St. Maximilian Kolbe: If Angels Could be Jealous of Men...

"If angels could be jealous of men,

they would be so for one reason:

Holy Communion."

~ St. Maximilian Kolbe ~

(Highlights of the First Holy Communion Mass at Sacred Heart in Medford, Oregon on May 16, 2009.)

Prayer to Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament

Virgin Immaculate,
perfect lover of Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament,
we ask you to obtain for us the graces we need
to become true adorers of our Eucharistic God.

Grant us, we beg of you,
to know Him better,
to love Him more,
and to center our lives around the Eucharist,
that is, to make our whole life a constant prayer
of adoration, thanksgiving, reparation, and petition
to Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament.
Amen.

V. Pray for us, 0 Virgin Immaculate,
Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament.

R. That the Eucharistic Kingdom of
Jesus Christ may come among us!

St. Margaret Mary Alacoque: Eucharistic Adoration

"From the depth of my nothingness,

I prostrate myself before Thee,

O Most Sacred, Divine and Adorable Heart of Jesus,

to pay Thee all the homage of love, praise and adoration in my power."

"Let every knee bend before Thee,

O greatness of my God,

so supremely humbled in the Sacred Host.

May every heart love Thee,

every spirit adore Thee

and every will be subject to Thee!"

~ St. Margaret Mary Alacoque ~

Blessed Teresa: Benefits of Spending Time With Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament

"The time you spend with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament

is the best time you will spend on earth.

Each moment that you spend with Jesus

will deepen your union with Him

and make your soul everlastingly more glorious and beautiful in Heaven,

and will help bring about everlasting peace on earth,"

~ Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta ~

Fr. William Casey: Holy Mass is the Greatest Act of Worship

"...when I celebrate Holy Mass I am not standing, but hanging on the cross together with Jesus, and I suffer inadequately all that Jesus suffered on the Cross, as much as is possible for a human creature. The Lord has deigned to associate me with the great work of human redemption, and this despite my every demerit, and only because of His supreme goodness."

~ St. Padre Pio ~

St. Philip Neri: Overcome With Love for Jesus in the Eucharist

"Our sweet Jesus,

through the excess of His love and liberality,

has left Himself to us in the Most Holy Sacrament."

~ St. Philip Neri ~

The time came for Philip Neri to become Father Philip Neri. His confessor convinced him he could do more good fighting the heresies and paganism destroying the very fiber of our Church and the Mystical Body of Christ, as a priest. He obeyed! He was ordained at thirty-six. His first Mass, he became so overcome with emotion, shaking almost uncontrollably, he could barely pour the wine and water into the chalice. At the moment of Consecration, when he elevated the Host, he had to lean against the altar for support, as he feared he would fall over if he did not brace himself. This would repeat itself at every Mass he said.

He was never too sick to celebrate the ongoing Sacrifice of the Cross every day. He united himself so deeply with the Lord, His last hours on the Cross, that at the moment of elevation, he would levitate, suspended over the altar for more than two hours. For this reason, toward the end of his life, in order to not attract attention to himself, rather than to the Mass and what is truly happening on the altar, he celebrated Mass privately in a little chapel adjacent to his room. His first biographer said he came upon St. Philip many times, elevated as high as six feet from the floor while saying the Mass.

...During the forty hour devotions, which he loved, he preached so passionately about the God-Man Jesus Who was alive in the Monstrance that one day there were thirty conversions, young men who had come to church to ridicule Father Neri and disrupt the Mass, but after hearing him, converted and asked to go to confession. More and more people returned to the Sacraments after many years away from the Church. He began teaching in his private chamber; from this, more and more came, and before you know it the Congregation of the Oratory was formed. Philip Neri was thirty seven years old.

~ Excerpts from here ~

St. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi: Reparation for Offenses Committed Against Jesus

"O what a wonderful and intimate union is established between the soul and You, O lovable Lord, when it receives You in the Holy Eucharist! Then the soul becomes one with You, provided it is well disposed by the practice of the virtues, to imitate what You did in the course of Your life, Passion, and death.

~ St. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi ~

After she had been sick for two months, the doctors gave her up for lost, whence the superiors /the prioress, Sister Victoria Contugi, and the mistress of novices, Sister Evangelist del Giocondo/ decided to have her make her holy profession. This was done on the 27th day of May, 1584, during the morning of /the feast of/ the Most Holy Trinity» (Breve Ragguaglio, pp. 90-2).

Mary Magdalen made her profession «on a cot arranged before the altar of the Virgin» (Processes, I p. 44) and was then immediately brought back to the infirmary. From that moment on there began a surprising period of ecstasies; every day after Communion she remained ecstatic for two or three hours. Sometimes she had new and repeated excesses of love during the day as well, with the renewal of the divine favors. The experience lasted uninterruptedly for forty days, during which the following mystical phenomena occurred and should be remembered: a vision of the drama of the Passion (especially noteworthy is that of June 8), the exchange of her heart with that of Jesus (June 10), the first invisible impression of the stigmata (June 28). Moreover, on July 6 she received the crown of thorns from Our Lord, in the presence of St. Catherine of Siena and of St. Augustine; and she was to suffer the mysterious pain of the crown for the rest of her life.

She was cured on July 16 at the intercession of the Blessed Mary Bagnesi; and subsequently the life of Mary Magdalen became a succession of visions, ecstasies, other mystical phenomena, penances and trials. On the evening of March 24, 1585, the vigil of the Annunciation, St. Augustine wrote the words «Verbum caro factum est» /The Word was made flesh/ on her heart. On April 15 the invisible stigmata were imprinted on her soul permanently; on the 28th she received a ring from Jesus, the seal of her mystical espousal with Him. On Friday, May 17, she had the longest of any of her ecstasies until then. It began on the afternoon of Friday and was prolonged for forty hours, until the following Sunday morning. On the 21st she received the Lord's command to take only bread and water as nourishment, except on Sundays and holydays, on which days she would be able to take «Lenten foods.» Furthermore, Jesus ordered her to rest only five hours a day, on a straw mattress, in satisfaction, for the offenses that are committed against Him» (II, p. 877 /III, 285/). (Source)