 THE REAL PRESENCE Saint Peter Julian Eymard Founder, Blessed Sacrament Fathers  THE EUCHARIST, THE CENTER OF OUR LOVE Mallete in Me. Abide in Me. (John xv. 4.) THE heart of man needs a center of affection and expansion. As a matter of fact, when God created the first man He said: "It is not good for man to be alone: let Us make him a help like unto himself." And the Imitation also says: "Without a friend thou canst not well live." Well, our Lord in the Most Blessed Sacrament wants to be the center of all hearts, and He tells us: "Abide in Me. . . . Abide in My love." What does abiding in our Lord's love mean? To abide in His love is to make His Eucharistic love the center of our life, the only source of our consolation; it is to cast ourselves into the Heart of Jesus in our afflictions, in our sorrows, in our deceptions, in the circumstances in which the heart unbosoms itself more spontaneously. He invites us to do so: "Come to Me, all you that labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you." To abide in His love is, in time of joy, to refer our happiness to Him; for delicacy of friendship wants a friend with whom to share its joys. To abide in His love is to make the Eucharist the center of our desires: "Lord, I desire this only if Thou desirest it. I will do this to please Thee." To abide in His love is to delight in surprising Him with some gift, or some little sacrifice. To abide in His love is to live by the Eucharist; to guide ourselves in our actions by His thought, and to make it a point unswervingly to prefer the good service of the Eucharist to everything else. Alas! Is Jesus Eucharistic really our center? Perhaps in time of extraordinary difficulties, or of very fervent prayer, or of urgent need; but in everyday life, do we think, do we reflect, do we act in Jesus as in our center? Why is our Lord not my center? Because He is not yet the ego of my ego, because I am not completely under His control, under the inspiration of His will; because I have desires that are vying with the desires of Jesus within me; because He does not mean everything to me. And yet a child works for his parents, an Angel for his God; I ought therefore to work for my Master, Jesus Christ. What am I to do? I must enter into this center, abide in it, and act in it, not indeed by the sentiment of His sweetness, which does not depend on me, but by repeated attempts, by the homage of every action. Come, O my soul! Leave the world; come out of thyself; renounce thyself; and go to the God of the Eucharist. He has an abode in which to receive thee; He longs for thee; He wants to live with thee, to live in the. Abide therefore in Jesus present in thy heart; live in thy heart; live in the goodness of Jesus Eucharistic. O my soul, study our Lord in thee, and do nothing but by Him. Abide in our Lord. Abide in Him through a sense of devotedness, of holy joy, of readiness to do whatever He will ask of thee. Abide in the Heart and the peace of Jesus Eucharistic. II WHAT impresses me is that this center of the Eucharist is hidden, invisible, altogether interior and, for all that, most real, living, and sustaining. Jesus draws the soul spiritually into the wholly spiritualized state that is His in the Sacrament. What, in fact, is the nature of the life of Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament? It is entirely hidden, all interior. He conceals therein His power and kindness; He conceals His Divine Person. And all His actions and virtues take on this simple and hidden character. He requires silence around Him. He no longer prays to His Father "with a strong cry and tears" as in the Garden of Olives, but through His self-abasernent. All graces come from the Host. From His Eucharist Jesus sanctifies the world, but in an invisible and spiritual manner. He rules the world and the Church without either moving or speaking. Such must the kingdom of Jesus be in me, all interior. I must gather myself up around Jesus: my faculties, my understanding, and my will; and my senses, as far as possible. I must live of Jesus and not of myself, in Jesus and not in myself. I must pray with Him, immolate myself with Him, and be consumed in the same love with Him. I must become in Him one flame, one heart, one life with Him. What nourishes this center is something similar to God's call to Abraham, egredere (Go forth out of thy country): it is the renouncing and abandoning of outside things; the turning to those within and the losing of oneself in Jesus. This manner of life is more pleasing to His Heart and gives greater glory to His Father; that is why our Lord desires it ardently. He tells us: "Come out of thyself and follow Me into solitude where, alone with thee, I will speak to thy heart." This life in Jesus is nothing other than the love of predilection, the gift of self, the intensifying of union with Him; through it we take root, as it were, and prepare the nourishment, the sap of the tree. Regnum Dei intra vas est. "The kingdom of God is within you." III THERE is no center other than Jesus, and Jesus Eucharistic. He tells us: "Without Me you can do nothing." He alone gives grace. He reserves to Himself the distribution of it in order to oblige us to come to Him and ask Him for it. He wants thus to establish and foster union with us. He reserves to Himself the right of giving consolation and peaece, so that in our sorrows and combats we may have recourse to Him. He wants to be the heart's only happiness. He has placed this center of repose in none other than Himself: Manete in Me. And lest we should ever miss Him when we come to Him, He remains always at our service, always ready, always lovable. He is continually drawing us to Himself. The life of love is nothing other than this continual attraction of us to Him. Alas! I am so little established in this center of love! My aspirations to Jesus are still so imperfect, so rare, and so interrupted, often for long hours at a time! And yet Jesus tells us repeatedly: "He that eateth My Flesh, and drinketh My Blood, abideth in Me, and I in him."  Contact Us HOME------------------------HOLY EUCHARIST www.catholictradition.org/Eucharist/real-presence27.htm |