Vultus Christi

A Grace Renewed

How do readers of Vultus Christi celebrate the anniversary of their First Holy Communion? Every grace remembered is a grace renewed. Saint Gertrude the Great made a practice of recalling the sacramental anniversaries of her life and of re-living them in the spirit of praise and thanksgiving that runs through all her writings.

Thanksgiving

For me, today is a memorial of thanksgiving embracing all of the Holy Communions received since June 4, 1959. Every Holy Communion draws the soul into the thanksgiving of Christ to the Father in the Holy Spirit: "In that same hour He rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, 'I thank Thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou hast hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes; yea, Father, for such was Thy gracious will. All things have been delivered to Me by My Father; and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him'" (Lk 10:21-22).

Reparation

Today is also a day of reparation for the coldness, indifference, and unworthiness with which I have received the holy and life–giving Mysteries of the Body and Blood of Christ over the years. The desire to make reparation is directly proportionate to what Pope John Paul II called "Eucharistic amazement." Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J. wrote of being "lost, all lost in wonder" before the adorable mystery of the Eucharist. It is this sense of awe before the Mystery that ignites the desire to make Eucharistic reparation.

My recent trip to France made me more sensitive to the need for Eucharistic reparation. For one who loves it becomes an imperative of the heart. I passed through dozens of small rural villages, each one having its clocher, its ancient church. In many of these villages churches Mass is offered only once a week on Sunday; in some of them Mass is offered only occasionally. Churches, with the Blessed Sacrament reserved in their tabernacles, are kept locked from one week to the next. No longer is there the possibility of making a visit to the Blessed Sacrament, or of stealing in quietly to seek the Eucharistic Face and Heart of Love. A coldness is spreading through our lands, and this not only in France. "I came, " says the Lord, "to cast fire upon the earth; and would that it were already kindled" (Lk 12:49).

I am reminded of what Mother Marie–Adèle Garnier, the saintly foundress of the Tyburn Benedictines wrote in 1875:

In this France which He loves, and where He has been pleased to manifest the torrents of love and mercy of which the Holy Eucharist is at once the ocean and the channel, does He not expect to find souls, objects of His special mercy, uniting themselves to Him, consecrating themselves forever to the prayer of reparation at the foot of His altar, and obtaining by their humble supplications a slackening of the sacrileges committed against Him, and a check to the contagious temptations of indifference and neglect? . . .

A Bold Prediction

I predict that among the fruits of Pope John Paul II's Year of the Eucharist and of his intercession in heaven, we will begin to see here and there in the Church the birth or rebirth of monasteries and other communities of men and women "driven" by the Holy Spirit to a life of Eucharistic adoration and reparation. Priests, in particular, are being called to the life of adoration, reparation, and Johannine intimacy with the Holy Face and pierced Heart of Jesus at once concealed and revealed in the Eucharist. Some are being called to live this out in community, others in a more solitary fashion.

Thank you, Vincent

Vincent Uher at Tonus Peregrinus (one of my favourite blogs) posted these two prayers of Eucharistic reparation some time ago.

O LORD JESUS CHRIST, who for our salvation didst endure the outrages of those who crucified thee, and now endurest the irreverence of those who discern thee not: Rather than withhold thy Sacred Presence from our Altars, give us grace to bewail the indignities committed against thee; and to repair, as far as lies in our power, and with devout love, the many dishonours thou still continuest to receive in this Adorable Mystery; Who livest and reignest, world without end. Amen.

O MY LORD AND MY GOD, MY GOD AND MY ALL, who hast willed to abide with us always in this Wonderful Sacrament, thus ever-glorifying thy Father by making present thy Passion in perpetual Memorial, and giving unto us thy very Self, the Food of Life: Grant us grace to grieve with a hearty sorrow for the insults offered thy Holy Mystery, and with sincere love to offer reparation for the many abuses and sacrileges thou still continuest to receive in thy Blessed Sacrament, who livest and reignest with the Father, in the Unity of the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.