ELISHEBA BLOGLaura, Ivonne, and Rick
write about their lives in the Eucharist. |
ELISHEBA BLOGLaura, Ivonne, and Rick
write about their lives in the Eucharist. |
Dearest Eucharistic Family. In 1999 I became a member of the Legion of Mary. We had weekly meetings, rosary, and reports of good works with prayers to unite us. Most importantly a bond of love was formed with the presidium members as we worked together for Christ’s mission of His Church through the heart of our Blessed Mother. Our Legion president was a humble man, docile, and carried a gentleness of spirit. I remember hearing “his story” and I loved him even more. This gentleman lost his only son, a young boy around twelve years old, and his wife soon after. The boy was hit by a car while riding his bicycle, his wife became ill. Close to her death at the bedside of his wife, sharing his grief and expressing to her: “What am I going to do? How will I survive? How will I go on living?” The wife took hold of his hand and said, “Listen to me, you will go to the Church, join the Legion, and work for Mary (our mother) she will take care of you. She will keep you busy, and you will be OK”. And so it happened, a witness of love and a remarkable life of the president of the Legion was carried out until his old age and death. Amazing grace, by divine intervention and consenting to God’s will birthed a witness of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus and to follow Him. Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, invites us into the moving mystery of His love. Jesus gave us an example the night before He died.
Sharing in the grief and in the joy of others, uniting to their life story strengthens the Body of Christ, this act keeps the Body functioning well. We fall in love with our brothers and sisters of grace united through the beating heart of the Eucharist. This love is the love which enables us to live. We hold one another in the grace that saves us. It is important to remember.
Jesus invites us to remember. In the Eucharist, we remember the Life, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Our lives are made one with Jesus in the Breaking of the Bread. How blessed we are to place upon the Altar of God daily all that we live for, all that we die for, and all that we hope for. To live a Sacramental life is a blessing for a joy of completeness and a gift to pray is found. An activity of life in the breadth of the Holy Spirit fills the house, our house, our spirit, our lives. I thank God for the Legion of Mary, it led me to later become a Lay Associate of the Blessed Sacrament, in the Charism of Saint Peter Julian Eymard, to make God’s love greatly known in the Eucharist.
It is love that enables us to hear others. A daily communicant from my parish speaks another language than me. We embrace one another daily with a sincere smile from each of us. Our words are very few to understand. Yet the heart unites us so deeply in all that we believe, all that we witness. GOD’S LOVE IS A MYSTERY. WE WALK TOGETHER IN FAITH and profess the witness of one another's lives, we never forget, that LOVE IS ETERNAL.
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By: Laura Catherine Worhacz for “Prayer is the sacrifice of every person, as that of the priest, including the four ends of sacrifice. Priests have two goals, while the ordinary person has only one. He has only one sacrifice – himself. What is his prayer? What is the prayer of an ordinary person? […] The sacrifice, the offering is such a small thing. What has the Church done so that the layperson, like the priest, can have the same victim? This is the work of the Holy Spirit, coming into us and forming the same prayer by his grace and love. This prayer becomes divine by the Holy Spirit working in us. Not only does he pray in us, as St. Paul says, with inexpressible groanings – [postulat pro nobis gemitibus inenarrabilibus] [Rm 8:26], he groans in us with the groanings of love and repentance. He identifies himself with us, so that we may pray with him. He forms in us a spirit of prayer so that we might offer worship to God.” (Saint Peter Julian Eymard, Personal notes) Dearest Eucharistic Family, to live in a spirit of prayer with “groanings of love and repentance” is a deep invitation from our beloved Saint Paul. It is truly there, in our prayer of this expression, that our hearts are most clearly affixed to God. The Holy Spirit generates through our life journey, by our consent, an exchange of love with Our Father in Heaven. “The Holy Spirit gives to certain of the faithful the gifts of wisdom, faith, and discernment for the sake of this common good which is prayer (spiritual direction). Men and women so endowed are true servants of the living tradition of prayer.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2690) The gift to us is grace; we exchange our groanings for grace and the blessing to see through the eyes of heaven the sufferings of the present day. How we react to the afflictions of life is the witness of love the world will see from hearts down through the ages who have trusted in being formed in a spirit of prayer. The mystery of our lives unfolds a little more as our hearts are expanded in our relationship with Jesus. Saint Peter Julian allowed revelations to come to him until the end of his days on earth. This revelation is the last book of the bible and to our lives. To live in all that is being revealed at every moment in the embrace of God’s love is a pure gift. To endure suffering knowing they are for a Divine purpose, makes them holy, makes them sacred. The above excerpt states the prayer of our groaning becomes divine, the Holy Spirit setting fire to the love that unfolds as it is shared. Summer is around the corner, and it is always a good time for me to be on retreat. Sometimes I make a retreat from my very own home or have the blessing of being away with the Lord. The important thing is to set time aside to pray, listen, and perhaps journal for the special graces God will give to us in conversation with Him. The Catechism of the Catholic Church emphasizes the importance for every baptized person to develop a living relationship with God. A spiritual retreat is a great way to do this, through the supportive setting of prayer or teachings. To prepare our hearts, we may want to take time to evaluate our time with God, our neighbor, and the work we offer on mission with Christ’s Church. To set priorities and stick to them as best we can is helpful. To be docile to the Holy Spirit may be achieved by praying to the Holy Spirit and asking for the power that comes forth from the Gift of Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Knowledge, Fortitude, Piety, and Fear of the Lord. God has given us everything we need to live in His love. He showed us a life lived in the Miracles of Christ, His Son, and blessed us to know Jesus would die for our salvation. To pray and live in an eternal conversation with God by the Gift of the Holy Spirit keeps us alive. “Pray always and never lose heart.” (Luke 18:1)
Dearest Eucharistic Family, How to make ordinary time extraordinary? We learn from Jesus.
My wedding anniversary is 11/29, November 29, and on one of my anniversaries I looked up all four Gospels, 11:29, and came across Matthew.
It is the most appropriate message for marriage and any relationship, especially our espousal to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. After 36 years of marriage, sickness and health...God shows us the way to be transformed daily into the Gift of Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Knowledge, Fortitude, Piety and Fear of the Lord. More important than our failures is our consent to live in forgiveness and integrity of heart. To have a great affection for the privilege to live in the Sacraments of our Catholic Church is example for what we believe to be true; eternal life. It is a sacrifice of our time to be disciplined into our prayer life. To attend daily Mass, to live in the Eucharist, is to make our lives a living prayer. This past week a dear brother in Christ passed suddenly into eternity. It is at such times we are reminded that our time on earth is temporal, our daily routines will one day be long gone. Life is precious, we know not the hour or the moment when we will see God face to face.
Mourning loss is very real, it is a wound never truly healed, however, in Holy Communion we are invited to be with God in the suffering. And there we find hope, extraordinary grace to endure the loss. The above excerpt from Saint Peter Julian teaches us to be purified through Holy Communion. The remedy for our sinful inclinations is the power of the Eucharist. Only the humble can be happy on this side of the heavens. To find humility we must find Jesus. In the life of Christ, our humanity is formed into the Divine Life. The Holy Spirit dwells in humble souls. Truly none of us are humble without combating the battle within. It is by such desire to be union with God that we can live in extraordinary grace, to find ourselves in gratitude rather than pity, in thanksgiving rather than living in self-entitlement. Our Eucharistic lives help us to live ultimately in love. And in love, we appreciate all those around us, by making every moment sacred; knowing the present days are passing and our time on earth to be cherished. When someone passes on the memories of our encounters with them are remembered. The love shared and the love we witness from their lives is a mark on our souls. May we follow the example of Mary who first showed us the way to humility. Mary was the first to live in an extraordinary condition of life by her service to God, by her yes through her espousal to the Holy Spirit. With Saint Joseph leading the Holy Family, we are sure they lived in the ultimate love because they had JESUS. When our time on earth comes to pass, we will be in the PEACE of Christ since we have tried our best to live in perfect charity. In Jesus’ love, we can be in extraordinary grace in ordinary time!
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AuthorsWe are Ivonne J. Hernandez, Rick Hernandez and Laura Worhacz, Lay Associates of the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament, and brothers and sisters in Christ. |