Corpus Christi Solemnity and Reflections

 "The eternal tide flows hid in living bread. That with its heavenly life to be fed" (St John of the Cross 'Poems'). 

"O eternal Father, I ask to be permitted to receive the heavenly Bread with such dispositions that, if I have not the happiness of contemplating Jesus with the eyes of my body. I may at least contemplate Him with the eyes of my soul. This is Bread which contains all sweetness and delight, and sustains our life." 

(St Teresa 'Way of Perfection') 

"All graces are contained in You, O Jesus in the Eucharist, our celestial Food! What more can a soul wish when it has within itself the One who contains everything? If I wish for charity, then I have within me Him who is perfect charity, I possess the perfection of charity. The same is true of faith, hope, purity, patience, humility and meekness, for You form all virtues in our soul, o Christ, when You give us the grace of this Food. What more can I want or desire, if all the virtues, graces, and gifts for which I long, are found in You, O Lord, who are as truly present under the sacramental spieces as You are in heaven, at the right hand of the Father? Because I have and possess this great wonder, I do not long for, or desire, any other!" (St Mary Magdalen dei Pazzi)

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The Most Sacred Heart of Jesus Novena starts today, May 30th

To pray Novena CLICK HERE

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The Holy Trinity Sunday

Masaccio, The Holy Trinity with Virgin Mary, St John and donors fresco 

Santa Maria Novella, Florence 

"God chose us in Him before creation, that we should be holy and immaculate in His presence, in love"(Eph 1:4.) 

The Holy Trinity created us in its image, according to the eternal design that it possessed in its bossom before the world was created, in this beginning without beginning of which Bosuet speaks following St John: "In principio erat Verbum" (John 1:1). In the beginning was the Word; and we could add: in the beginning was nothing, for God in His eternal solitude already carried us in His thought. The Father contemplated Himself in the abyss of His fecundity, and by the very act of comprehending Himself He engendered another person, the Son. His eternal Word. The archetype of all creatures who had not yet issued out of the void eternally dwelt in Him, and God saw them and contemplated them in their type Himself. This eternal life which our archetypes possessed without us in God, is the cause of our creation.
Our created essence asks to be rejoined with its principle. The Word, the Splendour of the Father, is the eternal archetype after which creatures are designed on the day of their creation. This is why God wills that, freed from ourselves, we should stretch our arms towards our exemplar and possess it, rising above all things towards our model. This contemplation opens the soul to unexpected horizons.In a certain manner it possesses the crown towards which it aspires. The immense riches that God possesses by nature, we may possess by virtue of true love, by His dwelling in us and by our dwelling in Him. It is by virtue of this immense love that we are drawn into the depths of the intimate sanctuary where God imprints on us a true image of His majesty. Thus it is, thanks to love and through love, as the Apostle says, that we can be holy and immaculate in God's presence (Eph 1:4), and can sing with David: I will be unblemished and I will guard myself from the depths of sinfulness within me.(Ps 17:24)
Bl Elisabeth of the Trinity, Prayer One, Day Seven, Collected works, vol 1

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