The Mediocrity of Apathy

Posted on June 9, 2017 by veilofveronica

Holy Face of Jesus

The Holy Face of Jesus – Look at the Face of Radical Love

 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.  Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place.  Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever obeys and teaches these commandments will be called greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”  Matthew 5:17-19

 

Recently I have had multiple conversations with fellow Christians.  The conversations have all started to sound the same and they go something like this;

Me: we have to stand up against immorality.

Them: well, Jesus loves everyone, not being a sinner is not a pre-requisite of his love. Live and let live.

Me: Jesus didn’t leave people in their sin.  He transformed them.  Of course he loves everyone, but the question becomes do you love Him back?  Because Jesus Himself tells us, “if you love me, you will keep my commandments.” John 14:15

Them: silence.

It is in these moments that I see what Saint John Paul the Great talked about as the gradualness of the law.  The essence of what the Great Saint was saying is that people tend to see the rules in the church as hard so they tell people that’s okay, Jesus loves you, and they lower the bar for that person, thereby keeping that person from moral truth.

John Paul II said this is an affront to the dignity of the human being.  Lowering the bar essentially says, you’re not capable of being a great Saint.  But God begs to differ and calls all of us to Sainthood.   Despite our failures, God always continues to love us, but to give up and not even try blocks Gods grace from transforming us.

Jesus ABSOLUTELY DOES LOVE THE SINNER, but you know what He doesn’t do, leave the sinner who personally encounters Him in a wallowing of sin.  The Samaritan woman recognized the truth and told everyone about him.  He told the adulterous woman to, “…  Go, [and] from now on do not sin any more.” John 8:11.  He doesn’t want the sinner to stay stuck in his or her sin.  He wants radical conversion and transformation.  It is the most radical love in the world.  Is it hard?  Yes.  But he tells us to look to Him for that radical love.  How did he show that love?  On the cross.

When we lower the bar and tell people that sin is not actually sin, we are not showing them the God of miracles.  This is the God who can transform the porn addict or drug addict, rescue the prostitute, free the materially enslaved.

Lowering the bar actually leads to moral relativism where there is different truth for different people.  Doing this contradicts Christ Himself who said;

I am the way, the truth and the life.  John 14:16

Moral relativism also leads to apathy.  Apathy is the antithesis of what Christ wanted.  Christ was passionate.  Apathy doesn’t care about the sin of yourself or your neighbor.  Apathy leaves you stuck, at best, in a life of mediocrity.  At its worst, apathy can lead to the gas chamber.   Because if you’re not passionate about truth, and you don’t care what happens to your neighbor in an effort to live and let live, then you shouldn’t be shocked when your neighbor gets carted away when you didn’t stand up and fight for what’s true.

We are called to speak of Jesus and evangelize His truth with love.  Jesus loves the sinner.  Respond to that love, and let the King of Kings transform your life into a rich, passion filled life of joy.

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The Serpent on the Staff

Posted on May 28, 2017 by veilofveronica

Bourdon,_Sébastien_-_Moses_and_the_Brazen_Serpent_-_1653-1654

Moses and the Serpent on the Staff by Sebastien Bourdon

From Mount Hor they set out by way of the Red Sea, to bypass the land of Edom, but the people’s patience was worn out by the journey;  so the people complained against God and Moses, “Why have you brought us up from Egypt to die in the wilderness, where there is no food or water? We are disgusted with this wretched food!” So the LORD sent among the people seraph– serpents, which bit the people so that many of the Israelites died.  Then the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned in complaining against the LORD and you. Pray to the LORD to take the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people,  and the LORD said to Moses: Make a seraph and mount it on a pole, and everyone who has been bitten will look at it and recover – Accordingly Moses made a bronze serpent – and mounted it on a pole, and whenever the serpent bit someone, the person looked at the bronze serpent and recovered.  Numbers 21: 6-9

I have spent some time contemplating the above passage.  The people had been rescued from slavery by God, yet they complained and did not trust.  As always, when I read the bible, I think God gives us multiple meanings in the stories He left us.  I believe they actually happened, but there is an underlying message too.  God is a God of detail, and not of coincidence.  He is in everything. And everything is connected.

The metaphor I see here is that the serpents that are biting us are actually our own sin.  The sins we have committed, and the sins committed against us by others.  Sin brings death, just as the serpent bite did.  It can bring death when we sit in un-forgiveness and rage toward those who have wronged us.  It can bring death when we sit in the pride of our sin, never examining ourselves, never repenting.  He will make transparent the wrongs, revealing them to all.  The truth shall set us all free.  Anyone who thinks they can hide or cover up will soon find that they cannot.

We can only be healed when we stare straight at it.  When we examine our conscience and repent.  When we look at those who have wronged us, and we forgive them and love the way Christ does.  For some of us, those wounds are gigantic, and seem insurmountable.  But for God nothing is impossible.

I have read many prophecies about a “warning,” some call it an, “illumination of conscience,”  and I have even heard the term, “rescue.”  One day in my prayer I felt the Blessed Mother tell me that these are all the same thing.  It is a warning, to turn back to God.  It is a an illumination of conscience, because you will be shown exactly who you are in the eyes of God.  It is a rescue for many, because you will be saved from perdition.  You will stare at the serpent on the staff, if you are open to healing.  If you are not, you will look away, thereby taking your eyes off of God.  You can, of your own free will, choose God and be healed, or choose death.  The choice is up to you.  He is the exacter of the judgement you have chosen.  Take care to examine yourself daily, so when you stare at the serpent on the staff, you can forgive and be forgiven, and be totally healed.  Whether this is a one time event for all of us, or perhaps when each individual is shown his or her own soul (as I feel happened to me), or just upon death, or perhaps all of that, I know not.  I just know your time will come and you must choose.

I have often been asked if I am a Prophet.  All I can tell you is, if a Prophet is someone who calls people back to God, then yes, I have accepted that assignment.  I cannot speak for God, except through my own interpretation of what He tells me.  I have been wrong. He never has.  And last night I was sitting on my porch, watching a fairly raging storm.  I was in awe of the power of God, and I felt so small.  I felt God tell me He has SO MUCH MORE in store for us, and yet we think so little, we fear suffering, we trust not at all.  He wants us to trust.  He showed me awhile back just a glimmer of His creation – and he did it using a tree.  We have everything backwards when we worship the earth.  If we worship the creator, he lets us have harmony with the earth.  On that particular day, I totally understood the Canticle of the Sun that St. Francis wrote.  Our preparation in these perilous times is not one of worldly preparation of bunkers and food.  It is spiritual.  It is about knowing and trusting your Creator.  It is about asking for your will to be one with His.  Here is what I recorded in my journal last night;

Beloved,
I want to draw you into eternity to live in my will.  It makes you one with me the Creator so you are drawn into creation.  I AM outside of time.  I AM outside of space.  I AM, so you will BE.  Just BE.  BE in the present moment.  The past–your memories, the present–your now, the future — your hopes and anxieties, all wrapped into one.  BE present.  BE in the Spirit.  With each breath you take know that you can BE in ME.  Transcending everything.  I AM love.  I AM perfection.  I AM all of creation.  The Angels bask in the glory of my now.  So too shall you live.  I gave you a small glimpse of this when I let you feel but a drop of creation in that tree.  Heaven IS.  And the time for Heaven is now.  So just BE in Me.  Receive Me.  I will give all of Me to you just as I did in My Son.  The storm will rage. The lightening will strike.  The thunder will roll.  And you will know the Great I AM and you will BE.  And all will be amazed.  Contemplate creation and I will give it to you now.

Exodus 4:11
Abba

So I want to tell you to go forth and contemplate meeting your maker.  Just BE with Him. Examine yourself, go to confession if need be, and then just settle in and rest in the healing He can bring to you, if only you allow it.

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White Noise

Posted on May 22, 2017 by veilofveronica

white noise

White Noise

living water

 Living water

 

 

This piece was written by my good friend and Prayer Warrior, Ashley Blackburn

The world is full of white noise and that is where most people find their home.  We live in the business of life, which is a constant white noise with no clear message, no direction and no meaning.  With this it seems that God is silent.

In this home, there is no stillness because we have no time for it.  We run about, in a constant state of movement, from one place to another, from one conversation to the next.  This constant movement creates heat which energizes and keeps us going in this state.  It is impossible to come to a sudden stop in this home for if we do we will burn up from the amount of heat our constant movement has created.

We feel overwhelmed, pulled in many directions, over-scheduled, and out of control.  We feel that our life is being lived for us, that our commitments have swallowed us up and we are stuck. We are no longer living our lives, we no longer have time or energy to do anything other than what the world tells us we need to do.

All the while, God is there, as a gentle breeze, whispering the truths of his Kingdom.  The richness of his message does not change for there is only one truth.  But when we are living in the white noise, we are unable to hear the message of the truth. The white noise drowns out the truth and we end up getting bits and pieces, without the full revelation.  With this, the message is tainted and becomes lukewarm.  While the fullness of the truth is cool and refreshing to the soul.

But God in his infinite mercy, plants seeds deep within us.  They are buried in the deepest depth of our soul and there they are protected.  The seeds begin to germinate and grow.  They become that tug on our heart that reminds us that this is not all there is, that we were created for much more.  As the seed grows and begins to penetrate through us, we begin to hunger and thirst. This hunger and thirst is often something we can’t quite explain or understand, but we know that it is there. We can ignore the tug, which will be the ultimate end to the seed for it will eventually die of lack of nourishment and the white noise will continue and eventually take over our lives completely.  Or we can choose to nourish the seed, cultivating it and allowing God to plant more seeds within us, which will slow down the constant movement of our lives and lead us into the stillness with God, into the classroom of contemplation.

God so loves us that he does not completely turn off the white noise in our lives, for that would throw us into a state of chaos.  Likewise, he doesn’t throw freezing water on us to cool us from the heat of our constant movement.  Instead, he gently cools us just enough to be refreshing, knowing that we will desire more. He only turns down the white noise just a bit in order for us to hear a portion of the Truth in order to draw us to know more and more. Then once we begin our journey and take that first step toward him and away from the world, he slowly tugs more and more at our hearts, eventually leading us into full communion with him.

This explains the two movements.  The first movement is one of gentleness, while in the second God is revealed in his fullness.  For the fullness of God cannot be heard amongst the white noise.  It won’t be understood.  The first is refreshing to the soul.  It calls the soul to turn away from the world and toward the face of Christ.  It puts a hunger and thirst deep within us that can only be filled with his presence. With this the soul is drawn to the fount of living water for it refreshes the soul. The living water that gives true joy and lasting peace.  And the crowning moment is when the soul, utterly convinced of God’s merciful love, chooses with its own free will to follow Jesus.  Our choices define who are, so the work of God never takes away our power to choose Him.  He instead works in the stillness and leads us to our own choosing.

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For Our Priests

Posted on May 14, 2017 by veilofveronica

st-john-vianney

St. John Vianney – Patron Saint of Priests

Every high priest is taken from among men and made their representative before God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins.  Hebrews 5:1

In my prayer of late God has impressed upon me how desperately our Priests need our prayers and sacrifices.  I know many of you probably already pray for Priests, but I feel God asking me to ask people to pray for a SPECIFIC Priest, and to offer the sufferings of your day for that Priest.  This means you should take to prayer who God is to assign you to pray for.  He will let you know some way and some how who you are specifically supposed to pray for.  Be still and listen.  Many of our Shepherds are lost, many are tired, many are saintly, but all need our prayer.  By picking a specific Priest to pray for, it ensures that he is covered over.  And prayer is powerful, it has efficacy.  Pray for him to be a Saint.  Pray for the Blessed Mother to cover him over, after all, they are all sons of Mary.  Invoke the Saints to assist them.

Here is a prayer you can pray once the Lord lets you know who to pray for and offer the sufferings of your day for;

O Jesus, our great High Priest, Hear my humble prayers on behalf of your priest, Father [N]. Give him a deep faith, a bright and firm hope and a burning love which will ever increase in the course of his priestly life.
In his loneliness, comfort him.  In his sorrows, strengthen him.  In his frustrations, point out to him that it is through suffering that the soul is purified, and show him that he is needed by the Church, he is needed by souls, he is needed for the work of redemption.
O loving Mother Mary, Mother of Priests, take to your heart your son who is close to you because of his priestly ordination, and because of the power which he has received to carry on the work of Christ in a world which needs him so much.
Be his comfort, be his joy, be his strength, and especially help him to live and to defend the ideals of consecrated celibacy.
Amen.

Remember, these men bring us the Eucharist.  Without them, we don’t have the greatest gift ever offered.   Your sacrifice for them can bring the salvation of many souls.

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The Two headed Monster

Posted on May 8, 2017 by veilofveronica

two headed snake

A thief comes only to steal and slaughter and destroy; I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly. John 10:10

I have often thought about the prophetic words of Humanae Vitae about birth control.   How once we, as Christians, accepted the ideology that birth control was fine, our society started rapidly degenerating.  The number of abortions in the world are more than all the other deaths in the world combined.  And why, because once we decided we can have sex and divorce it from it’s procreative purpose, children became something very unexpected and unwanted.  And what do you do with unexpected unwanted things, you discard them.  Abortion is the logical conclusion to birth control, as shown by the fact that more than half the women who have abortions are on birth control when they get pregnant.

Birth Control and Abortion are a two headed monster.  But both give birth to even more society damaging trends.  Sex trafficking, pornography, divorce, pre-marital sex, prostitution, molestation, etc.  Though these things have always existed, the advent of birth control, and abortion coupled with technology have made all of this explode astronomically.  People are able to dehumanize another, without the consequences of a child.  We have bought into the Father of lies.

The thief comes to steal,  he has stolen our fertility convincing us it is a disease to be fixed with a pill.  The thief comes to slaughter, he has convinced us to dehumanize our children in the womb by murdering them.  The thief comes to destroy,  he is destroying our culture of life by destroying the foundation of society, the family.  But Jesus came so that we might have life.  Turn your hearts back to Jesus, and reject the father of lies.

I want to share with you what I wrote in my journal on May 3.  I was at May crowning, and this just poured into my head;

May 3, 2017

Feast of St. Philip and St. James

Beloved,

The greatest evil of your time is birth control.  You have separated that act of love from springing forth life.  You have denigrated womanhood. 

When my Holy Mother birthed me, she did not feel the pain of my birth because we were both without blemish.  But because she is united with me and I AM, she felt the pain of childbirth of all Mothers.  She felt what sin had done.  But she felt too the love of creation.  The love that Mothers have for their children.  She recognized this love as the great self-sacrificing love.  She was surrounded in light and by the hosts of heaven, she was living in the Will of the Father.  Motherhood and Fatherhood mirroring the love of the Trinity. 

And as St. Ignatius said, the first person I appeared to at the Resurrection was my Mother.  She walked the way of sorrow with me and was filled with the joy of Divine Will.  She would be the first to know of my Resurrection.  Her Assumption, like my Ascension, are borne out of the Divine Will.  Body and Soul in harmony and glorified.

Because mankind is trying to eradicate suffering, they are actually eradicating true love.  Self-sacrificing love.  Not to exist is an abomination against love.  This is what birth control does.   Existence was created out of the love of the Divine will.  It is a mercy to exist.  Because you have tried to eradicate suffering, mankind’s cross will actually get heavier.  The only way to lighten the burden is to empty yourself back to me.  You see, the only way back to complete union with the Divine Will is through the cross.  Exactly like me. 

If you empty of your will, I make the yoke easy, and the burden light.  All will suffer, but if your eyes are on me and your will is in my hands, abandoned to me, you can receive.  Like I told St. Philip, if you are in me, and I am in the Father, I will show you the Father, because he is in me, and your will will be one with His.  We will supplant your will with ours.  And you will be amazed.  Have no fear.

 

-The Divine Spouse

Please remember this is not a condemnation of those who have fallen into these kinds of sins.  It is a call to conversion, a call to change, to recognize how much God loves you and to realize that nothing you have done cannot be overcome by the love of God.

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If you seek Healing

Posted on April 23, 2017 by veilofveronica

st-alphonsus-liguori

St. Alphonsus Ligouri

But she answered him, “Yes Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” And he said to her, “For saying this you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter.”  And she went home, and found the child lying in bed, and the demon gone.  Mark 7:28-30

I find that the prayers of most people are for healing and relief from suffering.  Many people contact me asking for prayers for their sufferings and healing for themselves or their family members.  I believe deeply that prayers have efficacy, and that as part of the communion of Saints we are bound to one another so we must pray for one another.

I do not pretend to know the mind of God as His immensity is far beyond my capacity.  I also know the fullness of healing will be when we are glorified is in heaven.  I know that our suffering is supposed to be redemptive.   I also know that we can be filled with the Divine Will if we run toward the suffering because it is when we empty ourselves like Christ did on the Cross, we become like him.

But we should ask for healing.   Jesus tells us to ask and it will be given.   He has revealed His glory with miraculous healing, as we know about in the bible when he healed the man born blind.   Sometimes he grants healing to us here.

I was reading the Gospel of Mark today, and the exchange between Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman seemed strange to me.  Jesus seemed so, well, un-Jesus like!  She wanted healing from a demon for her daughter, and his response was to say, “Let the children first be fed, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”  This is not the kindest response I have heard from Jesus.  Then I got to thinking, He is talking about bread here… is that an allusion to the Eucharist?  She is not of Jewish lineage, is he saying that perhaps His sacrifice would not be appreciated by someone who doesn’t understand?  Would it be like throwing pearls to swine if there is no transformation of life?  It’s a rebuke to be sure.  It’s a rebuke about belief and faith.  And many of us, who in hearing something like this, well we would be OFFENDED, and stomp off, and talk about ourselves and our hurt, instead of looking at the truth of his words.  But she didn’t.  She humbled herself.  She recognized what he was saying.  And she responded.  She responded in faith, knowing she had been humbled, humiliated even, but knowing she was before the one who could cure her daughter.  And her faith in Him showed.  And He cured her daughter.  And we got to see the God of everyone.  He is for all of us.  He wants to transform all of us.

Which brings me to the fact that if you want to be healed, we must humble ourselves.  The very first place that healing begins is inside the confessional.  Spiritual healing must take place before any kind of physical relief is given.  This is why the Sacrament of the Sick is most often accompanied by Confession.  Because it is our souls that are the most sick.  We must humble ourselves and receive the graces that Confession has to offer.   Realize the Priest is “in persona Christi” and hold nothing back.  I don’t know if this will physically heal you or not, because that is up to God, but I do know it will heal your soul, and once you have emptied all of you, you can be filled up with God.  And being filled with God, well, that is healing.

In the words of Saint Alphonsus Ligouri, the patron of Confessors, “But you never reject a repentant and humble heart.”  

God will not reject you if you sincerely humble yourself before him.  He has been chasing you for your whole life.  Let Him in.

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Is it the end times?

Posted on April 12, 2017 by veilofveronica

Sun Taken in St Louis

 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.” John 15:9

Every week it seems a new tragedy.  People seem angrier than ever.  “Social” media actually isolates us.  Many Christians talk of the end times.  Rumblings of war are everywhere.  So what are we do do?

I took all this to prayer and recorded what popped in my head in my journal.

April 8, 2017

Beloved,

I want to speak to you of the “end times”.  Do you creatures not see your limited understanding?  Great anxiety is caused by the emotions of my people.

Yes the earth will groan.

But do you not believe the prayer? 

“World without end.”

I will create a new heaven and a new earth.  In unity.

The earth will be perfected through the Cross and ordered to my Divine Will.  Heaven and earth will collide, “as it was in the beginning.”

And when my people have listened, “is now” with graces pouring over my souls who have heeded my call.  Union between heaven and earth is how it “ever shall be” according to my will and those who seek to live in it.  All came from my will and all will be ordered back to it.  It is my unending love I want to pour into you.  Just receive it.  Be a receiver.  Do not think of the suffering as bad, yes it will make you moan, but think of it as my ultimate love story.  Sharing in the Son’s cross as the means to bring you back to me.  You will be amazed.  Do not be afraid.

– The Most Holy Trinity

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Living in the Divine Will

Posted on April 7, 2017 by veilofveronica

communion cross with sun

What I see in my prayer.  The Immaculate Heart and Sacred Heart beat together.  Both know the sorrow of the Cross and for us on earth we are anchored in the church, birthed for us by the God of all Creation.

Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you,
before Abraham came to be, I AM.” John 8:58

I have shared with you before that the Blessed Mother tells me in my prayer she is in union with the Divine Will.  She wants to heal families.  But more than that Our Lady is our example of union with the Trinity.  In my prayer I believe this is what God wants for all of us.  Unity with Him, the way it was before the fall, on earth as it is in heaven.  I have shared with you before that I often journal and write what pops in my head as I pray in adoration.  I was praying about this unity God wants for us and I want to share with you what I recorded in my journal;

Beloved,

If you want to live in the Divine Will you must ask.  You must, with the help of our grace, empty yourself like Christ on the Cross.   The human will emptied to make room for the Divine.  Everything in creation is a gift.  Your intellect, your will, everything is a gift.  Gift it back to me to receive my will.  In all you do cease complaint and pick up gratitude.  Make your every action an extension of the Mass.  Tell us, the Most Holy Trinity, “this is my body given up for you.”  Give up your human will just as Christ did in the garden when He said, “not my will but yours.”  The Immaculata did this.  She is building an army of Golden Souls, souls of light, who seek to live in the Divine Will for the perilous times ahead.  Hope will become an act of the will, Divine Will, holy hope.  You will be the hope, a light to others in dark times. 

Humans are so short sighted. Ranging Day to day in emotion to emotion.  Set aside the trivial, cease complaining, put on Divine Sight — and in all things adoration!  No thought you have, no decision you make, no act you do, should be done without first adoring.  Rest in the bosom of the Lord as John did, for when you rest there, you rest with us. 

I tell you, we want to heal.  We want to give understanding, wisdom, piety, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, and awe — all the gifts the Holy Spirit brings…but we want them Divinely for you which is more than you can imagine.

I tell you in the times of great suffering ahead, you will be amazed at the Divine Will working in Mary’s army of souls.  DO NOT BE AFRAID.  I am with you always.

– the Most Holy Trinity

 

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My dream about Eva Vaughan

Posted on April 2, 2017 by veilofveronica

ferris wheel

“My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.  You know the way to the place where I am going” John 14:2-4

As you all know Eva Vaughan passed away on March 13, 2017 after a two year battle with pancreatic cancer.  Many of you prayed for her and her family during that time so I would like to share with you a dream I had on March 19, 2017 about Eva.

Eva and I were at a county fair.  She looked young and beautiful.  Her long black shiny hair was blowing in the breeze and she had a flower pinned in it.  There was not a hint of cancer that I could see anywhere on her.

We were talking and laughing.  She was her bubbly self with a good sense of humor.  We were waiting in line to get on the Ferris Wheel together.  As we climb on and buckled ourselves in, we smiled and the Ferris Wheel began to ascend.  It went higher than I have ever been before and I remember thinking how beautiful she looked at that I was glad she wasn’t sick anymore.

We actually went so high we ended up above a cloud.  There in front of us floating in the air was Jesus and His Sacred Heart that I could see beating in His Chest.  I smiled at the sight so awesome and I turned to say something to Eva, and she was gone.  I was alone on the Ferris Wheel.  I knew in an instant that she was with Him.

Jesus looked at me and said, “Susan, do you trust that I love you?”  I said, “yes, Lord.” He pointed down to the earth and said, “Hold on tight.”  Then I woke up.

It was a comfort to know she is with him in a place where there is no more sickness and sorrow.  And one day, I hope to see her again.

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We are a Eucharistic people

Posted on March 24, 2017 by veilofveronica

Adoration

Adoration in Marytown, photo by Father Matthew P. Schneider, LC

Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his home. John 19:27

I have been reading Saint John Paul the Great’s encyclical, Ecclesia De Eucharistia, and it is a thing of beauty.  I wanted to reflect on some of what is said as I pondered what he wrote.

Christ gave totally of himself on Calvary.  His death on the cross took on our sins and brought heaven and earth back together again, healing the broken bond that original sin had brought.  Our bodies and our souls were never meant to be separated.  But Adam and Eve at the taste of original sin, “knew they were naked” and invited the corruption and disunity into the world.

At each Mass, we again have the opportunity for heaven and earth together. We pray for the Resurrection of the Body in our Creed.  In Chapter two paragraph 22 of the encyclical  Saint John Paul the Great states, “We can say that each of us not only receives Christ, but also that Christ receives each of us.” I would like to expound on this.  Christ gifted himself on the cross and at the Eucharistic table so that we may be invited back into union with God.  This is a divine action,  God becoming incarnate, taking on our sins, leaving us a way to tangibly become in union with Him.  In our human nature, we were given total free will.  If we, gift ourselves freely back to the God who sacrificed himself for us, that is, if we approach the Eucharist with a total gift of ourselves to God, our will can become one with His.  He can receive us to Himself and conform our will to His.  Interestingly, it is said that in the Eucharistic miracles His blood has been tested and is AB – the universal receiver.  This suggests to me, that we are to give ourselves freely to Him and He receives us, making us one with him.

Paragraph 23 states, “Eucharistic communion also confirms the Church in her unity as the body of Christ.”  If we were each gifting ourselves back to God, uniting our DNA to the DNA of God, we become a body of Christ that permeates love.  One that does not shy away from sacrifice, even unto death, for the sake of one another.  This kind of self-giving love is reflective of the Trinity.  We would become in union with God.

The last chapter of the Encyclical addresses the very person who the Church looks to as having union with God,  Mary, our Mother.  The encyclical states in chapter 6 paragraph 53, “Mary can guide us towards the most holy sacrament, because she herself has a profound relationship with it.”  It goes on to say in paragraph 54, “Mary is a ‘woman of the Eucharist’ in her whole life.”  And in paragraph 55 continues, “she offered her virginal womb for the Incarnation of God’s word.”  Indeed one could infer that during the Incarnation, Mary said to God, “this is my body, given up for you,” as she chose freely to be the vessel that brought our Lord to the earth to save us.  Mary has a very unique relationship with the Eucharist, as she too sacrificed herself for God’s sake, so then in turn He could sacrifice Himself for all of us.  She is indeed a co-redemptrix.  And because of our ability to gift ourselves back to God in union with the Eucharist, we too can partake in this.  It extends to us.

For every mother who bears a child or cares for a child,  she says, “this is my body given up for you.”  For every husband and wife who freely give to one another in the marital act, “this is my body given up for you.”  For every parent who works with “the work of human hands” to provide for their family, “this is my body given up for you.” For every child who cares for an elderly parent, “this is my body given up for you.”   For every Priest who lives the vow of celibacy, “this is my body given up for you.”  I could go on, and how much better would the world be if we all lived this Eucharistic way of life.  It is a life of thanksgiving that is willing to sacrifice.  We should be living the Mass in all that we do everyday of our lives.

Conversely, the world twists this beautiful notion, buying into the same Father of Lies that deceived in the Garden. As Peter Kreeft so adeptly pointed out, turning this sacrifice of oneself into a demonic parody, women now chant, “this is my body — I will not give it up for you.” And we use birth control to break that which has been beautifully made.  The serpent would like nothing more than for us to not even exist, and we have bought into it.  But unity is what God wants for us.  Body and Soul in harmony – and an acceptance of self-sacrifice.  This is true love.

This is the very idea of family.  Each one sacrificing for the other.  As I have stated before Mary is all things relationship with the Trinity.  She sacrificed herself to each.  It is no wonder that the Father of Lies hates her and wants to attack the family.  But she wants to be, “Our Lady Healer of Families,” she wants us to be a Eucharistic family.   It is in following this human creatures FIAT, that we can find the Eucharistic example, begun at the Incarnation, and completed on the cross.  It is why at the Ascension and the Assumption, God and the Mother of God had unity between body and soul.  I think our incorruptible Saints give us but a small glimmer of this.

If we all give freely of ourselves back to God, we become a Eucharistic people who permeate the world with love.  The Gospel of John chapter 6 makes clear the Eucharist is of central importance, and like John if we take Mary into our homes, we can live by her example.  Once we know this, then like Peter, we can conclude that we have no where else to go, because these are the words of eternal life.  If we live what the Eucharist is, His will is done on earth as it is in heaven.

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