Do you know there is only one Christian church that teaches what Jesus Christ taught in John 6, that He is truly present in the Holy Eucharist, His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity? He said: Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life… For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. (Jn. 6:53ff) Many found this teaching hard and walked away. (Jn. 6:60). For 2000 years, the Catholic Church is still the only church that has always taught what Jesus taught.
Jesus once asked the question, Do you think that I have come to establish peace? No, I have not come to establish peace but rather division (Lk. 12:51). It’s very important for Our Lord, the Prince of Peace, to be very clear about the kind of peace He comes to establish. He is the Prince of Peace, even though He doesn’t sound like it here, but even more, He’s the King of Love. And the peace that Our Lord brings is the peace that has to be rooted in love. That was St. Paul’s prayer when he prayed for the Ephesians (Eph. 3:14ff). He was also praying for us to be rooted and grounded in love, that we would know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge. He is inviting us into a deep mystery here. We are supposed to know something that we cannot know. Perhaps we are supposed to know this love of Christ in the Biblical sense of knowing, a greater intimacy, a deeper encounter.
The Missionaries of Charity have a sign in their sacristy –this is for the priests as they prepare, putting on their vestments, doing their prayers, in preparation for Holy Mass– the sign by the crucifix says “Love to be true, has to hurt.” My, you don’t have to be more specific when you say that. “Love to be true, has to hurt.” And this love in which we are being rooted and which is being grounded in us is a love that grabs us by the heart and hurts.
I have seen that love especially when it grasps hold of someone and causes this kind of division, the exact kind of division that Our Lord describes here when a young woman is called to give herself completely to the Lord by entering religious life, the consecrated life, when she becomes His bride. It is such a beautiful thing. She is grasped by the heart and drawn into the intimacy of that life lived in love with Christ. But I have marveled at the divisions this causes. In fact, in my life as a Catholic convert, nothing has caused greater controversy or challenge. I have received more objections about this than anything else I have done, than by encouraging young women to enter the convent. The mothers, not all the mothers, the fathers, oh my goodness, I had to tell one, she had to warn me when he came to town! The violent reaction “How could you?” they might say to me, “encourage her to throw away a college education? Shouldn’t she take care of those types of worldly concerns? Is she really going to leave me, her mother for Him?” They don’t know that love, it hasn’t grasped them yet, this kind of love that takes over everything and throws all away for Him.
This is what happens at Holy Mass, we encounter this love. It is what happens in adoration, this love is enkindled within us. St. Jose Maria Escriva, the Founder of Opus Dei said, “You need a heart that is in love –not an easy life to achieve happiness,” because those two things are often incompatible– a heart that is in love and an easy life. Our Lord is very clear here. The peace that He comes to bring, the love that He draws us into, is not meant to bring us peace as the world knows it–a kind of comfort and ease that makes everything nice and neat. He grasps hold by the heart and it causes division especially with anyone who doesn’t know this love, who doesn’t know Him in that way, they would not understand. They can’t understand. How could they? But how could we? Let’s be honest. We barely taste it. We just get the merest glimmer of this love but it’s enticing us, it is enticing you, or you would not be here. You would not go and gaze at Him in adoration. You would not pray with Him there. Something is stirring in your heart. It’s that love. Will you surrender to it? You will see it there on the altar. You will see it in a Eucharistic Adoration chapel.
“I have come to set the earth on fire and how I wish it were already blazing!” (Lk.12:49) Well, He set it on fire and now it’s blazing! You will see that fire in His Sacred Heart. You know the image, the Sacred Heart of Jesus burns with love for all mankind, there is that fire. His Love is True, the truest love the world has ever known. But St. Teresa of Calcutta was right. “Love to be true has to hurt” and how it hurts HIM! How can you, how can we, expect to have some kind of easy love when we see HIS poured out here –poured out on the Cross– poured out on the altar, spent for us, loving us to the end?
And then Mary’s heart, it did not have to be that way, except for love, but because of love, it had to be that way. That she would enter so deeply into the mystery of the love of her Son, that in His saving death, her heart would be pierced, pierced by the sword and enflamed, enflamed with Love.
You need a heart in love and a heart that hurts. Those two things go together. And we are here because we want to love more. We want to know Him more. We want to know this love that we cannot know, and so we do not learn about it. He does not teach it to us. He shows it to us. He gives it to us. We will receive it in Holy Communion. When you receive Holy Communion, every time you receive Holy Communion, He gives you a little piece of HIS HEART, and that HEART comes to your heart if it is open to Him. Today, especially today, let’s invite Him there. Today is not a time for learning. It is not a time for Our Lord to teach us. It is a time for LOVING, for Him to show us, for Him to give us His love. It is for you to receive and for all of us to surrender. HIS HEART is enflamed. Her Heart is pierced. May our hearts fall in love and grasp Him by THE HEART and let Him grasp us by the heart that He might enflame our hearts with HIS LOVE and draw us deeper and deeper into the MYSTERY OF HIS LOVE.
Now, what about reading at Eucharistic adoration? Now if what we are about is loving, then sometimes you read. You know, sometimes lovers will exchange letters. People have described the Bible as God’s love letter to us. There are other letters and sometimes if your lover gives you a letter, then you want to read it in their presence. That is how I look at reading in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. You might glance up at Him every once in a while to remind yourself that it’s about Him. It is about you and Him. It is about an encounter. It is about Love here. You might read for a little bit and put the book down. Look at Him. Love Him. If there is nothing stirring in your heart, pick the book up again. Read a little bit more. Some spiritual reading, some reading from Sacred Scripture, and so we might see that trajectory of the whole of the spiritual life as that moment that comes in your life when you kind of put the book down in your prayer and you just go to love Him.
But it happens in a little way for all of us when we go to pray. Something stirs in your heart, you respond to it and you look at Him, you love Him. When it’s not happening, you read. Worst case scenario, you’re spending an hour doing some spiritual reading. Best case scenario, you’re love gets purer and purer, more and more of a deeper encounter, less in your control, more of falling in love.
Ask the Lord: What are you doing there? What are you doing in that Host? Why? Why would you make yourself bread for ME? Why would you let me consume you? WHY would I take You as my food? Ask that question, and let Him remind you that it’s for love. There could be no other reason. Then you’ll be looking at the Host and you’ll glance over at the Crucifix there.
St. Francis of Assisi in his Stations of the Cross says of the Crucifix, Behold, Jesus crucified. Behold His wounds received for love of you. His whole appearance betokens love. His head is bent to kiss you. His arms are extended to embrace you. His heart is open to receive you. Oh, what Love.
When you forget what your time in adoration is about, it’s about loving. Think of those words of St. Francis. He knew how to pray. He knew how to ask that question: What are you doing? His whole appearance betokens love. His head is bent to kiss you. His arms are extended to embrace you. His heart is open to receive you. Oh, what Love.
St. Teresa of Calcutta, Mother Teresa, said, When you see the Crucifix, you know how much Jesus loved you. When you see the Sacred Host, you know how much Jesus loves you now. I don’t take it for granted that this happens automatically. It seems to me that there is something in us, well, it’s original sin. It’s concupiscence the twisting that happened in us, that wound in our heart from original sin. Even though we’re baptized and we’ve had the original sin washed away, still it left its mark and one of the deepest marks, I think the deepest lies, the lies one priest I know calls the lie of unlovability. I can tell you that, that He loves you, that He’s loving you. What’s He doing? He’s loving YOU. But somehow it doesn’t sink in.
I know a young woman who is discerning her vocation. She thinks that maybe God is calling her to be a religious sister. So I was talking with her about how much God was loving her, especially when she would go to adoration. And I just could see and feel even in my heart this love of Christ for her, how much it meant to Him that she would come to Him, especially this one who was ready to give her life completely to Him, how much He LOVED her, how much His love was pouring out for her, but just because she would go to pray and He was loving her. And, after talking to her, I went to pray and I thought just for a moment and I was surprised to realize that, that He felt that way about ME too. I mean as I look around and I’m kind of surprised but He feels that way about YOU too. When you go to Him, He falls in love with you all over again.
I don’t take it for granted that this sinks in, because of all the things in the spiritual life, this has been the hardest to sink in for me. I mean, I have to look in the mirror every day and it’s hard to believe, He’s in love with me! Really? I wonder how the lie stirs in you, that lie of unlovability?
I mean, I know that you all know that He loves you if I would ask any of you: Does He love you? You’d say, Oh yeah, of course, God loves me. No, no, HE’S IN LOVE WITH YOU. That’s what I’m talking about…. Oh yeah, He loves me. Of course, He loves everybody. No, no, He loves YOU in a particular way! Yeah. Jesus has a special place in His heart just for you. He is a very loving God. He will always love you and continue seeking great intimacy with you every day of your life.
NOTE: Adapted from a talk by an anonymous Catholic convert.