09/03/2023
Well, Christian spirit, there was just love—the immense, excessive love that Jesus Christ had for people! Certainly, Jesus, our Redeemer, chose to stay with us in the Holy Sacrament because of love—love and nothing else. Give me the love and humility, O Jesus, O most precious Jesus, who is concealed behind the sacramental species, so that I might speak passionately of this invention of limitless love and so that everyone who hears about it may come to truly adore Thee.
Obtain for us the grace to partially understand the love of Jesus Christ in the Most Holy Sacrament, O Mary, Mother of Jesus Christ and our Dear Mother; O all ye holy Angels who, by your worship in our churches, make up for the little love which your God and our Saviour receives from men.
Let’s first think about the moment when Jesus Christ gave Himself to us as our food and drink in order to begin to understand the love of Jesus Christ in this great Sacrament. When Jesus traveled to Jerusalem in His twelfth year of age, or at the wedding in Cana, or when He was thirty and started giving public lessons, or even after His resurrection, He may have established this sacrament. But He choose the very last second of His earthly life to establish it.
Why did He take so much time? Why didn’t He implement it earlier or later? Considering His Resurrection, why not? Why right before He was ready to depart from earth and say goodbye to the Apostles? At the very end of His life, Jesus established this Sacrament so that men could more clearly see the depth of His love. Do you inquire as to why? To further understand, think of a father who is planning to show his children how much he cares for them by giving them expensive gifts made of gold and gems. What time do you think this parent would decide to give children these gifts so that it will have the greatest impact? In order for them to serve as the final mementos of his love, he will wait until he is on his deathbed before giving them.
Look, even our Heavenly Lord thought and behaved in the same way. He thought, I have already given men so many proofs of My love towards them: I have created them; I preserve their lives; I have become man—-for their sake I became a child; I have lived among them for more than thirty years; I am yet to suffer and die for them on the Cross and to re-open Heaven for them; what can I do more for them? Ah! In order to prevent them from accusing me of doing less for them than I should have, I can make them one more present. I will offer them a priceless gift and all of my resources. As a legacy, I will give them Myself—My Divinity and My Humanity, My Body and My Soul—wholly and unconditionally. At the end of My life, when men typically leave the things they cherish most to the people they care about, I will give them this present.
How come Jesus offered us the Eucharist? Well, Christian spirit, there was just love—the immense, excessive love that Jesus Christ had for people! Certainly, Jesus, our Redeemer, chose to stay with us in the Holy Sacrament because of love—love and nothing else. Give me the love and humility, O J...