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"The time you spend with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is the best time you will spend on earth. Each moment that you spend with Jesus will deepen your union with Him and make your soul everlastingly more glorious and beautiful in Heaven, and will help bring about everlasting peace on earth,"
- Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta
"I adore and venerate you as much as ever I can, though my love is so cold, my devotion so poor. Thank you for the good gift of this your holy Body and Blood, which I desire to receive...,"
- St. Anselm (Archbishop and Doctor of the Church)
"When I was in Church waiting for confession, I saw the same rays (that is, as those depicted on the revealed image of the Divine Mercy) issuing from the monstrance and they spread throughout the church. This lasted all through the service. After the benediction (the rays came forth) on both sides and returned again to the monstrance. Their appearance was bright and clear as crystal. I asked Jesus that He deign to light the fire of His love in all souls that were cold. Beneath these rays a heart will be warmed even if it were like a block of ice; even if it were as hard as rock, it will crumble into dust,"
- St. Faustina Kowalska
Meditation of St. Francis of Assisi Let everyone be struck with fear,
the whole world tremble,
and the heavens exult
when Christ, the Son of the living God,
is present on the altar in the hands of a priest!
O wonderful loftiness
and stupendous dignity!
O sublime humility!
O humble sublimity!
The Lord of the universe,
God and the Son of God,
so humbles Himself
that He hides Himself
for our salvation
under an ordinary piece of bread!See the humility of God, brothers,
and pour out your hearts before Him!Humble yourselves that you may be exalted by Him!
Hold back nothing of yourselves for yourselves,
that He Who gives Himself totally to you
may receive you totally!
"My soul, if you wish to penetrate the depths of this Mystery, your gaze must be illumined by Love! You need to see and understand! Contemplate the Last Supper: see Jesus Who knows that He will soon be separated from the body of His humanity, and yet wishing to be united to us forever; contemplate the Love by which He institutes this Sacrament which permits Him to be corporeally and forever united to mankind. O Inextinguishable Love! O Love of Christ! O Love of the human race! What a true Furnace of Love! O Jesus, You already saw the death which awaited You; the sorrows and atrocious tortures of the Passion were already breaking Your Heart, and yet You offered Yourself to Your executioners, and permitted them, by means of this Sacrament, to possess You forever as an Eternal Gift, O You, Whose delights are to be with the children of men!
"O my soul, how can you refrain from plunging yourself ever deeper and deeper into the love of Christ, who did not forget you in life or in death, but who willed to give Himself wholly to you, and to unite you to Himself forever?"
- St. Angela Foligno
"Mary's adoration was profound, interior, intimate. It was the gift of herself. She offered her whole self to the service of love of the Eucharistic God. For love lays down no conditions, makes no reservations; it thinks no longer of self, lives no longer for self; it is a stranger to itself and lives only for the God which it loves. Everything in Mary was directed to the Blessed Sacrament as Its center and end. A current of grace and love established itself between the Heart of Jesus-Hostia and the heart of Mary-Adoratrix. These hearts were like two flames blended into one. God was then perfectly adored by His creature,"
- St. Peter Julian Eymard
When his excellency, Bishop Ott, spoke to Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, he asked her "how she got so many women to join her religious order". She explained: "We were just like other religious congregations with few vocations. Then at our chapter in the 1970s we made a decision to have a holy hour in all our convents each evening. Many blessings resulted from this Holy Hour the Bishop witnessed, for Blessed Mother Teresa continued, "We began to see more clearly our mission to serve the poor in Christ’s name. We began to live a more fruitful family life among ourselves. We experienced double the number of vocations in our congregation. And we grew personally in our intimacy with the Lord present in the Eucharist." The Bishop is "confident" that this will occur in his diocese too.
- "Bishop’s Notebook", Stanley Joseph Ott, Bishop of Baton Rouge, "The Catholic Commentator", August 5, 1992, p. 4
..."The great and generous thoughts of Catholic heroism are conceived, or rather inspired, at the altar where the Adorable Sacrament reposes; there, depend upon it, in silent prayer the noble damsel in heart rejects the world and its vanities, and plights her troth to the Spouse of her chaste heart; there the young ecclesiastic, bowing in meditation calm and sweet, muses on the triumphs of his schoolmates over the swords and red-hot pincers of Tonquin, and resolves to share in their crown of martyrdom; there whatever is planned for the Church of God that requires zeal and persevering energy is matured and resolved."
- A Victorian reflection from the writings of Cardinal Nicholas Patrick Wiseman (1802-1865) on the Blessed Sacrament & Catholic Heroism
"O inestimable charity! Even as You, true God and true Man, gave Yourself entirely to us, so also You left Yourself entirely for us, to be our food, so that during our earthly pilgrimage we would not faint with weariness, but would be strengthened by You, our celestial Bread. O man, what has your God left you? He has left you Himself, wholly God and wholly Man, concealed under the whiteness of bread. O fire of love! Was it not enough for You to have created us to Your image and likeness, and to have recreated us in grace through the Blood of Your Son, without giving Yourself wholly to us as our Food, O God, Divine Essence? What impelled You to do this? Your charity alone. It was not enough for You to send Your Word to us for our redemption; neither were You content to give Him us as our Food, but in the excess of Your love for Your creature, You gave to man the whole divine essence..."
- St. Catherine of Siena
Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration
At St. John Fisher Seminary in Stamford, Connecticut there is a Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration chapel. According to the rector, Rev. Stephen M. DiGiovanni, the reason for beginning Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration was to "encourage young men of the community to find a vocation to the priesthood." The enrollment at the seminary rose 50 percent within the first year that the chapel was founded.
DOUBLES VOCATIONS- "Worshipers find solace in perpetual chapel", Robin Denaro, "Connecticut Post", Saturday, January 6, 1998, C2
Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration
Bishop John Magee of Cloyne in Eire, Ireland reports that vocations to the priesthood in his diocese have tripled since he started Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration. In 1990 there were 16 seminarians and by 1993 the number had risen to 45.
TRIPLES VOCATIONS- "By Your Fruits", Dr. J. F. Boyle. "The Link", January 1996
"Mary adored Jesus as the Bridegroom of souls. Union is the final purpose of love. Jesus by the gift of His substance in the Eucharist unites Himself with our souls as with His dear spouses. As a Bridegroom, He gives them all His possessions, His name, His heart, His whole Self, but on the condition that the soul reciprocates. The soul, His spouse, shall live for Him only,"
- St. Peter Julian Eymard
Jesus described the good shepherd as the one who does not run away but stays with his flock. In the Blessed Sacrament "Christ is truly the Emmanuel, that is: ‘God is with us’. Day and night He is in our midst, He dwells with us full of grace and truth." (Mysterium Fidei)
He said: "I Myself am the Bread of life." We pray "My Shepherd" because His love is a personal love. Though He loves everyone with an infinite love, He loves you as if your were the only one in the world. The Blessed Sacrament is Jesus, the Good Shepherd, who is present before you for no other reason than that He loves you. He is here to draw you closer to Himself, to deepen the love and friendship you have together with Him. This individual, personal love is described by Pope John Paul II when he said "Jesus waits for us in this Sacrament of Love."
Because He gives us all we need, "there is nothing I shall want." What He inspires in us is to want only Him and His holy Will. In this way, we "repose" in the divine love of His Eucharistic Heart.
The "fresh and green pastures" are the new graces He nourishes our spirit with. Leading us to the Blessed Sacrament, He invites us to drink from "restful waters," the springs of salvation, flowing from His everlastingly glorious wounds, by which we are continually being healed.
In the Blessed Sacrament "He restores morality, nourishes virtues, consoles the afflicted, strengthens the weak." (Mysterium Fidei)
"He is true to His Name" means He is always faithful to us and all the promises He made to us.
No evil to fear is a call to faith that God is in control of everything. Out of any evil allowed, He only brings a greater good. His staff is the strength He gives us in this Sacrament. He is infinitely more powerful than all the onslaught of hell put together.
The "banquet" is Jesus Himself who said "I Myself am the Bread of life." Divine love is the food He serves us. The grace-filled love, peace and joy He offers us when we come before Him in the Blessed Sacrament was prepared for us on Calvary. Holy Thursday goes together with Good Friday, as the Eucharist is the gift of our Lord’s Passion. Like wheat crushed before coming bread, Jesus was crushed on the cross to become our spiritual nourishment, suffering torment to give us comfort, rejection to fill us with love, dying in darkness to bring us the light of hope, opened by a lance to pour out His peace.
An overflowing cup signifies that our Lord gives us incomparably more than we ask for, even though we may not always feel it. Whatever sacrifice we have made to come to make our holy hour, cannot in any way compare to what we receive now and in eternity.
"Goodness and kindness" describe the very name and personality of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, Who dwells with us "all the days of our life." For this reason, our desire is to remain with Him "in the Lord’s own house."
- from the Book "Come to Me in the Blessed Sacrament"
You loved me from all eternity,
therefore you created me.
You loved me after you had made me,
therefore you became man for me.
You loved me after you became man for me,
therefore you lived and died for me.
You loved me after you had died for me,
therefore you rose again for me.
You loved me after you had risen for me,
therefore you went to prepare a place for me.
You loved me after you had gone to prepare a place for me,
therefore you came back to me.
You loved me after you came back to me,
therefore you desired to enter into me and be united to me.
This is the meaning of the Blessed Sacrament.
The mystery of love.- Archbishop Goodier
"It has been said, and rightly so, that between contemplation and adoration there is so close a union, so mutual a relationship, that they cannot be separated. We adore while contemplating and we contemplate while adoring. The saints in heaven live in perpetual adoration, because their joy is derived from eternal contemplation. On earth, where in some manner we must imitate the life of heaven, Christian devotion has striven to make the Sacred Host the center of perpetual contemplation and adoration, as far as human frailty permits. And both adoration and contemplation have called for perpetual exposition of the Blessed Sacrament.
"The Sacred Host perpetually exposed on its Eucharistic throne, and, before it, day and night, loving souls in adoration and contemplation! Is this not truly heaven on earth?,"
- from "The Holy Eucharist" by Jose Guadalupe Trevino
"Adoration will heal our Church and thus our nation and thus our world... Adoration touches everyone and everything... [because it touches the Creator, Who touches everything and everyone]... When we adore, we plug into infinite dynamism and power. Adoration is more powerful for construction than nuclear bombs are for destruction,"
- Peter Kreeft, philosopher at Boston College
"I believe that today we are entering into the reign of the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus. In the midst of the winter in the world and even in the Church today innumerable little shoots are sprouting up through the snow. These shoots are chapels of Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration growing up around the world... I encourage you to soak up the healing rays of the Sun of Justice and do all you can to promote Perpetual Adoration,"
- Rev. Harold F. Cohen, S.J.
"O loving, tender Word of God, You tell me: ‘I have marked the path and opened the gate with My Blood; do not be negligent in following it, but take the same road which I, eternal Truth, have traced out with My Blood.’ Arise, my soul, and follow your Redeemer, for no one can go to the Father but by Him. O sweet Christ, Christ-Love, You are the way, and the door through which we must enter in order to reach the Father."
"O unfathomable depth! O Deity eternal! O deep ocean! What more could You give me than to give me Yourself?"
- from the writings of St. Catherine of Siena on the Blessed Sacrament
"The Eucharist had so powerful an attraction for the Blessed Virgin that she could not live away from It. She lived in It and by It. She passed her days and her nights at the feet of her Divine Son... Her love for her hidden God shone in her countenance and communicated its ardor to all about her.
"O Mary! teach us the life of adoration! Teach us to see, as thou didst, all the mysteries and all the graces in the Eucharist; to live over again the Gospel story and to read it in the light of the Eucharistic Life of Jesus. Remember, O our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament, that thou art the Mother of all adorers of the Holy Eucharist,"
- St. Peter Julian Eymard
"A Mass said by Padre Pio is as effective as a missionary journey," said Pope Paul VI, because of Padre's great love for Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament.
Padre Pio himself said, "It would be easier for the world to exist without the sun than without the Holy Mass," and "At times during the Mass I am consumed by the fire of Divine Love. My face seems to burn."
"In the Blessed Sacrament
God loves us so tenderly,
He empties Himself completely.
O, who could believe it?
Withholding nothing, He gives his all.
He gives his flesh for us to eat
He gives his blood for us to drink.
He gives his soul, his infinite being
To transform us into Himself.
Praised be the Blessed Sacrament!"- St. Louis de Montfort (Hymn No. 30, 3rd Stanza)
"Love watches. A mother prolongs her watches by her baby's cradle till late at night. After lulling him to sleep, she continues her vigil, all the while covering his soul with her silent prayers and, with anxious concern, thinking of his future no less obscure than the night around the house.
"Jesus cannot permit even one mother to surpass Him in love and tender solicitude. At night, when His children are resting in sleep, He watches over them, covers them with His prayers, and protects them, 'as a hen gathers her young under her wings.'"
- Excerpt from Jose Guadalupe Trevino's "The Holy Eucharist", on the love of Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament
"'Lord you know that I love you...Lord, you know that I love you' (Jn 21:15-17). The Eucharist is, in a certain way, the culminating point of this answer. I wish to repeat it together with the whole Church to Him, who manifested His love by means of the Sacrament of His Body and Blood, remaining with us 'to the close of the age'" (Mt 28:20)
- Pope John Paul II, General Audience, June 13, 1979
"I am just a speck of dust,
But I want to make my dwelling
In the shadow of the sanctuary
With the Prisoner of Love.
Ah! my soul longs for the host.
I love Him and want nothing more.
It is the hidden God who attracts me.
I am the atom of Jesus...,"- from St. Therese of Lisieux's poem "The Atom of Jesus-Host."
Day and night Jesus dwells in the Blessed Sacrament BECAUSE OF HIS INFINITE LOVE FOR YOU! "Behold I will be with you always even to the end of the world," because "I have loved you with an everlasting love, and constant is My affection for you." (Mt 28:20; Jer 31:3)
- from "One Lord, One Body, One People"
The following excerpts were taken from the writings of St. Peter Julian Eymard on the Feast of the Ascension and the role of Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament:
"When Jesus Christ went up to heaven on the day of His Ascension, He went to take possession of His throne of glory and prepare a place for us... However, in order to keep the hope of heaven in us and make it more efficacious, in order to have us wait patiently for the heaven of glory and lead us there, our Lord has created the beautiful heaven of the Eucharist. For the Eucharist is a beautiful heaven; it is heaven begun. Is it not Jesus glorified coming from heaven to earth, and bringing heaven with Him? Is not heaven wherever our Lord is? His state there, although hidden from our senses, is one of glory, triumph, and blessedness. He has done away with the miseries of this life; when we go to Communion, we receive heaven, since we receive Jesus Who is the whole joy and glory of paradise.
"What an honor it is for a subject to receive his king! We receive the King of heaven; let us appreciate the honor done to us. Jesus comes into us lest we forget our true fatherland or, if we are mindful of it, lest we die of longing for it and of homesickness."
"Mary devoted herself exclusively to the Eucharistic Glory of Jesus. She knew that it was the desire of the Eternal Father to make the Eucharist known, loved and served by all men; that need of Jesus’ Heart was to communicate to all men His gifts of grace and glory. She knew, too, that it was the mission of the Holy Spirit to extend and perfect in the hearts of men, the reign of Jesus Christ, and that the Church had been founded only to give Jesus to the world.
"All Mary’s desire, then, was to make Him known in His Sacrament. Her intense love for Jesus felt the need of expanding in this way, of consecrating itself — as a kind of relief, as it were — because of her own inability to glorify Him as much as she desired.
"Ever since Calvary, all men were her children. She loved them with a Mother’s tenderness and longed for their supreme good as for her own; therefore, she was consumed with the desire to make Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament known to all, to inflame all hearts with His love, to see them enchained to His loving service.
"To obtain this favor, Mary passed her time at the foot of the Most Adorable Sacrament, in prayer and penance. There she treated the world’s salvation. In her boundless zeal, she embraced the needs of the faithful everywhere, for all time to come, who would inherit the Holy Eucharist and be Its adorers...
"Her prayers converted countless souls, and as every conversion is the fruit of prayer, and since Mary’s prayer could meet no refusal, the Apostles had in this Mother of Mercy their most powerful helper. "Blessed is he for whom Mary prays!"
"Eucharistic adorers share Mary’s life and mission of prayer at the foot of the Most Blessed Sacrament. It is the most beautiful of all missions, and it holds no perils. It is the most holy, for in it all the virtues are practiced. It is, moreover, the most necessary to the Church, which has even more need of prayerful souls than of powerful preachers; of men of penance rather than men of eloquence. Today more than ever have we need of men who, by their self—immolation, disarm the anger of God inflamed by the ever increasing crimes of nations. We must have souls who by their importunity reopen the treasures of grace which the indifference of the multitude has closed. We must have true adorers; that is to say, men of fervor and of sacrifice. When there are many such souls around their Divine Chief, God will be glorified, Jesus will be loved, and society will once more become Christian, conquered for Jesus Christ by the apostolate of Eucharisticprayer."
"The Eucharist strikes such fire within us that we are compelled by our actions and our presence to warm the people we live among and to melt the ice of hate, discrimination, indifference, injustice and isolation. 'Can a man hide fire in his bosom and his garments not burn?'" (Proverbs 6:27)
- from the article "They Have Been With Jesus", by Rev. Franklyn M. McAfee
"The twentieth century must be a century of the Blessed Sacrament if it means to be a century of resurrection and of life,"
- Pope Leo XIII
"I know I would not be able to work one week if it were not for that continual force coming from Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament," Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta said of the strength she and her sisters received in spending Holy Hours before Jesus each day.
"As in the days of Bethlehem the Father imparted the shadows and rights of the blessed paternity mysteriously to Mary and Joseph, and thus made the region of Infancy so glorious and heaven-like, in like manner now he will not leave us without similar consolations. He imparts them to his priests in their relationship to our souls, and, above all, in respect to the Blessed Sacrament. It is part of our Father's love that inside the pale of the Church earth should be one perpetual, and even ubiquitous, Bethlehem. The infant Jesus, the joy of the Father and our joy, is forever there, and in him the Father declared, with rare expletive, that he was well pleased. Still on the altar and in the tabernacle the Babe of Bethlehem is increasing the glory of the Father,"
- from the book "Bethlehem", by Fr. Faber
"Jesus gave Himself as spiritual food and True Presence among us in the Blessed Sacrament. In our own century at Fatima, Mary asked the three children and us to, 'Pray the Rosary every day.' Here we see two marvelous fonts of grace flowing together. When we receive Jesus in the Eucharist, we become united with Him. Adoring his presence exposed on the altar or in the tabernacle we bask in his warmth. Meditating on the Rosary, we recall Jesus' life, death and resurrection and the union of his mother in the work of our salvation. Through the Eucharist and the Rosary, two hearts are joined in love, and we, in love, are joined to those two hearts."
- From the article "Mirroring Divine Love", by Michael Six
"The Church has a special duty to safeguard and strengthen the sacredness of the Eucharist. In our pluralistic and often deliberately secularized society, the living faith of the Christian community — a faith always aware of its rights vis-a-vis those who do not share the faith — ensures respect for this sacredness,"
- Pope John Paul II
"Three times in 1916 the 'Angel of Portugal' (St. Michael), also known as the 'Angel of Peace' appeared to the children. In the first apparition he taught them what has become known as the Angel's Prayer: 'My God, I believe, I adore, I hope and I love You! I ask pardon of You for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not hope and do not love You!'
The angel prepared them for the apparitions of Our Lady the following year. During these apparitions, the angel specifically called them to both prayer and Eucharistic adoration. In the third apparition in the fall, he appeared holding a chalice and a Host. He prostrated himself on the ground, while the chalice and Host were suspended in mid-air, and recited with them a Eucharistic prayer."
- Excerpts from "Introducing Children to the Blessed Sacrament" by Rev. John DeMarchi, I.M.C.
"When we go before Jesus on the altar, we always find Him ‘with Mary His Mother,’ as the Magi did at Bethlehem (Mt. 2:11). And Jesus in the sacred Host, from the altar of our hearts, can repeat to each one of us what He said to St. John the Evangelist from the altar of Calvary, ‘Behold thy Mother’ (Jn 19:27),"
- "Jesus, Our Eucharistic Love", by Fr. Stefano Manelli, OFM.
"If we really loved the good God, we should make it our joy and happiness to come and spend a few moments to adore Him, and ask Him for the grace of forgiveness; and we should regard those moments as the happiest of our lives."
- St. John Vianney (on Adoration of Jesus in the Most the Blessed Sacrament)
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