Solemnity
of the Corpus Christi,
Sunday, 7
June 2015
“The
cup of blessing that we bless is it not the sharing of the Blood of
Christ? And the bread that we break, is
it not the partaking of the Body of the Lord.” I Cor. 10:16
Today, we celebrate the Solemnity of
Corpus Christi, that commemorates the institution of the Holy Eucharist. Jesus
Christ gave us this sacrament at the Last Supper when he said to His Apostles, “This
is my body… this is my blood…” Mt. 26:26 & 27 He told His disciples “…do this in remembrance of me.”
Lk. 22:19 When He left us Himself in the Holy Eucharist, it was truly the most wonderful blessing Jesus
could grant us since He is ever-present in the tabernacle in
our churches. Christ is sacrificed for
us at Holy Mass when the priest consecrates the bread and wine separately into
the Body and Blood of Christ. He comes to us in Holy Communion. (cf.
today’s Epistle, I Cor. 11:23-9). This threefold blessing of the Holy Eucharist
in Jesus’ Presence, Sacrifice and Communion are blessings which we can never fully
understand. Who can comprehend that
Jesus is truly present “body and blood,
soul and divinity” in the Holy Eucharist?
All we can do is thank Him (Eucharist means thanksgiving) and adore
Him in the Most Blessed Sacrament.
Union
with Jesus in the Holy Eucharist
Fr. Gabriel in his book of
meditations, Divine Intimacy, reminds us of the “immense value” of the Holy Eucharist: “But
in order to have a better understanding of the immense value of the Eucharist,
we must go back to the very words of Jesus, most opportunely recalled in the
Gospel of the day (Jn. 6: 56-59), ‘He that eateth My Flesh and drinketh my
Blood, abideth in Me and I in him.’ Jn. 6: 57 Jesus made Himself our food in order to
assimilate us to Himself, to make us live His life, to make us live in Him, as
He Himself lives in His Father. The Eucharist is truly the sacrament of union
and at the same time it is the clearest and most convincing proof that God
calls us and pleads with us to come to intimate union with Himself.” Fr. Gabriel, p. 600. Did not Jesus tell us to come to Him: “Come to me all you that labour and are
burdened and I will give you rest.” Mt. 11:28 How blessed we are, as Dom Gueranger tells us
in The
Liturgical Year Vol. 10: “Divine
union—such is the dignity to which man is permitted to aspire; and to this
aspiration God has responded even here below, by an invention which is all of
heaven. It is today that man celebrates this marvel of God’s
goodness.” Gueranger, p. 184
“O Precious, Wonderful Banquet…”
St. Thomas Aquinas tells us how very special is the Holy Eucharist: “O
precious wonderful banquet that brings us salvation and contains all sweetness.
Under the Old Law, it was the flesh of calves and goats that was offered up; but here Christ Himself, the true God is set
before us as our food. What could be more wonderful than this? No other sacrament has greater healing power;
through it, sins are purged away, virtues are increased and the soul is
enriched with an abundance of every spiritual gift.” No wonder in the sixth chapter of St. John’s Gospel Jesus said: “I am the living bread that has come down
from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he shall live forever; and the bread
that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world…. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has
life everlasting and I will raise him up on the last day.” Jn. 6: 51
& 55. Only by Holy Communion will
we be able to grow in grace. Those
Catholics who reject the Holy Eucharist will not be saved: “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat
the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink
his blood, you shall not have life in you.” Jn. 6:54. This life which Jesus promises to us is the
life of sanctifying grace in the
soul. It is the life of virtue, the
forgiveness of sins and the purging away of punishment due to these sins. Those who neglect the Holy Eucharist by not
going to Holy Mass will not have sanctifying grace in their souls.
Time for Repentance
Now is the time for us to repent and keep God’s commandments. Jesus promised
to live in us (with His sanctifying grace) if we love Him and keep His
commandments: “If anyone love me, he will keep
my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our
abode with him. Jn. 14:23 Just as in life, if we do not eat food, we
will die; so too, if we do not eat of the Body and Blood of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist, our souls will
die. Mortal sin will enter and our souls
will be dead. So many people today are
living in sin, and they do not realize the consequences of not partaking of the
Holy Eucharist. They think that “All is well….I am good person… I do not
hurt anybody…” They do not realize
how joyful is the life of grace and virtue when it is nourished by the Holy
Eucharist. They live lives of vice and
addiction and think that it is normal.
Why are so many people depressed, despairing, angry and violent? Their
unhappiness is a manifestation of the sickness of their souls without God. St. Augustine told us long ago that our hearts
are restless until they rest in God. We
need to repent as Our Lady said at Fatima:
“Many marriages are not of God…
certain fashions will be introduced which will be displeasing to my Son….Most
souls go to hell because of the sins of impurity… Men must stop offending God,
He is too much offended by sin.” Our
Lady said this in 1917. What would she
say of our generation with many sins of abortion, contraception, divorce and
re-marriage, same-sex relationships and
“partners”? These crimes cry to
heaven for vengeance! We need to repent
and tell others to repent.
Mystical
Body of Christ
We are all part of the Mystical Body of
Christ. If one part of the body
is suffering, the whole body will suffer.
If one part is diseased, the body will die. So our society is slowly dying without the
life which only Jesus Christ can
give. We need to spread the word to our
family, our relatives, our friends, our co-workers. Pope Leo XIII said, “If we see evil and do nothing to combat it, when we could have done
something, we are just as (if not more) guilty as the perpetrators.” We certainly should tell others not to
sin. If we cannot tell them (because of
their hard-heartedness), then we can pray and make reparation for them. Bl. Mother Teresa of Calcutta said: “If people spent an hour a week in
Eucharistic Adoration, abortion would be ended.” Sin abounds because of a
lack of faith and prayer. Bl. Teresa
also said, “The fruit of abortion is
nuclear war.” Isn’t this the
Fatima Message from Our Lady? We need to repent. She said if men do not repent, “Russia will spread her errors…Whole
nations will be annihilated … the good will be martyred… the Holy Father will
have much to suffer.”
The
loss of faith; increase of sin
History proves that when sin increases, the faith grows cold.
Years ago, Masses used to be filled,
the confession lines were jammed,
parents had large families, the seminaries and convents were filled.
What happened? People lost the faith and
did not pray any more. They did not
believe in the Holy Eucharist. This loss
of faith, which is catastrophic for the individual soul and for the Church,
is especially evident in a denial
of the Holy Eucharist. The Council of
Trent says: “If anyone denies in the sacrament of the Most Holy Eucharist there are
truly, really and substantially contained the Body and Blood together with the
Soul and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ,
but shall say that He is in it by a sign or figure or force, let him be
anathema.” (#883, 1270AS) If we want
to restore the faith in the Catholic Church,
we need to go to the Holy Eucharist in adoration, we need to attend Holy
Mass frequently and we need to receive Holy Communion worthily. Our Lady at Fatima asked for the Communion of
Reparation on the Five First Saturdays.
When we restore the Holy
Eucharist to the place of worship
in our Churches and to the place of
importance in our lives, then we will have the era of peace which Our Lady promised at Fatima:
“In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph and there will be an era
of peace for a time.”
“Could you not, then, watch one hour with Me?” Mt. 26:40
“.... Particular attention should also
be given to Eucharistic adoration, and in every diocese there should be
churches or chapels specifically devoted to this purpose. I ask parishes,
seminaries, religious houses and monasteries to organise periods of Eucharistic
adoration, so that all have an opportunity to take part. Through intense prayer
before the real presence of the Lord, you can make reparation for the sins of
abuse that have done so much harm, at the same time imploring the grace of
renewed strength and a deeper sense of mission on the part of all bishops,
priests, religious and lay faithful.”
(No. 14) From “HOLY FATHER'S PASTORAL LETTER TO THE
CATHOLICS OF IRELAND” (3 March 2010)
First Friday: 5 June 2014
Now is a good time to continue (or begin) the
devotion to the “Nine First Fridays” of the Month. The Sacred Heart of Jesus promised to St.
Margaret Mary: "I promise thee in the excessive mercy
of My Heart that My all-powerful love will grant to
all those who communicate on the First Friday in nine consecutive months,
the grace of final penitence; they shall not die in My disgrace nor without
receiving the Sacraments; My Divine heart shall be their safe refuge in this
last moment."
Mission of the Immaculate Mediatrix
(MIM) 6 June 2014
On the First Saturday of every month,
we will have our monthly formation program for those who are interested in affiliating
themselves with the Marian Spirituality of the Franciscan Friars of the
Immaculate. The day begins at 9:30 AM and goes until 4 PM and includes two
conferences, Holy Mass, adoration and the rosary. (see flyer on door)
This spirituality is Marian and Franciscan and includes the teachings of
St. Francis of Assisi, St. Maximilian
Kolbe and other Franciscan saints. “The
fundamental aim of the MIM is the fulfilment of God’s plan for the salvation
and sanctification of all souls through the maternal mediation of the
Immaculate to the supreme glory of the Most Holy Trinity.” (Article 2: Statute)
It is most important at this time in
our world to come together and learn about Our Lady and her messages especially
Fatima.
Pope John Paul II: On November 9, 1976 said in the USA as Karol
Cardinal Wojtyla: “We are now standing in face of the greatest
historical confrontation humanity has gone through. I do not think that the wide circles of
American society or the wide circles of
the Christian community realize this fully. We are now facing the final confrontation
between the Church and the Anti-Church, of the Gospel versus the anti-gospel.”
We
hope that all of you will consider joining the MIM and work for your own
sanctification and the sanctification of
so many souls who are in danger of being lost for all eternity in hell
as Our Lady said at Fatima.
The
First Saturday: 6 June 2014
Our Lady told
Sr. Lucia in 1925 “…I promise to
assist at the hour of death, with all the graces necessary for salvation,
all those who, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months go to
confession and receive Holy Communion, recite five decades of the Rosary and
keep me company for a quarter of an hour while meditating on the mysteries of
the Rosary, with the intention of making reparation to me." If only we would do what Our Lady asks,
we would be assured of eternal salvation.
Our Lady promises us all the graces necessary for our salvation if we
keep The
Five
First Saturdays!
