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New Release! Chant Compendium 8 with beautiful Gregorian chant

Meditations to help appreciate the Mystery

The Blessed Sacrament - God With Us


"Behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world." —Matthew 28:20
"My delights were to be with the children of men." —Proverbs 8:30
"The Lord is there." —Ezechiel 48:35
O Godhead hid, devoutly I adore Thee, Who truly art within the forms before me, To Thee my heart I bow with bended knee As failing quite in contemplating Thee. - ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

CONTENTS

1. Our Emmanuel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
2. The Mystery of Love. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3. Proofs of Love. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
4. Characteristics of the Love of Our Lord in The Eucharist. . 25
5. The Center of Catholic Worship . . . . . 31
6. Proper Homage to the Blessed Sacrament . . . . . . . . . .. 41
7. The Hope and Salvation of Our Times . 47
8. God So Near. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
9. Heaven upon Earth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Prayers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Chapter 1
Our Emmanuel

The thirty-three years of His earthly life seemed all too short to our Divine Saviour, whose "delights were to be with the children of men." (Prov. 8:31). To be born for us, to live a toilsome life and to suffer and sacrifice Himself for us by a most painful death did not exhaust the love of the Incarnate Son of God. He wished to remain among us even after His ascension into Heaven and, by a perpetual miracle, to continue in a mystical manner the mysteries of His earthly life and of His sacred Passion and death. This He accomplished by instituting the Most Blessed Sacrament. Oh, wondrous love, which compels the Son of God to remain continually with us on our altars! Truly, the mercy of our Redeemer has reached even to the depths of Divine love in order to give us this adorable Sacrament.

The infinite omnipotence of God could present us with nothing greater; His infinite wisdom knew of nothing better; His infinite love could bestow on us nothing more holy than the adorable Sacrament of the Altar. Let us admire and adore the amazing abasement of the Lord of the universe, the Son of the Most High, in so humbling Himself for our salvation as to conceal Himself under the lowly species of bread.

A Heavenly Manna
The Most Blessed Sacrament was prefigured by the manna in the desert, for this heavenly food is similar to the manna in its properties and in its name. When the Israelites saw the bread which had miraculously fallen from Heaven, they exclaimed: "Manhu! . . . What is this!" (Exod. 16:15). And thereafter the mysterious food was called manna. How admirably is the name "Heavenly Manna" suited to the great mystery of the altar! For this Divine Mystery contains so much that is wonderful that we cannot devoutly reflect upon It without exclaiming in utter astonishment: What is this! Infinite Majesty, which the heavens cannot contain, encloses Itself in a tiny Host! The King of Glory deigns to dwell upon earth and to deliver Himself into the hands of sinners! The Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, who is of the same essence with the Father and the Holy Spirit, deigns to make Himself the food of man!

What food is this that imparts so much strength to the heart, inflames the will with so burning a fire, enlightens the understanding with so brilliant a light and imparts such purity to the soul! What a heavenly banquet is here spread before us! What goodness, what love! Without doubt, this is the greatest gift God has deigned to bestow upon us; it is the most magnificent work of His goodness, the clearest proof and the most manifest testimony of His love.

Let us, therefore, hasten to the Most Blessed Sacrament; let us hasten to our God ever abiding in our midst on the altar. There we will supplicate for graces, there make atonement for the countless sins and crimes committed against Him, there praise His goodness, there glorify Him. This is our great and holy vocation as Catholics. Our God is there present under the appearance of bread; He is there really and substantially. Him whom we hope once to behold in glory, face to face, we now behold in His silent, mysterious majesty and tranquility. He is enthroned in His Tabernacle, in the midst of the Church Militant. He looks upon us as we struggle and suffer; He is ever at our side to aid and refresh us in all our tribulations. He helps us to fight and conquer the world with its temptations, its vanities and its miseries; and when, weary from the strife, we at length depart from this life, He will raise us up to His Heavenly Father and will give us the crown of victory.

What fathomless depths of the riches of God’s mercy are made manifest to us in the Most Blessed Sacrament! Come, come, therefore, kneel down and glorify in fervent prayers and sacred hymns of praise, thanksgiving and jubilation, our Emmanuel, our God with us.

Chapter 2
The Mystery of Love

We are the children of the Heavenly Father. No father has ever loved his children as much as our Father in Heaven loves us. To prove His love, He gave us a gift so great and so sublime that He could not have given a greater: He gave us His only-begotten Son. And the only-begotten Son of the Father loved us so much that He not only sacrificed Himself for us on the Cross, but gave Himself to us wholly and for all times in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar.

God is love, and the entire strength of Divine love reveals itself in this mystery of love. Even the Angels of Heaven could never have thought that a God could so love men as to give Himself to them as their food, to enter into their hearts in order to enkindle in them a return of love. Who can doubt the love of God when he contemplates the Sacred Host? Is it not a perfect expression of the greatness of the love of God for the children of men? There, from the Tabernacle, He addresses to us those words of infinite love and invincible patience: "Come to me, all you that labour and are burdened, and I will refresh you." (Matt. 11:28).

In no other Sacrament does our Divine Lord show the excess of His love in so touching and wonderful a manner as in the Most Holy Eucharist. From the other Sacraments, too, flow countless and invaluable graces, all of which betoken God's immeasurable love for men; but the adorable Sacrament of the Altar contains the source of all graces, the treasury of Divine riches, yes, Eternal Love Itself. "God is love," says St. John, and this God of love, Jesus Christ, Our Lord, is really and substantially present in the Blessed Sacrament.

The Saints cherished the adorable Sacrament of the Altar as the Sacrament of Love. St. Thomas Aquinas, the Angelic Doctor, called It the "Sacrament of Love, the pledge of love." St. Bernard, all aglow with fervor, cried out, "It was love that urged Him to dwell in the Blessed Sacrament; love invented It, love gave It, love replenishes It with the riches of His love. Verily, there we may read the Love of all love!" St. Philip Neri, when dying, seeing the priest bringing the Holy Viaticum, exclaimed: "O my Love! Give me my Love!"

Animated with a like faith, and inflamed with the love of these Saints, let us approach the Sacred Host and look deeply into the Fount of Love. Let us meditate upon Its greatness and Its depth, that our cold hearts may be warmed by the wonderful force of Its attraction.

A Threefold Gift of Love
We cannot sufficiently prize the Most Blessed Sacrament. It is the heart of the Church, the center of our holy Religion, the well-spring of our Faith. The Holy Eucharist is our Sovereign Good, the most precious treasure we possess here on earth. In the Sacrament of the Altar, we behold three great manifestations of our Saviour's love:

1. Jesus offers Himself as a Victim of sacrifice for us in the Holy Eucharist. Daily He renews on our altars in an unbloody manner His bloody sacrifice of Calvary. As on the Cross He offered to the Eternal Father His Body, His Blood, His Heart, so in every Holy Mass He offers Himself anew, entirely and unreservedly.

Holy Mass is the most worthy sacrifice of praise that can be offered to God. The praise and adoration which is given to God by all men, angels and saints cannot be compared with the glory that is given Him by one Holy Mass. For there His only-begotten Son, who is one with Him in essence, equal to Him in all things, "the unspotted mirror of God's majesty" (Wis. 7:26), offers Himself to Him.

The Sacrifice of the Mass is likewise the most sublime sacrifice of thanksgiving, infinitely more pleasing to God than all the sacrifices of thanksgiving which the Old Law in the course of centuries had offered to Him; it is the most effectual sacrifice of supplication, because in the Sacrifice of the Mass the Son of God Himself is our Mediator with the Heavenly Father; and finally, it is the most efficacious sacrifice of atonement that can be offered for the living and the dead, for in Holy Mass the Precious Blood of Christ is shed anew in a mystical manner. Numberless sinners have obtained the grace of true conversion and perseverance through the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Daily a rich stream of graces flows from the altar into Purgatory to alleviate the sufferings of the Poor Souls and to make satisfaction for their sins.

2. Jesus offers Himself to us as our Food in Holy Communion. He desires to be for us the manna that nourishes and strengthens us on our pilgrimage to the land of promise, to our heavenly home. In Holy Communion He gives us light to dispel the darkness of our spirit; He gives us consolation to support us in sufferings; peace and rest to pacify our heart; courage to make us strong in our trials and temptations. What incomprehensible love on the part of Jesus! What inestimable happiness for us poor, weak creatures of earth.

And oh, how wonderful! In a thousand Hosts He is as in one; His Presence is in each place where there is a consecrated Host, and each communicant receives Him whole and entire, though a hundred thousand should receive Him. Hundreds of thousands receive Him and He rests in hundreds of thousands of places at the same time. Such a miracle only an omnipotent God can accomplish.

3. Jesus dwells continually in our midst in the Blessed Sacrament. Day and night He abides among us under the lowly species of bread, in the narrow Tabernacles of our churches. Here He is not only our infinitely great God, but also our merciful Saviour and our most faithful friend. The same miracles He wrought for the corporally sick during His earthly life, He performs in our days from the Tabernacle for those spiritually ill. He gives sight to the "blind" by granting them light to see the evil of sin, the value of things eternal, the value of Crosses and sufferings, the value of resignation to the will of God. He gives power of movement to the "lame" by prompting their sluggish will to resolve and act for His love alone. He raises the "dead" to life by calling souls from the death of sin to the life of grace.

For every spiritual ailment His love holds a remedy in readiness. Are you abandoned and sorrowful? On the altar you will find the heavenly Comforter. Are you poor in virtue? In the Tabernacle He who is infinitely rich is waiting to share His treasures with you. Are you troubled on account of your sins, and do you sigh for pardon? Go to the altar! Jesus, the all-merciful God, will receive you with open arms. He will help you to do everything necessary for true repentance. With His own Heart's Blood He will purify your soul and impart to you a strength which will sustain you until you have reached the "Mountain of God," the celestial paradise.

In your temporal needs and your physical ailments, Jesus in the Tabernacle will also be your Friend, your Father and your Physician. Countless is the number of those who, burdened with anxiety and care, have found help and relief before the Tabernacle. Many, too, are the bodily cures wrought through the Blessed Sacrament. At the shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes, where countless miracles are wrought each year, it is usually at the time the sick are blessed with the Most Blessed Sacrament that the miraculous cures are effected.

Taken from The Blessed Sacrament - God With Us by TAN Books & Publishers, Inc.

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