The Real Presence
A collection
of sermons dealing with the Eucharist. It leads you to a better
knowledge and deeper love of our Eucharistic Lord.
ADORATION IN SPIRIT
AND IN TRUTH
The Father seeks such to adore him . . . in spirit and in truth. (Jn 4:23)
The object of Eucharistic
adoration is the divine person of our Lord Jesus Christ present
in the most Blessed Sacrament. He is living there. He wants us
to speak to him, and he will speak to us. Anybody may speak to
our Lord. Is he not there for everybody? Does he not tell us,
"Come you all to me"?
This conversation between the soul
and our Lord is the Eucharistic meditation, i.e.,
adoration.
The grace of it is given to everybody. In order, however, to succeed in it and avoid routine or dryness
of mind and heart, adorers must seek inspiration in the grace
of their vocation, in the various mysteries of the life of our
Lord and of the Blessed Virgin, or in the virtues of the saints. In this way, they will honor and glorify the God of the Eucharist
through the virtues of his mortal life as through those of all
the saints, of whose holiness he was the grace and end as he
is now its crown of glory.
Look upon the hour of adoration
assigned to you as an hour in paradise. Go to your adoration
as one would to heaven, to the divine banquet. You will then
long for that hour and hail it with joy. Take delight in fostering
a longing for it in your heart. Tell yourself, "In four
hours, in two hours, in one hour, our Lord will give me an audience
of grace and love. He has invited me; he is waiting for me; he
is longing for me."
When your hour is particularly
difficult, rejoice all the more; your love will be greater for
its suffering more. It is a privileged hour that will count for
two.
When on account of illness, infirmity,
or some other reason, you cannot make your hour, let your heart
be saddened for a moment. Then in spirit imagine yourself at
adoration in union with those who are actually adoring. On a
bed of sickness, or on a journey, or at a task that detains you,
be more recollected, and you will derive the same fruit as if
you had been able to kneel at the feet of the good Master. That
hour will be written down to your credit and perhaps even counted
for two.
Go to our Lord just as you are. Be natural in your meditation. Use up your own stock of piety
and love before resorting to books. Cherish the inexhaustible
book of a humble love. It is all very well to take a pious book
with you to regain control of yourself in case the mind wanders
or the senses grow drowsy; but remember that our good Master
prefers the poverty of our heart to the most sublime thoughts
and affections from others.
You can be sure that our Lord wants
our heart and not that of someone else. He wants
the thought and prayer of that heart as the genuine expression
of its love for him.
It may be that we do not want to
go to our Lord because we are ashamed of our misery and wretchedness:
that is the fruit of subtle self-love, impatience, or cowardice. Our Lord prefers our helplessness to everything else;
he is pleased
with it and blesses it.
You are suffering from spiritual
dryness? You can at least give glory to God's grace without which
you can do nothing. Open your soul toward heaven just as a flower
opens its petals at sunrise to receive the refreshing dew.
You are stricken with utter powerlessness;
your mind is lost in darkness; your heart is crushed with the
weight of its nothingness; your body is ailing. Offer him the
adoration he should expect from one so destitute; forget your
poverty and abide in our Lord. Or again, present your poverty
to him that he may make it rich; that is a masterpiece worthy
of his glory.
But you are in a state of temptation
and of sadness; everything rebels in you; everything induces
you to leave your adoration under the pretext that you are offending
God, and that you are dishonoring rather than serving him. Do
not listen to that insidious temptation; you adore him by resisting,
by being loyal to him against yourself. No, no, you are not displeasing
him. You are bringing joy to the Master who is looking on and who
permitted Satan to upset you. He expects you to honor him by
remaining with Him to the last minute of the time you were to
devote to him.
May confidence and simplicity and
love bring you to adoration.
Holy Communion
Concentrates on how to attend Mass meditatively,
to make a better Communion, a more perfect thanksgiving, and
much more. A real gem of a book.
The Eymard Library
Saint Peter Julian Eymard
