The Eucharistic Heart of Our Lord

May our Lord, who does not will the death of the sinner, grant through the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass a new effusion of his Heart’s blood, as it were, and of the blood from his sacred wounds. There have been saints who at the moment of the elevation during Mass have seen the precious blood overflow the chalice, spill over the arms of the priest as if it would flow into the sanctuary, and be caught up in gold cups by angels who then carried it over the whole world, particularly to lands where the Gospel was little known. 

This was a symbol of the graces flowing from the Heart of Christ…. The Eucharistic Heart of Jesus is the supreme model of the perfect gift of self, a gift which in our own lives should become more generous with each passing day.  Each new consecration should mark for the priest progress in his faith, trust, and love of God and of souls.  For the faithful, each Communion should be substantially more fervent than the preceding one, since each Communion should increase the charity in our hearts and make them resemble our Lord’s more closely and thus dispose us to receive him more fervently on the morrow.  As a stone gathers momentum in its fall toward the earth which attracts it, so should souls tend toward God with increasing speed as they come closer to him and are more powerfully attracted to him.

The Eucharistic Heart of Jesus yearns to attract our souls to itself.  This Heart is often humiliated, abandoned, forgotten and yet it is the Heart that loves our hearts, the silent Heart that would talk to souls to teach them the value of the hidden life and the value of the ever more generous gift of self.  The Word made flesh came among his own, and his own received him not.  Blessed are those who receive all that his merciful love deigns to give them and the graces which should radiate through them upon others.  Blessed are they who, after they have received, follow the example of our Lord and give themselves ever more generously by him, with him, and in him.