Don Manuel Gonzalez, "the bishop of the abandoned tabernacles; he (Don Manuel) strove to remind everyone of Jesus' presence in the tabernacle, to which we sometimes respond so poorly. By his word and example, he never ceased to repeat that in the tabernacle of each church we possess a shining beacon, through contact with which our lives may be illuminated and transformed... It is important for us to live and t...

Whilst at Lourdes her piety did not seem at all out of the common, so it was said. If we understand by piety exalted reflections on the mysteries of the life of Our Lord or the great truths of the Faith, doubtless it was not. The child herself often said: "I never can make a meditation"; but, on the other hand, she loved prayer and it had a strong attraction for her. She was often to be found in the chapel saying her rosary, and who shall say what ardent love her angelic soul put in...

Father Mateo [Crawley-Boevey] had a great appreciation for the value of the Holy Mass. At a talk given in Arizona he said, "Do you know what I am preaching everywhere? I am preaching: Pay the ransom of souls with the Chalice, with the Chalice. The greatest means of converting souls is one more Mass, one more Mass during the week, and, with sacrifice, two or three more Masses; if possible, daily Mass, to pay for the eternal salvation of souls so dear to you. That is the great thing–...

During Mass we offer bread and wine which, through the power of God's word, become the Body and Blood of Our Lord, Jesus Christ. We bring a little bread and wine and God transforms them into the Body and Blood of His Son, Our Lord, Jesus Christ. The transformation that takes place is a divine act similar to the first miraculous act of creation. One word was necessary to set off a complete change and transformation in nature. The transformation of the bread and wine takes place invis...

The founder of the MI (Militia Immaculata) was convinced, as he declared, on December 8, 1937, on Polish National Radio in a broadcast to all Poland, that, "when the spirit of Niepokalanow, the spirit of the MI, penetrates our country and the entire world, when the Immaculate will have become Queen of every heart beating under the sun, then paradise will come on earth, not the paradise of communists and socialists, but–in so far as it is possible on earth–the true paradise. The ...

In one instance it was possible to confirm the presence, entirely intact at 7 o'clock in the evening, of the small particle of the Host which Resl had received in the morning. Another phenomenon connected with this phase of the stigmatist's life is that as soon as the Sacred Species have dissolved within her, she feels an interior physical pain and her body begins to grow weaker. Her yearning for Holy Communion grows more intense, and she even breaks into loud complaints, saying: "O...

It was so when more than four thousand followed Him and forgot to eat for three days. As at the wedding feast of Cana, there was in the feeding of the multitude an important message. These kinds of miracles were performed by Jesus to impress upon the minds of the crowd that His power was the power of God. These particular gestures of compassion were wrought as a symbol of something greater to come. Their hearts were prepared to accept a greater mystery that He would reveal before His...

Before the Blessed Sacrament the devout pilgrim on the journey finds comfort and consolation, for the Savior whispers his secrets to them. They know what the busy people of this world, rushing around, never know; they know Christ better than the busy clergy rushing from meeting to meeting.

With Jesus life makes sense. They are happy of heart; without friendship with him, life is insane and not worth living. They know that he is the gateway to heaven. So the thought of death makes t...

Q I am afraid of "failing" in my prayer for family healing, since I experience a kind of "spiritual emptiness." I envy those who seem to be bursting with spiritual life.

A No one is on a constant spiritual "high." And many devout souls are seldom "high." God often serves the cake without the "frosting." But feeling isn't as important as filling–filling yourself with God's goodness, not yours.

At Communion time we are in the closest union with Jesus. "He who eats my flesh and dr...

Tranquil peace and gratitude filled Josefa's heart, and so she went to Mass, then to Holy Communion. On returning to her place, she at once renewed the complete offering of her whole person to her good and beloved Master, definitely abandoning herself into His hands for ever. Jesus ratified the offering:

"It is on account of your nothingness and utter misery that you must let Me kindle your heart's fire, consume and destroy it. You surely know that 'nothing' and 'misery' cannot res...

Q. I am afraid of "failing" in my prayer for family healing, since I experience a kind of "spiritual emptiness." I envy those who seem to be bursting with spiritual life.

A. No one is on a constant spiritual "high." And many devout souls are seldom "high." God often serves the cake without the "frosting." But feeling isn't as important as filling–filling yourself with God's goodness, not yours.

At Communion time we are in the closest union with Jesus. "He who eats my flesh and ...

Now, I am going to let you in on a secret--the secret of my spiritual life. When I travel on the train, I say, ten, twenty "Masses of St. John" -- Masses in honor of the Blessed Trinity. There is no prayer like that. I have but three devotions: My Mass, my breviary, my Rosary. The breviary is beautiful, but you cannot compare it with the Mass. There is no prayer like the Mass. As I travel, I offer my Mass on the altar of the holy Will of God, offering it in union with the thousands ...

What greater way can a man demonstrate his love than to lay down his life for another? When a woman is pregnant she gives the child in her womb everything she has... In a greater way the Lord gives us His very self in the Mass, saying, "I gave my life for you. All I have is available to nourish you and make you healthy and strong..."

A powerful story came out in the newspapers about the 1988 Armenian earthquake that killed 50,000 people. In the collapse of an apartment building, Su...

Just at the turn of the century, there was a woman married in Paris, just a good, ordinary Catholic girl to an athiest doctor, Dr. Felix LaSeur. He attempted to break down the faith of his wife who reacted by studying her faith. In 1905 she was taken ill and tossed on a bed of constant pain until August, 1914. When she was dying, she said to her husband, "Felix, when I am dead, you will become a Catholic and a Dominican priest."

"Elizabeth, you know my sentiments. I've sworn hatred...

Let us examine more closely the culminating point of Gemma's devotion–Holy Communion–in which precisely the Mystery of the Love of Jesus is accomplished. Would that she who so often disclosed to me the secrets of her soul on this subject would now enable me to relate adequately and exactly what she then told me of the fire that the Divine Spouse enkindled in her heart at the Holy Table. It was her hunger and thirst for Holy Communion that made this young girl hover like a butter...

Covenants, treaties, major contracts are celebrated with exchange of gifts, with banqueting. God, conforming to our nature as He created it, chooses to approach us in accord with our social and business procedures and our psychological makeup. Meeting with Abraham our father in faith, God acted as one head of state approaching another, made a treaty of friendship with him, promising favors beyond Abraham's expectations, asking only that "he keep the way of the Lord by doing righteou...

St. Peter of Alcantara experienced visions of the Blessed Mother during his childhood and was known for his devotion to the cross of Christ. After his ordination as a Franciscan priest he served for a time as a confessor of St. Teresa of Avila. From the time of his first Holy Mass, he was often found in ecstasy before the tabernacle. When approaching the divine mysteries, the saint lost all consciousness of things about him and prayed as though only he and Jesus existed. On account ...

On Thursday, when I went to my cell, I saw over me the Sacred Host in great brightness. Then I heard a voice that seemed to be coming from above the Host: "In the Host is your power; it will defend you." After these words, the vision disappeared, but a strange power entered my soul, and a strange light as to what our love for God consists in; namely, in doing His will.

During this hour of prayer, Jesus allowed me to enter the Cenacle, and I was a witness to what happened there. How...

Of the apostolic men who heard directly from the disciples the truths of faith and transmitted them to us in their writings, we present, in the first place, St. Ignatius the Martyr. He is said to have been one of the fortunate children whom Jesus embraced (Mark 10: 13 ff.), though the Apostles wished to drive them away. It is certain that he was a disciple of the Apostles, and after Evodius succeeded St. Peter in the See of Antioch. Trajan condemned him to be devoured by wild beasts...

For if what I see is an image it is a living image–not a dead man but the living Christ. And He shows me that He is both Man and God–not as He was in the sepulchre, but as He was when He left it after rising from the dead. Sometimes He comes with such majesty that no one can doubt it is the Lord Himself; this is especially so after Communion, for we know that He is there, since the Faith tells us so. He reveals Himself so completely as the Lord of that inn, the soul, that it feel...

Whenever anyone is unavoidably prevented, then so long as he preserves a goodwill and holy desire for Communion, he will not lose the benefits of the Sacrament. For anyone who sincerely desires it may on any day and at any hour make unhindered a Spiritual Communion with Christ to the health of his soul. Nonetheless, on certain Feasts and at certain Seasons he ought to receive the Body of his Redeemer sacramentally with love and reverence, and seek the honour and praise of God before...

Just as in the Old Testament the promises were kept in the Ark of the Covenant, and treated with awe and reverence, so in the New Testament the womb of the Blessed Virgin would be the ark of the New Covenant and the first tabernacle of the Most High. That presence of the Messiah in his sacred humanity would continue in the Church, eventually in the tabernacle. That is why Pope John Paul II in the same Eucharistic Congress referred to the Blessed Sacrament as "the beating heart of th...

Just suppose that it was announced that Jesus would be at your parish church next Sunday at 9:30 a.m.! People would be coming from all over the country, clamoring to see Jesus or to get a glimpse of Him. People would come days beforehand and find a place to stay and begin reserving seats in the church. There would be so much commotion that you wouldn't be able to get near your church. Police, television crews, and news media would be everywhere! All to see Jesus. Well, He IS there E...

At other times, Father Victor and I would say Mass sitting on the edge of our beds across from one another. We pretended to be reading or talking softly as we said the Mass prayers. We could not use the chalice in the barracks, so our cup became a common drinking glass and our host a piece of leavened bread. If people stopped to chat, we tried to break off conversation as pleasantly and as quickly as we could and so recapture our recollection and continue our secret Eucharist. I work...

St. Francis Borgia, who joined the Jesuit order after the death of his wife, experienced such an ecstatic union of his soul with the Redeemer that frequently he would begin Mass in the morning and conclude it at Vespers (the evening hour of the Divine Office). Because of the length of his Masses, he seldom offered Mass in public.

This is crucial: as long as we pray only when and how we want to, our life of prayer is bound to be unreal. It will run in fits and starts. The slightest upset–even a toothache–will be enough to destroy the whole edifice of our prayer-life.

"You must strip your prayers," the novice-master told me. You must simplify, deintellectualise. Put yourself in front of Jesus as a poor man: not with any big ideas, but with living faith. Remain motionless in an act of love before the Fathe...

Although the precise subject of this book is not the sacrifice of the Mass, it is impossible not to speak of the Mass when we speak of the Eucharist as Sacrament. The Sacrament and Sacrifice of the Eucharist are inseparable. The Real Presence of Christ in the Host is the necessary and immediate consequence of transubstantiation. But the purpose of transubstantiation is first of all to make Christ present on the altar in a state of sacrifice or immolation, by the separate consecratio...

I had sought and obtained permission from my superior and spiritual director to make a Holy Hour from eleven PM until midnight every Thursday and Friday night. While I was alone one night, I knelt near the altar rail in the middle of the Chapel, and then prostrate, I prayed the Angel's prayers. (Jacinta and Francisco were in heaven ten years at this date.) Feeling tired, I then stood up and continued to say the prayers with my arms in the form of the Cross. The only light was that o...

"When she was sacristan, she occupied for a time a place in choir from which she could not see the altar, having given hers up to a Sister who was tormented with scruples when she heard Mass without enjoying that consolation. One day as she was watching to ring the bell for the Elevation, she saw the Infant Jesus above the chalice,–O how beautiful! She thought herself in heaven. She was about to leap through the grate to get at the Child when suddenly recollecting herself, she excl...

I am the sorrowful Mother of the Eucharist. With the Church, Triumphant and Suffering, which palpitates around the center of love, which is the eucharistic Jesus, the Church Militant should also be gathered together; you should all gather together, my beloved sons, religious and faithful, in order to form, with heaven and purgatory, an unceasing hymn of adoration and praise.

Instead, today, Jesus in the tabernacle is surrounded by much emptiness, much neglect and much ingratitude. ...

Francis considered it an almost unpardonable sin to miss Mass voluntarily; he received Holy Communion very often "and with such devotion that he enkindled the souls of others... he was as it were spiritually inebriated, and frequently wrapt in ecstasy." One day a rather worldly friend asked him: "Father what do you do during those long hours before the Blessed Sacrament?" "My son in return I ask you what does the poor man do at the rich man's door, the sick man in presence of his ph...

As I was preparing this booklet, I began to see how this same word can apply to the faith crisis people experience concerning the Eucharist. Each and every person must ponder this word concerning Eucharist: EITHER JESUS IS TRULY PRESENT OR HE IS NOT. IF HE IS PRESENT, THEN HE REALLY IS. Then in faith affirm this word; I believe that Jesus is really present in the Eucharist. In fact this helped my faith in the Eucharist to grow. It is really a simple matter; we need to ask God to inc...

St. Basil and St. John Chrysostom testify to having seen at the time of Mass, or when the Blessed Sacrament was exposed, many hosts of Angels in human form, clothed with white garments and standing round the altar as soldiers stand before their king. But what was their attitude and deportment? Their heads were bowed, their faces covered, their hands crossed, and the whole body so profoundly inclined as to express the deepest sense of their own unworthiness to appear before the Divine...

Such tremendous graces had to bear fruit and it was abundant. To be good became natural and pleasant for us. At first my face often betrayed the struggle I was having, but gradually spontaneous self-sacrifice came easily. Jesus said: "If ever a man is rich, gifts will be made to him, and his riches will abound." For every grace I made good use of, He gave me many more. He gave Himself to me in Holy Communion far oftener than I should have dared to hope. I had made it a rule to go ver...

With first Communion, Zoe put aside the things of a child in piety and devotion. From this time on, she went after her spiritual advancement in dead earnest, with order and system. In spite of the mountain of duties piled upon her young shoulders, she set aside certain fixed times for prayer. The most important of these times was the early morning, and her prayer then the greatest of all, the holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

Zoe began to attend Mass daily and to receive Holy Communion ...

As the Feast of St. Michael approached, St. Gertrude prepared herself for Holy Communion by meditating on the care which the angels had of her, by the Divine command, notwithstanding her unworthiness; and as she desired to render some return to them, she offered in their honor the life-giving Body and Blood of Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament, saying: "I offer Thee this most august Sacrament, O most loving Lord, for Thy eternal glory, in honor of the princes of Thy kingdom, and for ...

The Spirit directed Christ throughout his life. Conceived by the Holy Spirit, Jesus was a "beloved Son" in whom the Father was "well pleased." At Jesus' baptism, the Spirit anointed him, "ordained" him for his redemptive mission. "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; he has sent me to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives, sight to the blind, and release to prisoners." Christ, "full of the Spirit," reversed the work of Satan by his miracles–casting out devils, ...

You know that you had gone to the church at dawn to hear Mass, and that before that the devil had been tormenting you. You went to stand at the altar of the crucifix, though the priest had come out to Mary's altar. You stood there considering your sinfulness, fearing that you might have offended me while the devil had been troubling you. And you were considering also how great was my charity that I should have made you worthy to hear Mass at all, since you considered yourself unworth...

... The Apostles proclaimed that they were giving the Body and Blood of the Savior at His express command... St. Paul wrote (eight years after St. Matthew wrote his Gospel) a letter to the Christian converts at Corinth: 1 Cor 10: 16, "The chalice of benediction, which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? And the bread, which we break, is it not the partaking of the body of the Lord?" 1 Cor 11: 23-29, "For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered un...

The thought of the presence of God and the spirit of worship will in all my actions have as their immediate object Jesus, God and man, really present in the most holy Eucharist. The spirit of sacrifice, of humiliation, of scorn for self in the eyes of men, will be illuminated, supported and strengthened by the constant thought of Jesus, humiliated and despised in the Blessed Sacrament.

It will be sweet to abase myself and be ashamed, when I am one with the divine Heart, so ill-trea...

Appearing to St. Margaret Mary Jesus solemnly declares the unspeakable love of his heart, and says, "My divine heart is so passionately in love with men, and with you in particular, that not being able to contain in itself any longer the flames of its ardent charity, it must pour them out through you... Behold this heart which has loved men so much, which has spared nothing, going so far as to exhaust itself and consume itself in order to show them its love... " Christ is thinking, ...

In celebrating the Eucharist, we follow the command of Christ to "do this in memory" of him (Luke 22:19), and the way in which we memorialize this experience is by "proclaiming the death of the Lord until he comes" (I Cor. 11:26).

It is precisely in this memorialization of Christ's death that we acknowledge that he has entered into the abode of the dead: "He descended into hell" (Hades–abode of the dead). By his own death he has a special access to the dead to draw them to himsel...

The Lord's Supper, to which the Virgin leads us in order that we may partake of her joy, is renewed every morning. The table is always set, the Bread always offered. The Christian makes his way to eternity from Communion to Communion. At each stage in the journey, Christ is waiting for him in order that he may renew his strength and take heart again.

But let us take care not to allow too much time to elapse between these stages. Long before the grace of a Communion has grown weak in...

His physical life was a mystery. No man could have survived as long as he did, without eating, without taking care of himself, losing a lot of blood every day, and exhausting himself in hard work for many, many years.

It was the eucharistic Bread, on which he fed every day, which gave him health and vigor.

Holy communion was life for Padre Pio, a fusion of hearts, a source of joy and happiness.

The 21st of March, 1912, he wrote to Padre Agostino of San Marco in Lamis: "Only God k...

On another occasion, when she was about to communicate and perceived that many were abstaining from it for different reasons, she rejoiced in spirit and being touched to the heart, said to God: "I give Thee thanks, my most loving Love and my God, that Thou hast placed me in this happy state, in which neither my relations nor any earthly consideration can prevent me from approaching Thy banquet of delights." To which the Lord replied, with His usual sweetness: "Since you have declare...

It is to be noted that there is no such thing as Communion without a sacrifice. Just as we cannot have the natural communion of eating, unless vegetables have been torn up from their roots and subjected to fire, and animals have been subjected to the knife and slain, and then submitted to purgation, so neither can we have Communion with Christ unless there is first a death. That is why the Mass is not just a Communion service; it is a sacrifice which ends in communion. Communion is ...

The efficacy of his prayers is strikingly shown in the conversion to the Catholic faith of a Lutheran prince, John Frederick, Duke of Brunswick. While visiting the principal courts of Europe, in the year 1649, the prince, then twenty-five years of age, came from Rome to Assisi expressly to see Joseph, of whose fame he had heard in Germany. On his arrival at the monastery, he (along with two of his retainers) was given lodging... and was led next morning to the door of the chapel, w...

When Ramirus, King of Spain, had been fighting a long time against the Saracens, he retired with his soldiers to a mountain to implore the assistance of Almighty God. While he was at prayer, St. James the Apostle appeared to him and commanded him to make all his soldiers go to Confession and Communion the day following and then to lead them out against their enemies. After all had been done that the Saint commanded, they again had an engagement with the Saracens and gained a complete...

When Cyprian (c. 200-258), a pagan rhetorician, was converted to Christianity in 248, who would have thought that within the compass of a decade he would have left so significant a mark on the life not only of the church in Africa but also on that of all subsequent centuries of the Christian Church? For within this short span, which comprised his pastoral ministry as a priest and bishop and, indeed, almost the entire extent of Cyprian's Christian life, his teaching became recognized ...

Sometimes I think that those who have never been deprived of an opportunity to say or hear Mass do not really appreciate what a treasure the Mass is. I know, in any event, what it came to mean to me and the other priests I met in the Soviet Union; I know the sacrifices we made and the risks we ran in order just to have a chance to say or hear Mass. When we were constantly hungry in the camps, when the food we got each day was just barely enough to keep us going, I have seen priests p...

The great personal devotion of the Cure himself was his devotion to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. He knew that love for the Blessed Sacrament was the most powerful means of renewing the heart of a parish. He inspired his people, mostly by personal example, often to make visits. The school teacher, Mr. Pertinand, testified, "I cannot recollect a single occasion when, on entering the church, I did not find someone or other in adoration." Such was the devotion to the Blessed Sacramen...

Born around 350 and dying in exile from his See, Constantinople, in 407, John Chrysostom, contemporary of Ambrose and Augustine, is the great figure of the Eastern Church in the fourth century. His doctrine on the Eucharist was marked by its very realistic references to the Presence of Christ in the Sacrament and to his many references to the sacrificial nature of the Lord's Supper. His words on the theme are abundant. Typical of them are the following from his Homily 82 on the Gosp...

Beloved sons, in these present times the darkness has alas obscured even the tabernacle; around it there is so much emptiness, so much indifference, so much negligence. Each day, doubts, denials and sacrileges increase. The Eucharistic Heart of Jesus is wounded anew by his own, in his own house, in the very place where He has taken up his divine dwelling in your midst.

Become again perfect adorers and fervent ministers of Jesus in the Eucharist who, through you, makes himself again...

"I will tell you My reasons for washing the feet of My apostles before the Last Supper. "In the first place I would teach souls how pure they must be to receive Me in Holy Communion. "I also wished to remind those who would have the misfortune to sin that they can always recover their innocence through the Sacrament of Penance. "And I washed the feet of My apostles with My own hands, so that those who have consecrated themselves to apostolic work may follow My example, and treat sinn...

All these thoughts on the Eucharist make it clear to us that in this Sacrament, in which He not only gives grace to us but also gives Himself, we are led to a supreme peak of spiritual fulfillment. This Sacrament is not given to us merely in order that we do something, but that we may be someone: that we may be Christ. That we may be perfectly identified with Him. Comparing the Eucharist with confirmation, St. Thomas says that confirmation brings us an increase of grace in order to ...

We cannot forget that the mystery of the Eucharist is inseparable from another reality: the role of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the life of Christ and in the life of the Church. In the Mass, Jesus entrusted to us his redeeming sacrifice. It is Mary who prepared the way for this sacrifice. Through her act of obedience, she allowed God to use her so that Christ the Redeemer might take on a human nature. Indeed the body and blood shed for us on the cross and offered on the altar were fa...

I said before that the Blessed Sacrament was the triumph of the Church over the world, of spirit over matter, of grace over nature, of faith over sight... The Blessed Sacrament is everything to us. If we wish to be all for Jesus, there is our way, there is Himself. If we desire to see how Jesus is all for us, or which is another thing, how He is all in all to us, the Blessed Sacrament is at once that double revelation. All the doctrines of the Church, creation, incarnation, grace, s...

Please come before the Blessed Sacrament... I will speak to you there.

Here, I am present in My Tabernacle, waiting for My people so that I can fill them with My peace. Pay homage to Me, your Lord...I, Who am your source of life!

Do you know that it means to be in front of the Blessed Sacrament?

It is I, Who am here. It is I, Who stands before you! It is I, Who shall grant your heart's desire. It is I, Who awaits, My dear one.

I have been waiting for so long for all to come to M...

In 1926 the terrible Masonic persecution of the Church in Mexico erupted. Fr. Maldonado continued his priestly work during the ups and downs of these tragic times, all through the intense persecution under the Mexican President Calles, and into the presidency of Cardenas.

Fr. Maldonado spent many hours prostrate before the Blessed Sacrament, praying with his arms extended in the form of a cross. Because of the persecution, there were times when he could not go out but had to stay h...

Is there any real difference between Jesus in heaven and Jesus in the Eucharist? No, it is the same Jesus. The only difference is in us. We now on earth cannot see or touch him with our senses. But that is not a limitation in him; it is a limitation in us.

We speak correctly of believing in the Real Presence. But we should grow in our understanding of what this implies.

The living, breathing Jesus Christ is in the Blessed Sacrament. This is the reality. When we speak of presence, h...

From the day he became Pope, Saint Gregory applied himself vigorously to the duties of the Church, appointing overseers to look after its secular affairs so he could devote himself to the celebration of Holy Mass where his homilies on the Gospel and the Eucharist became the talk of Rome.

He dealt with codifying rules for selecting deacons and priests to make these offices more spiritual. Until Saint Gregory's time, for example, deacons were elected not because of their spirituality...

I was celebrating Holy Mass in a private chapel in Europe. I don't know why, but a man who was scandalizing the people... was present. It was really shocking the way he acted... It was truly satanic. But the people were struck, you may be sure, when at the consecration this man fell on his knees, trembling and staring at the altar, wide-eyed, apparently seeing something astounding...

When the Mass was over, this person rushed into the sacristy... "Please, tell me, what have you be...

The center of activity and attention in most parishes is not focused on our Eucharistic Lord, but rather on social activities. "Unless the Lord built the house, they labor in vain who built it." Spiritual priorities are replaced by financial concerns. "My house is meant for a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves." In most tabernacles, Jesus is left unloved and unwanted as the world ignores the only One who can solve its problems."Take care of Me and My concerns and...

During a prayer time the week before Easter, I was amazed by how much the monstrance seemed to symbolize the Catholic Church. Like many Protestants, I had been concerned that Mary, the saints and the sacraments were roadblocks between believers and God so that to get to God, one would have to go around them. They seemed to complicate life with God unnecessarily like accretions on the sides of sunken treasures; they had to be discarded to get to what was important.

But now I could s...

At Lourdes, even Mary has stepped aside to make way for Christ. There is no place in the world where Christ in the Eucharist is more glorified. The procession of the Eucharist by candlelight is the high point of each day. Here the pilgrims are joined in faith, and all the countries of the world are united as the procession winds from the grotto to show that Jesus is the Gift of the Virgin Mary. Now she stands at the side of her Son so that He may console.

The Eucharist in our churc...

Private time spent in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament is one of the most effective ways of drawing closer to Jesus. The world is filled with noise. We all need quiet time to gather our thoughts, to speak to God and to listen to Him. If we can do this in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, we are very fortunate. Our visits should include acts of adoration, thanksgiving, reparation and petition. These can also be times for devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The Sacred Hear...

Your light shone upon me in its brilliance, and I thrilled with love and dread alike. I realized that I was far away from you. It was as though I were in a land where all is different from your own and I heard your voice calling from on high saying, "I am the food of full-grown men. Grow and you shall feed on me. But you shall not change me into your own substance, as you do with the food of your body. Instead, you shall be changed into me." (Confessions)

"Adoration has a valid and solid motive. The Eucharist, in fact, ... differs from the other Sacraments in that it not only produces grace, but permanently contains the very author of grace. When therefore the Church commands us to worship Christ hidden beneath the Eucharistic veils, and to ask him for supernatural and earthly gifts, which we always need, she manifests the living faith wherewith she believes in the presence of her Divine Spouse beneath those veils, shows forth her gr...

On the First Friday of each month, the above-mentioned grace connected with the pain in my side was renewed in the following manner: The Sacred Heart was represented to me as a resplendent sun, the burning rays of which fell vertically upon my heart, which was inflamed with a fire so fervid that it seemed as if it would reduce me to ashes. It was at these times especially that my Divine Master taught me what He required of me and disclosed to me the secrets of His loving Heart. On o...

In the person of St. Louis IX were the qualities which form a great king, a hero of romance, and a saint! With his death, the century of knights ended. One day a messenger, breathless with haste, burst in upon the king with surprising and exciting news. "Your majesty," he cried, "hasten to the Church! A great miracle is occurring there. A priest is saying holy Mass, and after the consecration, instead of the host there is visible on the altar Jesus Himself in His human figure. Everyb...

But anyone who would approach this gracious sacrament while guilty of deadly sin would receive no grace from it, even though such a person would really be receiving me as I am, wholly God, wholly human. But do you know the situation of the soul who receives the sacrament unworthily? She is like a candle that has been doused with water and only hisses when it is brought near the fire. The flame no more than touches it but it goes out and nothing remains but smoke. Just so, this soul ...

St. Bonaventure tells how Francis of Assisi "burned with love for the Sacrament of our Lord's Body with all his heart, and was lost in wonder at the thought of such condescending love, such loving condescension. He received Holy Communion often and so devoutly that he roused others to devotion too. The presence of the Immaculate Lamb used to take him out of himself, so that he was often lost in ecstasy."

Of this continuing condescension Francis says, "Every day he humbles himself j...

One of the great apparitions of Our Lady was in the Irish village of Knock. On August 21, 1879, surrounded by light, wearing a brilliant golden crown, and a long white gown covered by a dazzling white cloak, she appeared. On her right appeared St. Joseph inclining reverently towards her; on her left St. John the Evangelist, attired as a bishop and holding a book, his hand raised as if preaching. To St. John's left was an altar on which stood a lamb, surrounded by angels' wings, a sy...

Pope St. Pius X had extensive pastoral experience before being elevated to the papacy. The most glorious actions were his decrees urging the frequent reception of Holy Communion and lowering the age for First Holy Communion.

O Most sweet Jesus, who came into this world to give to all souls the life of Your grace, and who, to preserve and increase it in them, willed to be the daily Remedy of their weakness and Food for each day, we humbly beseech You, by Your Heart so burning with l...

During Mass today, I saw the Lord Jesus, who said to me, "Be at peace, My daughter; I see your efforts, which are very pleasing to Me." And the Lord disappeared, and it was time for Holy Communion. After I received Holy Communion, I suddenly saw the Cenacle and in it Jesus and the Apostles. I saw the institution of the Most Blessed Sacrament. Jesus allowed me to penetrate His interior, and I came to know the greatness of His majesty and, at the same time, His great humbling of Himsel...

You should adore our Lord Jesus Christ, who makes himself present to us on the altar, so that we might offer him the homage and adoration we owe. Pray that just as he changes the lower earthly nature of bread and wine into his body and blood he might change and transform also the sluggishness, coldness and dryness of our earthly and arid heat into the fire, tenderness and agility of the holy divine affections and dispositions of his divine and heavenly heart. Then you should remember...

The Blessed Sacrament is God. Devotion to the Blessed Sacrament is simply divine worship. Turn it which way we will, throw the light of love and knowledge now on one side of it, now on another, still the result is the same, the one inexhaustible sweet fact of the Real Presence. In the hands of the priest, behind the crystal of the monstrance, on the tongue of the communicant, now, and for a thousand times, and almost at our will and pleasure, there are the Hands and Feet, the Eyes a...

In the desert of Sinai, God's caring love supplied the only means of survival for the Chosen People; likewise, through the Holy Eucharist, Jesus has supplied us with all our needs for our journey. Like the Israelites, we need food for our journey. Each day Jesus invites us to the inexhaustible fount of nourishment in the eucharistic banquet.

Each day as we come to join our eternal High priest in celebrating the Eucharist, we are assured that we are not journeying alone, but that Je...

"I do not know," the pastor had said, "whether she will see the Saviour today." This occurs only when she has passed the night in expiatory suffering. Then she can receive an entire host, although ordinarily she swallows a small part with difficulty. The parish Mass was over now and the pastor took his time, even though his little lamb was almost passing away with longing for the sacred food. I almost felt like begging him in sympathy to hurry. First the children were dismissed in o...

Saint Tarcisius, the boy martyr of the Holy Eucharist, is called the Patron Saint of First Communicants.

It was to young Tarcisius that the Blessed Sacrament was entrusted to be carried, as inconspicuously as possible, as Holy Viaticum to imprisoned Christians who had been condemned to death.

One day when Tarcisius refused to show them what he was carrying, a band of pagan Roman ruffians attacked him and beat him with sticks before stoning him to death.

When his assailants turned...

Saint Maximilian desired to write a book on the teaching of the Church with a chapter entitled "Dogma: The Most Blessed Sacrament", perhaps eventually to be published as a booklet. He wished to write of dogma "in a popular, lively style, illustrating the doctrine with miracles attested by competent witnesses (for example, bearing on the Eucharist)". The constant demands of the apostolate did not permit him to write such a work. But in the material for a book on the Immaculate, we fi...

On 16th September, 1903, the Bishop, Monsignor Dubillard, was carrying the ostensorium. Amongst the last stretchers of the sick was one on which lay the daughter of General Clement. For seventeen years she had suffered most severe pains, and her leg, reduced to a state of inflexibility, had lesions even to the bone. Her doctor and friends said it was folly to expect a cure. Yet she would go to Lourdes. The journey was a real martyrdom. She fainted three times while being conveyed fro...

If My dear people truly recognized Me in the host, they would not be so quick to leave, and wander in their thoughts after receiving My Precious Body and Blood. It is only confirmation on how many of My people go through habitual motions and routine actions, instead of true devotion and dedication! Where is their commitment? I am committed to them. I respect them. Cannot they be loyal to true friendship? I wish to assist them and help them in their times of need. They must allow Me, ...

During those troubled times which afflicted the Church during the reign of the Emperor Frederick... bands of mercenaries paid by the Emperor as well as bands of Saracen archers swarmed like bees into the region. They destroyed castles and looted the cities.

... The infamous tribe of Saracens, thirsting for Christian blood, was ready to commit any crime or act of audacity and had already penetrated the outer wall of San Damiano and had entered the cloister. The poor ladies were over...

Father Hunolt, of the Society of Jesus, relates that two students were once discoursing together about the hour of their death. They agreed that if God would allow it, he who should die first should appear to the other to tell him how he fared in the other world. Shortly afterwards, one of them died and appeared soon after his death to his fellow-student, all shining with heavenly brightness and glory, and in answer to his inquiries, told him that by the mercy of God he was saved an...

Had you the purity of the Angels and the holiness of Saint John the Baptist, you would still be unworthy to receive or touch this Sacrament. For it is not due to any merit of his own that a man is allowed to consecrate and handle the Sacrament of Christ, and receive the Bread of Angels (Ps 78: 26) as his food. High the office, and great the dignity of a priest, to whom is granted what is not granted to Angels; for only a rightly ordained priest has power to celebrate the Eucharist an...

St. Dominic was once saying Mass in London, England, in the presence of the King and Queen and 300 other persons. As he was making the Memento for the living, he suddenly became enraptured, remaining motionless for the space of a whole hour. All present were greatly astonished, and did not know what to think or to make of it. The King ordered the server to pull the priest's robe, that he might go on with his Mass. But on attempting to do so, the server became so terribly frightened ...

The center of the spiritual life of Padre Pio was the Eucharistic Jesus. His devotion polarized around the tabernacle. Jesus, the Word Incarnate, was not distant in time and space to Padre Pio, but very close to him, living with him under the same roof, hidden under the eucharistic Species.

Hour by hour, day and night, he would linger in conversation with the Divine Inhabitant of the tabernacle. When asked where he could be found if he was not in his cell or in the confessional, he ...

Charles de Foucauld (1858-1916) was born into a French aristocratic family and after a rather dissipated life as a cavalry officer with the rank of lieutenant was filled with a sense of spiritual unrest. This led him back to the faith after his conversion by the Abbe Huvelin, an experienced spiritual director, at the church of St. Augustin in Paris. His attempts to follow a religious vocation with the Trappists proved futile. He left the order in 1897 because he sought a life of grea...

The lay faithful "consecrate the world to the Father!" The people of God really are a priestly people. The ordained, ministerial priest consecrates the bread and wine to be the Body and Blood of Christ and the lay faithful, by means of the presence of the Eucharistic body and Blood of Christ, now consecrate the world–and their lives, their families, their works and possessions. The lay faithful transform the world, that all may be divinized in Christ.

The lay faithful are charged...

When St. John Mary Vianney arrived at the obscure little village of Ars, someone said to him with bitterness, "Here there is nothing to do." "Therefore, there is everything to do," replied the Saint.

And he began immediately to act. What did he do? He arose at 2:00 A.M. in the morning and went to pray near the altar in the dark church. He recited the Divine Office, he made his meditation and he prepared himself for Holy Mass. After the Holy Sacrifice, he made his thanksgiving; then...

At the age of twelve St. Peter Julian Eymard was already making night adoration in his home from eleven to midnight on Thursday, thus fulfilling the Sacred Heart's request to St. Margaret Mary and exemplifying the truth that night adoration in the home leads to Holy Hours in church. Peter Julian's mother, we are told, was so edified when she thus discovered her boy in adoration that she did not have the heart to scold or disturb him.

"It was devotion to the Sacred Heart that saved ...

No consideration of the Eucharist of this type could omit St. Alphonsus de Liguori, the founder of the Redemptorist congregation. He wrote his well-known Visits to the Most Blessed Sacrament in 1745. They immediately inflamed the hearts of men with a love of the Eucharist. No finer work is there to prepare us for the reception of Communion, to help us in the thanksgiving, and to provide prayerful helps for those who visit the Eucharistic God each day.

St. Alphonsus tells of a Spani...

He also had many visions when he said Mass, and when he was drawing up the constitutions he had them with great frequency. He could now affirm this more easily because every day he wrote down what passed through his soul and he had it now in writing. He then showed me a fairly large bundle of writings and allowed me to read a good part of them. Most were visions that he saw in confirmation of parts of the constitutions, at times seeing God the Father, at other times all three Person...

In 1916 at Fatima an angel of peace came to Francesco, Jacinta, and Lucia. He prepared the way for the later apparitions of Mary. When he appeared the third time in dazzling beauty before the three seers, he held in his left hand a chalice, and in his right over the chalice, a host from which drops of blood could be seen falling into the chalice. Leaving the host and the chalice suspended in mid-air, he prostrated himself touching the ground with his forehead.

Then he said the foll...

A most remarkable miracle happened at Walduren in the year 1330: A priest named Otto, during the celebration of his Mass, accidentally upset the chalice after the Consecration, and the Sacred Blood was spilt upon the corporal. All at once there appeared upon the corporal the figure of Jesus Christ hanging on the cross, and around it twelve figures of the sacred head crowned with thorns and disfigured with blood. The priest was frightened almost to death and endeavored to conceal the...

Q. How does Jesus, received in Communion, become a source of healing for living and dead members of the family tree?

A. In two ways: among the living, and between the dead and living.

First, by the unifying (corporate healing) effects of his Eucharistic physical body among living members of his mystical body: "Is not the bread we break a participation in the Body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we [the living] who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf" (I...

Because of this, if we truly understood the wonder of the Eucharist, we would never miss Mass on those days when the Church asks us to be present. We go so many miles at so much inconvenience to attend a concert or a meeting or a theater presentation. And yet, the greatest of actors and singers and musicians who have ever lived are insignificant when we compare them to the living God. The moments of drama which can be portrayed on a stage are elements of lives which do not touch us ...

On the Feast of St. James the Greater, this Apostle appeared to Gertrude, adorned with the merits of those pilgrims who had visited his shrine. As the Saint was rapt in admiration thereat, she asked our Lord why this Apostle was so honored by pilgrimages, that his relics appeared even more revered than those of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul. Our Lord replied: "The fervor of his zeal for the salvation of souls has obtained this special privilege for him. As I took him away from the...

"I live in the midst of sinners that I may be their life, their physician, and the remedy of the diseases bred by corrupt nature. And in return they forsake, insult and despise Me!...

"Poor pitiable sinners, do not turn away from Me... Day and night I am on the watch for you in the tabernacle. I will not reproach you... I will not cast your sins in your face... But I will wash them in My Blood and in My Wounds. No need to be afraid... come to Me... If you but knew how dearly I love...

That night I couldn't sleep. I was very disturbed. I felt as though God were trying to tell me something. About four o'clock in the morning, I was still awake. I was turning and twisting. So, I got up and knelt at the side of the bed and said, "Jesus, what is it that you want to say to me?"

I felt the Lord saying to me, "You must make me known in the Eucharist. People are coming to you. People will come from all over looking for healing. They will say, 'Oh, if only we could get Sis...

When Elias was fleeing from Jezabel, he lay down under a tree in the wilderness and longed for death.

And he cast himself down and slept in the shadow of the juniper and behold

an angel of the Lord touched him, and said: arise and eat! He looked, and behold there was at his hand a hearth cake and a vessel of water; and he ate and drank and fell asleep again. And the angel of the Lord came a second time, and touched him and said to him: arise and eat: for thou hast yet a great way t...

The privilege of receiving the Holy Eucharist from the hands of Jesus Himself was experienced by a number of saints, including St. Laurence of Brindisi, a Capuchin, whose unusual talents and rare virtue were called upon by Pope Clement VIII for several unusual missions. One of these was his chaplaincy to the Imperial army of Prague.

With the Turks still menacing nearby Christian countries, the Imperial army of 18,000 men assembled to do battle with the Turks, who numbered 80,000. V...

On the evening of Holy Thursday the beloved Apostle John rested his head on the breast of Christ. Now Christ rests His head on the breasts of His friends, and that every day of our lives, if we so wish. On Holy Thursday we recognize the blessing of this Presence, an impression of security, as if we actually heard the Lord say: "It is I, do not be afraid."

I can still picture myself when I was a child remembering that moment of Christian history and reliving it. I can still remember...

It is sad to realize that so many believe Jesus is Present in the Blessed Sacrament and seldom visit Him. Men travel across the oceans to see ancient ruins, paintings, landscapes and celebrities, but they do not think of going into a simple church around the corner to visit the Creator of all beauty.

Man complains of his tensions, hang-ups and frustrations and for these human weaknesses he consumes bottles of pills and other remedies. He spends time and money trying to ascertain wh...

"She assisted at Mass with intense devotion. When the celebrant began: 'In nomine Patris,' etc., she contemplated Jesus on the Mount of Olives, and begged for the Faithful the grace of assisting devoutly at the Holy Sacrifice and for priests that of offering It in a manner pleasing to God; lastly, she implored Our Lord to cast upon all as gracious a look as He once cast on St. Peter...

"At the Consecration, she offered the Saviour to His Father for the whole world, chiefly for the ...

How great a difference there is between the Ark of the Covenant and its relics, and Your most holy Body with its ineffable powers: between those sacrifices of the old Law which foreshadowed the Sacrifice to come, and the true Victim of Your Body, which fulfills all the ancient rites!

Alas, why does not my heart burn within me at Your adorable presence? Why do I not prepare myself to receive Holy Communion, when the Patriarchs and Prophets of old, Kings and Princes with all their p...

During a brief period in the life of St. Bonaventure, the saint's humility sometimes prevented him from receiving the Holy Eucharist--this despite his great desire to communicate. But his fears were completely overcome one day, as is recorded in the acts of his canonization:

"Several days had passed, nor durst he yet presume to present himself at the heavenly banquet. But whilst he was hearing Mass and meditating on the Passion of Jesus Christ, Our Saviour, to crown his humility an...

Kateri Tekakwitha, the "Lily of the Mohawks," was born the daughter of a Mohawk chief and a Christian mother at Ossernenon, New York in 1656. She was baptized by a Jesuit in 1676 and moved to a Christian village. She cared for the sick and aged and took a vow of perpetual virginity. Her name, which translates, "she-who-feels-her-way-along," was so named because of her weakness of vision due to a smallpox disease. She made her first Holy Communion on Christmas day, 1677, and from tha...

On one occasion, when I was reciting the Hours with the community, my soul suddenly became recollected and seemed to me to become bright all over like a mirror: no part of it–back, sides, top or bottom–but was completely bright, and in the center of it was a picture of Christ Our Lord as I generally see Him. I seemed to see Him in every part of my soul as clearly as in a mirror, and this mirror–I cannot explain how–was wholly sculptured in the same Lord by a most loving commu...

It is with this love that you come to receive my gracious glorious light, the light I have given you as food, to be administered to you by my ministers. But even though all of you receive the light, each of you receives it in proportion to the love and burning desire you bring with you. It is just like the example I gave you of the people whose candles received the flame according to their weight. Each of you carries the light whole and undivided, for it cannot be divided by any impe...

What reasons have Catholics for believing that Our Saviour gave the Apostles His real body and blood? ... His words, both on the occasion of the promise and at the Last Supper, if taken literally, denote a true, and not a merely symbolic presence of Himself in the Holy Eucharist. He could not have expressed this more clearly or more forcibly than He did: "He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood hath everlasting life... For My flesh is meat (food) indeed, and My blood is drink i...

On February 26, 1930, Saint Maximilian celebrated Mass in the "old chapel" of Niepokalanow "according to the intentions of the Immaculate", i.e., to conquer the world through her for the Sacred Heart of Jesus; it was his last homage to the Blessed Sacrament before leaving for the Far East. During the sea voyage, at the hour of adoration in common in Niepokalanow, he united himself spiritually to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament with his heart, adoring Him from afar. He celebrated Mass ...

Once when my confessor [Father Sopocko] was saying Mass, I saw, as usual, the Child Jesus on the altar, from the time of the Offertory. However, a moment before the Elevation, the priest vanished from my sight, and Jesus alone remained. When the moment of the Elevation approached, Jesus took the Host and the chalice in His little hands and raised them together, looking up to heaven, and a moment later I again saw my confessor. I asked the Child Jesus where the priest had been during...

Why did Our Blessed Lord use bread and wine as the elements of this Memorial? First of all, because no two substances in nature better symbolize unity than bread and wine. As bread is made from a multiplicity of grains of wheat, and wine is made from a multiplicity of grapes, so the many who believe are one in Christ. Second, no two substances in nature have to suffer more to become what they are than bread and wine. Wheat has to pass through the rigors of winter, be ground beneath ...

I still remember an evening meditation on Dutch television during which the speaker poured water on hard, dried-out soil, saying, "Look, the soil cannot receive the water and no seed can grow." Then, after crumbling the soil with his hands and pouring water on it again, he said, "It is only the broken soil that can receive the water and make the seed grow and bear fruit."

After seeing this I understood what it meant to begin the Eucharist with a contrite heart, a heart broken open,...

My mother's commitment to the first Friday devotions and to the first Saturday devotions in hail, rain, and snow were a concrete, visible sign of her commitment, reverence, and fidelity to the great gift of the Eucharist. Her tender and consistent devotion to the nightly family rosary and our annual visits to Our Lady's Shrine of Monk always left me with a sense of wonder about life and what was beyond this life.

The beautiful and attractively framed picture of a priest celebratin...

In this sense I say the Eucharist makes the Church through contemplation. It is by staying still, in silence, and possibly for long periods, before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, that we perceive what he wants from us, put aside our own plans to make way for his, and let God's light gradually penetrate the heart and heal it. It's something like what happens to the trees in spring with the chlorophyll process. Green leaves sprout from the branches; these absorb certain elements from...

Mother Teresa comments on Eucharistic Adoration/Exposition: "I will tell you a beautiful thing. Up until 1973, we did not have adoration in our houses for one hour daily for each Sister as we do now. But in 1973 there was a unanimous request, 'Mother, please let us have adoration every day.'

"We have much work to do, much. So I said, 'How can we do it, we have so much work to do?' But the Sisters insisted, so we started. And to tell the truth, I have not had to change anything in t...

We would see, moreover, how true it is what Our Lord once said to St. Matilda. (Lib. 3, Revel., C. 28). "At the moment of Consecration," said He, "I come down first in such deep humility that there is no one at Mass, no matter how despicable and vile he may be, towards whom I do not humbly incline and approach, if he desires Me to do so and prays for it; secondly, I come down with such great patience that I suffer even My greatest enemies to be present and grant them the full pardon ...

The prophecy of John the Baptist, considered the last of the Old Testament prophecies, is found at the beginning of the New Testament. It is an important prophecy. John the Baptist's life and words were a direct preparation for Christ's coming... John lived in the desert, prayed, fasted and announced the arrival of the Kingdom of God. People came to him from Jerusalem and its surroundings, listened to him and were converted. He baptized them in water and at the same time told them t...

Feast of the First Roman Martyrs

St. Cyprian was martyred in the fierce persecution of Valerian, on 14th September, 258. Pope St. Stephen suffered his martyrdom in Rome in the same persecution, on 2nd August. Having been conducted, by order of Valerian, to the Temple of Mars, that he might offer sacrifice to that idol; at the prayer of the holy Pontiff, the edifice tottered, as if shaken with an earthquake, and was partly ruined; the soldiers and the guards fled in terror: and St. ...

Animated by this heavenly food, St. Lawrence braved the flames, St. Vincent the rack, St. Sebastian the shower of arrows, St. Ignatius of Antioch the fury of lions, and many other martyrs every kind of torture which the malice of the devil could invent, content if they could but return their Saviour love for love, life for life, death for death.

They embraced the very instruments of their tortures; yea, they even exulted and gloried in them. Now this was the effect of the Holy Euch...

He is thought to hail from the East (Smyrna) since he heard St. Polycarp as a boy. After studies in Rome, he became a presbyter of the church of Lyons. After fulfilling his commission of taking letters to Pope Eleutherius regarding toleration for the Montanist sect of Asia Minor, he was made bishop on his return to Lyons (c.178) to succeed the martyred Pothinus.

Iraneus' achievement in his great work Adversus Haereses–against all kinds of false teachings pervading the Church thro...

As for blessings for the soul, St. Cyril of Alexandria, Father and Doctor of the Church, wrote: "If the poison of pride is swelling up in you, turn to the Eucharist; and that Bread, which is your God humbling and disguising Himself, will teach you humility. If the fever of selfish greed rages in you, feed on this Bread; and you will learn generosity. If the cold wind of coveting withers you, hasten to the Bread of Angels; and charity will come to blossom in your heart. If you feel th...

Father Fahsel describes Therese's ecstatic Communion succinctly: "Her arms are raised and she gazes in the direction in which the Sacred Host is being held in the hands of the priest. While he says the remaining prayers she looks up with a blessed smile as if transfigured, and then down. I asked her afterwards why she did this and she answered: 'I see the Saviour as a radiant figure. Then the radiance becomes a flame which comes upon me and enters my mouth. I know nothing more, am w...

When, at the consecration, I hold the delicate host in my hands and repeat the words "He broke the bread... ," I can sense something of the sentiments that filled the heart of Jesus at that moment: how he completely gave his human will to the Father, overcoming every resistance and repeating to himself these well-known words from Scripture: "Sacrifices and offerings thou hast not desired, but a body hast thou prepared for me; Lo, I have come to do thy will, O God" (cf. Heb 10:5-9). ...

(Recorded on June 24, 1973, Feast of the Sacred Heart, Sister Agnes was in chapel. She describes in her journal):

Suddenly I saw a blinding light shining from the tabernacle. I immediately prostrated myself in adoration and when I lifted my eyes, I saw a soft light which enveloped the altar like a mist or a dense smoke in which appeared a cohort of angels turned towards the Blessed Sacrament whose pure and clear voices proclaimed "Holy, Holy, Holy." When they finished I heard a voic...

The Apostle, St. Paul, wrote, "Glorify and bear God in your body" (I Cor 6: 20). There is no time in which these words, taken literally, apply so well, as during the time immediately after receiving Holy Communion. How unfeeling it is, then, for someone to receive Communion and leave the church at once as soon as Mass is over, or as soon as he has received Our Lord! We may remember the example of St. Philip Neri, who had two altar boys with lighted candles go to accompany a man who ...

It is said of St. Aloysius Gonzaga that he used to receive Communion once a week and that he was accustomed to spend three days in preparation before it and three days in thanksgiving after it. How did he manage to do this? Was he all the time prostrated before the Altar or reading a spiritual book? Not at all; he went wherever obedience called him, quietly performing his duties and keeping his heart lifted up to God. He offered up all his actions to Jesus Christ by way of thanksgiv...

Jesus in the promise of the Eucharist points out the superiority of the bread which He is about to give them over the manna rained down from Heaven, saying, "And the bread that I will give, is My Flesh, for the life of the world." John 6: 52. The Jews understood Christ to be speaking literally and not figuratively, for they say among themselves, "How can this man give us His Flesh to eat?" John 6: 53. If Christ were talking in a figure of speech, in a metaphor, it would have been Hi...

When the Saint lay on her deathbed, she grieved that she was not able to receive the Lord in the Eucharist. She was beloved by the community, and by the priest in attendance at the end of her life. She still had a very strong will. She convinced the priest, Fr. James de Campo Reggio, to bring the Eucharist to her bedside, so that she could at least see Her Lord before she died. The priest agreed.

When he brought the Blessed Sacrament into the room, Juliana was obsessed with the des...

One must spend some time in a desert like Sinai, surrounded by the barrenness of rocks and sand, in order to appreciate more fully God's loving and providential care of his Chosen People. In the desert there was no source of food or drink. Humanly speaking, survival was impossible. The Israelites had to depend totally on God's providential love. God did not abandon them. He fed them miraculously with manna and quail. Likewise by his divine power he supplied them with water when ther...

It was over 50 years since Jesus took his place at table with the apostles for the Last Supper. At the time, Tiberius was emperor at Rome, Pontius Pilate the governor of Judea and Herod the tetrarch of Galilee (Luke 3:1). Annas and Caiaphas were the high priests (3:2). Later that night, in the courtyard of their house, Peter denied so much as knowing Jesus (22:54-62). The following morning, the opportunity to hear Jesus brought Pilate and Herod together. Weakness and contempt became ...

One evening, we had an opportunity to be at a Mass where there was a eucharistic procession at the end. I had never seen this before. As I watched row after row of grown men and women kneel and bow when the monstrance passed by, I thought, these people believe that that is the Lord, and not just bread and wine. If this is Jesus, that is the only appropriate response. If one should kneel before a king today, how much more before the King of Kings? the Lord of Lords? Is it safe not to ...

Divine Savior, while I meditate on the proofs of Your Presence under the Eucharistic veils, enlighten my mind, enkindle my heart, and inspire me with that keen and living faith which is already a vision of Your Eternal Beauty.

Jesus Christ is present in the Eucharist with His Body, His Blood, His Soul, and His Divinity. Do you want clear and convincing proof of it?

Let us cite only one example: A priest was saying Mass in a church of the town of Bolsena and, after pronouncing the...

The miracle of St. Anthony of Padua is well known. He was preaching on the truths of the faith to a large crowd in Rimini, when he was challenged by a Jew, who denied the truth of the Eucharist, saying: "You confound me by your words, because you are more learned than I am, but let us come to deeds; prove it to me by them." St. Antony accepted the challenge, and permitted the Jew to name the proof he required. A mule was kept without food for three days, and at the end of the time th...

If we love the Blessed Sacrament, and if we delight to spend our time in adoration of this tremendous mystery of love, we cannot help finding out more and more about the charity of Christ. We cannot help gaining an intimate and personal knowledge of Jesus Who is hidden under the sacramental veils. But in proportion as we grow in our knowledge and love for Him, we will necessarily grow in the knowledge of His will for us. We will come to understand more and more how seriously He means...

After Holy Communion one day He made me understand the significance of these words in the Canticle of Canticles: "Draw me: we will run after Thee to the odour of Thy ointments." So, Jesus, there is no need to say: In drawing me, draw also the souls I love. The simple words "Draw me" are enough! When a soul has been captivated by the intoxicating odour of Your ointments, she cannot run alone. Every soul she loves is drawn after her–a natural consequence of her being drawn to You.

Adoration of Christ in this sacrament of love must also find expression in various forms of eucharistic devotion: personal prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, Hours of Adoration, periods of exposition–short, prolonged and annual (Forty Hours)–Eucharistic benediction, Eucharistic processions, and Eucharistic congresses. A particular mention should be made at this point of the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ as an act of public worship rendered to Christ present in the ...

An accident in the middle of the desert paralyzed one of my legs. When the doctor arrived–eight days later–it was too late; I shall be lame for the rest of my life.

Stretched out on a mat in the cell of an old Saharan fort, I looked at the marks made by time on the mud wall, whitewashed in lime by the soldiers of the Foreign Legion. The heat made it difficult to think... I remained silent, trying mentally to take my soul beyond the compounds of my room into the little Arab-styl...

Anyone who has offered his heart to God belongs to God, and God is the Lord of his life! This is particularly clear in the giving of offerings. We offer to God, in acknowledgment and gratitude, the bread and the wine which are in fact the symbol of our suffering and efforts, our hope and our love, and of our working together with Him. These gifts are representative of us because, like all gifts, they are the symbol of those who offer them. They express our willingness to please and o...

Give me Yourself, and it is enough; nothing but You can satisfy me. Without You I cannot exist; without Your visits I cannot live. Therefore I must often approach You, and receive You as the medicine of salvation, lest if I be deprived of this heavenly food, I faint by the way. For, O most merciful Jesus, it was Yourself who, when You had been preaching to the people and healing their many diseases, said, 'I will not send them away to their homes hungry, lest they faint on the way' ...

During this retreat I have been reading St. Gregory and St. Bernard, both of them concerned with the interior life of the pastor, which must not be affected by external material cares. My day must be one long prayer: prayer is the breath of my life. I propose to recite all fifteen decades of the rosary every day, if possible in the chapel before the Blessed Sacrament, with the intention of recommending to Our Lord and to Our Lady the more urgent needs of my children in Venice and in ...

Though all the children of the Church largely incur this fault, yet more to be blamed are the unworthy and wicked priests; for by the irreverence with which they treat the blessed Sacrament the other Catholics have been drawn to undervalue it. If the people see that their priests approach the divine mysteries with holy fear and trembling, they learn to treat and receive their God in like manner. Those that so honor Him shall shine in heaven like the sun among the stars; for the glor...

In about the 700th year of Our Lord, in a monastery then named for St. Longinus, the Roman centurion who pierced the side of Christ with a lance, a priest monk of the Order of St. Basil was celebrating the Holy Mass according to the Latin Rite. Although his name is unknown, it is reported in ancient documents that he had recurrent doubts regarding transubstantiation (the change of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ). He had just spoken the solemn words of Consecration w...

Cardinal Edouard Gagnon, former president of the Pontifical Council for the Family and presently president of the Pontifical Committee for International Eucharistic Congresses, spoke at a Catholics United for Faith conference in the fall of 1993, in which he made an appeal for greater devotion to the Real Presence as a means of keeping the family together. He pointed out that Pope John Paul II is fostering belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist to "save the family." T...

St. Justin was born about 110 A.D. in Palestine. He was converted to Christianity around 135 and turned his skills as a philosopher to a defense of the Faith. In the year 150 he wrote his great Apology. Although he was not an outstanding writer (his periodic Greek style tends to use what we would call "run-on" sentences), the work is of great interest because we find in it our first extant description of the Mass as it was celebrated in Rome in the second century.

(65)... And when ...

"What made me happiest when I left the world was the thought that I would be able to go to communion often, because I had been permitted to go only rarely up to then. I would have been the happiest person in the world if I had been able to receive more often, and spend the night alone before the Blessed Sacrament. I was so unafraid that even though in most things I was very timid, I would not even think of my fears as soon as I was in this place of my delight. The eve of communion da...

It is not medieval, but biblical for a Christian to realize when considering the sacrament, that we are given the bodily Self of the Lord... that we are given the possibility of addressing ourselves in faith and love, in adoration and acceptance, to that Lord bodily present to us... It is actually plain heresy to say (in theory and hence in practice) that Jesus Christ in the Sacrament of the altar is not to be honored with an external cult of adoration... that exposition is to be re...

The Eucharist has an extraordinary potential for bringing about personal and global transformation. If ever it is vitalized into being a sacrament of communion through effective personal sharing, it can successfully challenge the comfortable cultural values most people blindly accept. If Christians ever begin to practice what Jesus has taught and exemplified when he took, blessed, broke and gave bread to be distributed, many of the world's problems would be solved at both personal a...

To a spiritual daughter, who marvelled at seeing him standing for over two hours at the altar, with his wounded and swollen feet, Padre Pio said: "I cannot get tired, because when I celebrate holy Mass I am not standing, but hanging on the cross together with Jesus, and I suffer inadequately all that Jesus suffered on the cross, as much as is possible for a human creature. The Lord has deigned to associate me with the great work of human redemption, and this despite my every demerit,...

All of these questions are very real to me; they constantly beg for an answer. Oh, yes, I have had answers, but it seems that they don't last very long in my quickly changing world. The Eucharist gives meaning to my being in the world, but as the world changes, does the Eucharist continue to give it meaning? I have read many books about the Eucharist. They were written ten, twenty, thirty, even forty years ago. Although they contain many deep insights, they no longer help me to exper...

Not only has Our Lord seen fit to speak to some of His saints from the Eucharist, but it has also pleased Him to favor certain of His saints by appearing to them within the consecrated Host. In this way He has rewarded their devotion, strengthened them in trials and crowned their virtue.

One recipient of such favors was St. Philip Neri, who is the founder of the Congregation of the Oratory. St. Philip often employed a gentle jest to veil the miracles that constantly surrounded him....

In beginning his account of the Passion of Our Lord, St. John says: "Jesus, having loved His own who were in the world, loved them to the end," which means, not that He loved them only up to death but as much as He could love them. And how did He love them? By leaving them this divine gift through which He gives Himself to us and so begins on earth the blessed union that will continue in Heaven. If you could only understand the value of one Holy Communion! A single Communion should ...

I have a friend who is impressed by what the world calls "powerful" and "successful" people. Imagine, if he had the gift of faith, how he would be attracted to the chapel to be in the presence of and be influenced by the One from Whom all power flows, the very Source of Life. In the Powerful Presence, I am made aware of my own utter powerlessness: I did not choose to live; I did not choose my parents or the Age in which I live; I cannot prolong my life here indefinitely, and I do no...

Weekly reception of the Eucharist was customary already in apostolic times. In the Didache, the faithful are admonished that, "having come together on the Lord's Day, you are to break bread and give thanks, after you have confessed your sins, so that your sacrifice might be undefiled. But anyone who is estranged from his friend should not join us, until both have become reconciled, lest your sacrifice be polluted." Equally clear is the description of the Sunday morning service given ...

During Lent of the year 1443, in Cascia, St. James of the Marches, a great preacher of his day, gave a very personal, passionate sermon on our Lord to the nuns. Rita was so taken by the sermon that she returned to the monastery and began to pray, with all her heart and soul, before a fresco of Jesus crucified. As she humbly asked for a part of His suffering on the Cross, admitting that she was unworthy to share His full Passion on Calvary, a thorn fell from the beloved head of our S...

A very beautiful experience in Hawaii shows the great and indiscriminate love of Jesus. In one of our healing services, Father Kevin walked down the aisle processing with the Blessed Sacrament. I stood at the microphone praying for healing as they focused on Jesus. A young Catholic woman had brought a Mormon friend with her. The Mormon girl had deformed hands. They had hoped we would pray with the girl. To their great surprise we were not praying individually with people, but we bro...

St. Bernardine of Siena remarks that men remember more continually and love more tenderly the signs of love which are shown to them in the hour of death. Hence it is the custom that friends, when about to die, leave to those persons whom they have loved some gift, such as a garment or a ring, as a memorial of their affection. But what hast Thou, O my Jesus, left us, when quitting this world, in memory of Thy love? Not, indeed, a garment or a ring, but Thine own body, Thy blood, Thy s...

Let no one, therefore, approach this wondrous Table without reverent devotion and fervent love, without true penitence or without remembering his redemption. For it is the pure Lamb that is eaten in the unleavened bread... Approach the Lord's Supper, the table of wholeness and holiness, child of faith, in such a way that at the end you may enter into the wedding feast of the Lamb...There we shall be filled with the abundance of God's house; then we shall behold the King of Glory and...

Recently, a priest-historian told us, the early Church would not have lasted the first hundred years if it were not for the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the strength of our Church. And yet, we were told by a theologian that the Eucharist is not necessary for our salvation. Far be it from us to doubt him, but one thing we know, it sure is necessary for our survival! We derive nourishment from the Eucharist; we derive life's blood. The Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ is food for...

St. Pascal Baylon experienced many unusual receptions of the Eucharist. As a Franciscan lay brother, Pascal served his community in a number of lowly positions. He performed many miracles–so many, in fact, that during the consistory that heard the case for his canonization, the number of miracles recounted prompted a cardinal to cry out, "The like has never been seen!"

As an adolescent, Pascal was entrusted with the care of his father's sheep. While on the mountainside, he would ...

There are so many advantages in making a holy hour in the presence of Our Lord. As He was about to suffer, Jesus Himself asked His apostles to watch one hour with Him (Matthew 26:40)...

We all need direction, focus, and a good sense of our priorities. The holy hour gives us ample opportunity to listen to God. The voice of the Spirit is a gentle one. It is not easily heard amid the clamor of daily routine. An hour spent in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament enables us to keep a b...

Since ordination in 1956, I have spent one-third of my priesthood in administration on the national or diocesan level and two-thirds of it in parish ministry. Just as the Eucharist and eucharistic people were so influential in leading me to the altar, I credit those same factors for the fact that I am still an active priest today.

Extended prayer before the reserved Presence on a regular basis, ideally each day, but actually about 90% of the time, has been an essential lifeline. Wh...

One day as St. Bernard was about to say Mass in the church of St. Ambrose at Milan, the people brought to the church a lady of high rank who had been sick for many years. She had lost her sight, her hearing and her speech, and her tongue had become so long that it protruded out of her mouth. St. Bernard, having exhorted the people to join him in praying for her, began to celebrate Mass, and as often as he made the Sign of the Cross over the Host, he made it over the sick woman also. ...

Feast of Our Lady of Fatima

On arriving at the Cova da Iria, near the holm oak, moved by some interior impulse, I asked the people to shut their umbrellas. We began to say the Rosary and shortly after we saw the reflection of the light and after that Our Lady on the holm oak.

What do you want from me?

I want to tell you to have a chapel built here in my honour. I am the Queen of the Holy Rosary. Continue praying the Rosary daily. The war is coming to an end and the soldiers will...

Active participation in the Mass, intelligent and humble reception of the Blessed Sacrament with a pure heart and the desire of perfect charity–these are the great remedies for the resentment and disunity that are spread by materialism. Here in this greatest of sacraments we can find the medicine that will purify our hearts from the contagion which they inevitably contract in a world that does not know God.

But in order to protect ourselves still more, to strengthen our position ...

Then one day, I made a "fatal blunder"–I decided that it was time for me to go to Mass on my own... I slipped quietly into the basement chapel for daily Mass. I wasn't sure what to expect... I took a seat as an observer in the back pew.

All of a sudden lots of ordinary people began coming in off the streets–rank-and-file type folks. They came in, genuflected, knelt and prayed. Their simple but sincere devotion was impressive.

Then a bell rang and a priest walked out toward the...

The Blessed Sacrament attracts the saints in certain wonderful ways: while on the other hand the saints have sometimes the power to attract the Blessed Sacrament... It is because of this that we read so often in the lives of the saints that our Lord has appeared to them in such or such a form, and most often in the guise of an infant... Our Lord appeared as a child to St. Ida three times successively, and each time greater than before, and she was deluged with joy for forty days. St....

Some narrators say it happened in 1246 and others that it took place in 1226. There lived in the village of Santarem (Portugal) a poor woman whose life was made miserable by her unfaithful husband. Weary of so much unhappiness, she decided to consult a sorceress who promised the woman that all her difficulties would disappear if she would bring her a consecrated Host. After great hesitation, the poor woman decided to commit the sacrilege. After being heard in confession at the Church...

Perhaps the most amazing phenomenon in the modern world is the existence of the perfectly incorrupt and life-like body of the holy Maronite monk, St. Charbel Makhlouf, who was born on May 8, 1828, in the village of Biqa-Kafra in the high mountains of Northern Lebanon... Having received a thorough theological education at seminaries conducted by his order, he was ordained a priest on July 23, 1859 and was assigned to the Monastery of St. Maroun, where he spent sixteen years in the pr...

The early Christians took the greatest care to conceal the doctrine as well as the celebration of the holy mysteries from pagans and even from catechumens. This was done out of reverence and awe; also as a precaution, to prevent the uninitiated and uninstructed from being present at divine worship, which could have given rise to misconceptions and brought down on them persecution. They were well aware that the teaching of the cross was unto the Jews a stumbling-block, unto the Genti...

Before his First Communion, Dominic Savio made four promises... 1) I will go often to confession and I will go to Holy Communion as often as I am allowed. 2) I will try to give Sundays and holy days completely to God. 3) My best friends will be Jesus and Mary. 4) Death, but not sin.

Don Bosco and the boys at the Oratory had been anxiously awaiting word of Dominic. His father's letter arrived; it began, "With my heart full of grief I send you this sad news. Dominic, my dear son and y...

When I grant you the grace of devotion, give thanks to God, not because you deserve to enjoy it, but because I have had mercy on you. And if you feel no devotion, but suffer dryness of soul, persevere in prayer, sigh, and knock (Matt. 7: 7; Luke 11: 9); persist until you merit to receive some crumb or drop of saving grace. You have need of Me; I have no need of you (2 Macc 14: 35.). You do not come to sanctify Me, but I come to sanctify and raise you. You come in order to be hallowe...

The patient in the first case was a man in Lisbon, Portugal, who suffered from Parkinson's disease. As the creeping paralysis rose from his lower limbs, advancing closer and closer to the heart, the patient was plunged into deep melancholy. His wife pleaded with him repeatedly to go to another Marian Shrine like Lourdes which was only ninety miles away. One day, in mockery, because he knew that, like himself, his attending physician did not believe in miracles, he said to his wife in...

We who hold faithful to what the Roman Catholic Church teaches, believe that Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, is truly present in the Most Holy Eucharist.  We believe it on the words of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who promised to give us His flesh to eat and blood to drink, at the lakeside of Galilee (John 6, 48-60), and who fulfilled that promise at the Last Supper (Matt. 26: 26-28; Luke 22: 19-20; Mark 14: 22-24; 1 Cor. 11: 23-25).  We have also the divine, infallible testimon...

It made him happy to see a group of his friars around the altar in adoration. When he showed guests about Niepokalanow, at times Germans from the highest ranks of society, he either began or ended the visit in the chapel to greet, as he explained, the Master of the house. Indicating the religious adoring the most Blessed Sacrament, he would say: "There is the most important work department in the friary."

This adoration was carried out simply before the tabernacle, except on first ...

Twelve frightened men who feel that death is hovering near crowd around the Son of Man whose hand is lifted over a piece of bread and over a cup. Of what value is this gesture, of what use can it be? How futile it seems when already a mob is arming itself with clubs, when in a few hours Jesus will be delivered to the courts, ranked among scoundrels, tortured, disfigured, laughed at by His enemies, pitiable to those who love Him, and shown to be powerless before all. However, this Ma...

And what do we ourselves offer when we offer our bodies and blood with Jesus at Mass? We offer what Jesus offered: life and death. By "body" we offer all that actually constitutes our physical life: time, health, energy, ability, sentiments, perhaps just a smile, that only a spirit living in a body can give and which is so precious at times. By "blood," we express the offering of our death; not necessarily our final death, or martyrdom for Christ or our brethren. Death means also all...

I know a TALISMAN which never fails to open the gates of Divine Mercy. I know a RIVER which will carry us into the Promised Land. I know a PALM TREE which will overshadow and shelter us from the burning heat of our earthly exile. I know a SPRING whose refreshing waters slake our thirst in the desert of this life. I know a STAR which will guide us as the pillar of cloud guided Israel, across the sandy ocean of our existence to the end of the journey. I know a DEW which God sheds from ...

Nor is the sacrament itself diminished by being divided, any more than is fire, to take an example. If you had a burning lamp and all the world came to you for light, the light of your lamp would not be diminished by the sharing, yet each person who shared it would have the whole light. True, each one's light would be more or less intense depending on what sort of material each brought to receive the fire. I give you this example so that you may better understand me. Imagine that ma...

If the Blessed Mother and St. John at the foot of the Cross had closed their eyes when Our Lord was offering Himself for the sins of the world, the spiritual effects on them would have been no different from those which we may receive as we assist at the Sacrifice of the Mass. But if their eyes were open, there would have been this difference: they would have seen the sacrifice offered in bloodshed with blood pouring from gaping holes in hands and feet and side. In the Mass, we see i...

She draws as close as she can to the altar. There she kneels, head erect, hands joined, body motionless, eyes riveted on the host or on the tabernacle door. She looks at Jesus, speaks to him, calls on him; she also keeps silent and listens to him. Her prayer is absorption in the divine. She tells her divine Master that she wants to be "a living victim"; she envies the candle on the altar which is consumed as it burns, shedding light and giving off the mystical perfume of wax; she wo...

The writings of the Fathers of the Church reveal the wonderfully pluriform nature of their reflections on the Eucharist, a plurality of approaches that highlights the many aspects of the Sacrament itself. They all worked from two apparently fundamental data of faith: the Presence of Christ himself in the Sacrament and the sacrificial aspect of the Sacrament. The Presence was the Flesh born of Mary, and so the Eucharist was to be adored. With increasing perception they mentioned and ...

If only we had the humility to realize that He alone is Goodness and makes us good. As soon as we come into His Presence in the Eucharist, our souls respond to the power before them like a sunflower turning toward the sun.

His silent Presence, hidden in the tabernacle, says to each one of us, "I love you. Come to me all you who labor and are burdened and I will refresh you. Come to the fountain of life and drink. Tell Me your problems. Listen to My voice. I tug at your heart, guidi...

"If souls but understood the Treasure they possess in the Divine Eucharist, it would be necessary to encircle the tabernacles with the strongest ramparts for, in the delirium of a devouring and holy hunger, they would press forward themselves to feed on the Bread of Angels. The Churches would overflow with adorers consumed with love for the Divine prisoner no less by night than by day." - Bl. Dina Belanger

Let us gaze upon the ardent soul of the one whom the Church now venerates as...

Pope John Paul II said that "Our essential commitment in life is to persevere and advance constantly in Eucharistic life and Eucharistic piety and to grow spiritually in the climate of the Holy Eucharist."

On December 1, 1981 Pope John Paul II began perpetual adoration in a chapel at St. Peter's and appealed with these encouraging words for all parishes to do the same: "...every member of the Church must be vigilant in seeing that this sacrament of love shall be at the center of th...

One of the great apparitions of Our Lady was in the Irish village of Knock. On August 21, 1879, surrounded by light, wearing a brilliant golden crown, and a long white gown covered by a dazzling white cloak, she appeared. On her right appeared St. Joseph inclining reverently towards her; on her left St. John the Evangelist, attired as a bishop and holding a book, his hand raised as if preaching. To St. John's left was an altar on which stood a lamb, surrounded by angels' wings, a sy...

I believe that the importance of this point of doctrine, its religious significance, is very significant... How can man, earthbound and sinful as he is, succeed in reaching the throne of God? And then the miracle occurs, God himself takes our place and fulfills the sacrifice. Even before this happened we could offer him only what we had already received from him, somewhat in the way children can only celebrate their parents' birthdays by offering flowers gathered from their father's ...

Sister Emmerich herself speaks as follows:– "I very often saw blood flowing from the cross on the Sacred Host; I saw it distinctly. Sometimes Our Lord, in the form of an Infant, appeared like a lightning-flash in the Sacred Host. At the moment of communicating, I used to see my Saviour like a bridegroom standing by me and, when I had received He disappeared, leaving me filled with the sweet sense of His presence. He pervades the whole soul of the communicant just as sugar is disso...

If there is one mystery of faith around which revolves the whole Catholic liturgy, it is the Eucharist. Christian piety has been lavish in the titles it gives to this mystery, believing it is impossible to exhaust its depth of meaning. The name "Eucharist," or thanksgiving, is to be explained either by the fact that at its institution Christ "gave thanks," or by the fact that this is the supreme act of Christian gratitude to God. Early instances of this title occur in the Teaching of...

I am a twenty-four year old mother of two who God has worked a miracle with during Mass. I had been medicated for months for a debilitating depression that I had suffered with following a number of painful life experiences. My husband is a recovering alcoholic who had been both physically and emotionally abusive. In desperation I sought to receive love from an absentee parent who I had never known; I found my father after a 24 year separation. He also was unable to fill that need fo...

During three long weeks of trial I was able to have the tremendous consolation of daily Holy Communion. How sweet it was! Jesus spoilt me for a long time, much longer than He did His more faithful brides, for, after the influenza had gone, He came to me daily for several more months and the rest of the community didn't share this joy. I had not asked for any special treatment, but I was most happy to be united each day with my Beloved. I was also allowed to handle the sacred vessels ...

On February 11, 1858, the fourteen-year-old Bernadette and two friends went to gather firewood. They stopped near the Gave River to remove their shoes and wade across the small stream. They were near a natural grotto at a place called Massabielle. The other children waded into the icy stream and ran ahead, but Bernadette hesitated for fear that the cold water might bring on another asthma attack. Suddenly, she heard the sound of rushing wind and saw a bright light near the grotto. I...

The great Cardinal Mercier, a saintly and learned theologian, used to say: "Give me a priest fully appreciating the gift of his daily Mass, preparing it well, offering it devoutly, living the grace of his Mass; I tell you, this priest will be ready for canonization when he dies." I apply this statement to the faithful: Give me a Catholic fully realizing the doctrine of the Mass, really and truly living the grace of daily Mass, and I, too, will show you someone who will be a saint at ...

There is a parish in Ottawa, Canada, where a priest was appointed. He had tried everything to attract people to church. Yet, the church was almost empty. There were only 20-30 people at Mass on Sunday. But the priest did not get discouraged. He invited those few people to Perpetual Adoration. He told them that we suffer because our brothers and our children are not here. So, let's do something! Let's have Eucharistic Adoration! So, they started that. After three years the small commu...

The founder of the Order of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (Redemptorists), St. Alphonsus Liguori (d. 1787), was often rapt in ecstasy before the Blessed Sacrament and was frequently heard to exclaim, "O my God, my Love, O everlasting Love, I love Thee!" It is said that no other saint visited Jesus in the Eucharist as often as did St. Alphonsus. He encouraged frequent visits to the Blessed Sacrament and even wrote a treatise called Visits to the Most Holy Sacrament of th...

We read in the lives of different Saints, that as sometimes they were unable to go to the Church for Holy Communion, God made use of an angel, who, to satisfy their hunger for the Blessed Eucharist, acted instead of the priest and took the consecrated species to them. It appears that Our Savior Himself willed to take this great gift to Gemma; and that happened quite three times. Here is how it is told us by one who was an eyewitness: "On the morning of the Friday on which dear Gemma ...

The real light that led me to my Catholic home was the doctrine of transubstantiation–the change of the substance of the bread and wine into the substance of the body and blood of Our Lord at the consecration in the Mass. That is the doctrine which has proved a stumbling block and a rock of offence to so many souls. It has been mocked, derided and denounced by so many of the wise men of the world, as unreasonable, unphilosophical, a denial of the evidence of the senses and as alto...

"The Blessed Sacrament is the invention of Love. It is life and fortitude for souls, a remedy for every fault, and viaticum for the last passage from time to eternity. In it sinners recover life for their souls; tepid souls true warmth; fervent souls, tranquility and the satisfaction of every longing... saintly souls, wings to fly towards perfection... pure souls sweet honey and rarest sustenance. Consecrated souls find in it a dwelling, their love and their life. In it they will se...

Two sacrifices of the Old Law were, before all others, representative of the Sacrifice of the Divine Redeemer. The first is that of Abraham, who, in obedience to God's command, offers his son Isaac as a holocaust; but God accepts his good-will, and spares the life of Isaac. The second very celebrated example, also in the time of Abraham, and more nearly figurative of the Eucharist, is the sacrifice of Melchizedek, king of Salem (Jerusalem).

Abraham was returning victorious, and bea...

I often see the Child Jesus during Holy Mass. He is extremely beautiful. He appears to be about one year old. Once, when I saw the same Child during Mass in our chapel, I was seized with a violent desire and an irresistible longing to approach the altar and take the Child Jesus. At that moment, the Christ Child was standing by me on the side of my kneeler, and He leaned with His two little hands against my shoulder, gracious and joyful, His look deep and penetrating. But when the pr...

One who thirsted eagerly for God was Charles de Foucald whose prodigal and shocking way of life provoked so much gossip in Paris that he was the butt of violent feelings and jokes among French soldiers.

Born September 15, 1858, of fabulous wealth, at one point of his shady life he stated: "I was so completely selfish, so completely vain, so completely irreligious, and utterly given over to wickedness, that I was only one step away from insanity."

God seemed to him to be infinitely...

When, in the thirteenth century, the Waldenses and Albigenses... spread false doctrines concerning the Blessed Sacrament, divine Providence ordained that, in opposition to these errors, a public profession of faith should be made by all Christendom. The will of God was made known to an obscure and pious religious named Juliana who lived near Liege. This humble and devout person had been privileged to behold in her lifetime heavenly mysteries... In a vision she saw the full moon in i...

Today everything which concerns the Sacred Heart of Jesus has become familiar and doubly dear to me. My life seems destined to be spent in the light irradiating from the tabernacle, and it is to the heart of Jesus that I must look for a solution of all my troubles. I feel as if I would be ready to shed my blood for the cause of the Sacred Heart. My fondest wish is to be able to do something for that precious object of my love. At times the thought of my arrogance, of my unbelievable ...

When Christ promised that He would give His very Flesh to eat, the Jews protested because they imagined a natural and cannibalistic eating of Christ's Body. Christ refuted this notion of the manner in which His Flesh was to be received by saying that He would ascend into Heaven, not leaving His Body in its human form upon earth. But He did not say that they were not to eat His actual body. He would thus contradict Himself, for a little earlier He had said, "My flesh is meat indeed an...

When Elizabeth Seton returned to New York she attended her own church as usual, but chose a side pew which faced the Catholic church opposite. She records that she constantly found herself speaking to the Blessed Sacrament there "instead of looking at the naked altar where I was, or minding the routine of prayers."

Later after she had become a Catholic, she burned with faith at no time more strongly than when she was about to receive Communion.

She wrote: "God is everywhere, in th...

We must start practicing what we have said as soon as we come out from Mass. We must really make the effort, each one within his or her own limits, to offer our "bodies" to our brethren, and that is to say, our time, energy and attention–in a word, our lives. When Jesus had pronounced the words: "Take... this is my body; take... this is my blood," he didn't allow much time to pass before doing what he had promised: a few hours later he gave his life and blood on the Cross. Otherwi...

O how unspeakable is this sacrament which sets the affections ablaze with the fire of charity and sprinkles our home's lintel, on both doorposts [lips], with the immaculate Lamb's blood! What wholesome provision for our dangerous journey we receive in this food! What strengthening manna enriches the traveller! It invigorates the weak, brings back health to the sick; it increases virtue, makes grace abound, purges away vices, refreshes the soul, renews life in the languid, binds toge...

I remember how, in the days of my youth, when I read and re-read the words of St. Paul, "By the grace of God, I am what I am," I thought what a gloriously bold and upright man he was, and how courageous. For I placed all of the emphasis on the words, "I am what I am,'" much in the spirit of Henley's "I am the captain of my soul, I am the master of my fate." I did not emphasize, as I should have, the words "by the grace of God." It is these words that I now emphasize. I give thanks to...

Our Lord is in the Blessed Sacrament to receive from men the same homage he received from those who had the happiness of coming close to him during his mortal life. He is there to give everybody the opportunity of offering a personal homage to his sacred humanity. Were this the only reason for the Eucharist it should make us very happy; for the Eucharist enables us as Christians to pay our respects to our Lord in person. This presence is the justification of public worship as well a...

There was a worker from Belgium with a piece of bone missing in his leg, so that his ankle and foot dangled, suspended only by flesh and tendons, able to be turned a hundred and eighty degrees. When the Eucharist was raised over him in blessing, that missing bone was instantly created in his leg. The doctors had before-and-after x-rays. When the man died, an autopsy showed where the new bone had come to unite with the separated bone. The full documentation and x-rays can be seen at ...

After Holy Communion, the child had a vision in which she assisted at the Sacred Mysteries in the Catacombs in company with St. Cecilia.

"I knelt," she said, "in a subterranean hall which seemed to be cut out in a mountain. Many people were kneeling around on the bare ground. Flambeaux were fastened to the wall, and there were two upon the stone altar which had a tabernacle, likewise of stone, and a door. A priest was saying Mass, all the people answering. At the end of it he took a...

Father Leloir was interned at Buchenwald, where at 6 p.m. each day the prisoners and deportees were lined up for inspection by the S.S. troops. On the evening of August 23, 1944, Father Leloir had carefully concealed on his person a small white envelope containing six consecrated Hosts, which he intended to distribute secretly among his comrades. The presence of the Blessed Sacrament on the person of the priest was known to several fellow-prisoners.

Consternation filled all when the s...

O my daughter! Would that the believers in the holy Catholic faith opened their hardened and stony hearts in order to attain to a true understanding of the sacred and mysterious blessing of the holy Eucharist! If they would only detach themselves, root out and reject their earthly inclinations, and, restraining their passions, apply themselves with living faith to study by the divine light their great happiness in thus possessing their eternal God in the holy Sacrament and in being abl...

One day, having a little more leisure... I was praying before the Blessed Sacrament, when I felt myself wholly penetrated with that Divine Presence, but to such a degree that I lost all thought of myself and of the place where I was, and abandoned myself to this Divine Spirit, yielding up my heart to the power of His love. He made me repose for a long time upon His Sacred Breast, where He disclosed to me the marvels of His love and the inexplicable secrets of His Sacred Heart, which ...

Sacrifice is necessary in our lives if we want to realize the tenderness of God's love. Sacrifice is his love in action. God sent Jesus to teach us this love. And you will find out in your own life. Have you ever experienced the joy of loving? Have you ever shared something with the sick, with the lonely, together making something beautiful for God. This is something that has to come from within us. That is why Jesus made himself the Bread of Life–to create that in our life. If it is...