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From Jesus Christ in the Most
Blessed
Sacrament of the Altar ...
to you
You have found me ...
For so
very, very, long I have awaited this moment! Since first I formed you
in your mother's womb, in unutterable love, I have awaited this moment
... and it is come.
Let us
now speak, face to face ... no, no, child, do not cast down your eyes,
but lift them up. See: I hold your face even as you speak; let me look
upon your eyes, as ever a father looks lovingly into the eyes of his
child. You are mine; even more than you are his.
Let us
remember this moment.
At every
Mass I had sought you. I peered past the faces of my many beloved children,
and I looked for you, looked upon you – and after every Mass I invited
you, called to you, but you did not hear me. You did not hear me because
you did not see me.
You knew
I was here, but you had forgotten.
Not in
vain did they hide me so far – sometimes even completely hidden from
– the Altar of my Sacrifice, as though the Lamb could be separated from
his own immolation.
You did
not gaze upon me because you did not see me. My Altar has become barren
of my Agony ... it is become a table, a refectory for many, and no longer
the Altar of the Sacrifice of the One.
I must
ask you, my child, did you ever see me laid upon that
Altar? Did ever you see my bruised, battered, and broken
body laying across, upon, that hallowed height? Did you ever
see me, before your very eyes, lifted upon the Cross before you
as my Priest held me up to the Father in the Holy Eucharist?
Did you
ever recognize that what was being enacted before you in the
Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the very same Sacrifice
which I offered up to my Father on Calvary?. Not a different one. Not
a symbolic one. But the same Sacrifice enacted before your
very eyes. Did you know that what separates you from my Holy Mother
at the foot of the Cross ... is the closing of your eyes ... even as
she closed hers – and I was, I am, present to you both. You were
not at Calvary. You are at Calvary ... at the Most Holy
Sacrifice of the Mass!
You have
forgotten so much, my little one, or more often still – and this is
so painful to me – there is so much that you had never been taught.
Tell Me ...
We are talking
... at long last in My very Presence
... so let me ask of you one question, my child. It is really a question
I should like you to ask yourself. Tell me:
Would
you behave any differently
were you to see me visibly; were you to behold me physically
standing before you, the wounds still in my hands and my feet, still
in my side? Were I to appear thus to you ... would you behave any differently
toward me than you do in acknowledging my Presence – Body, Blood, Soul,
and Divinity – in the Eucharist, in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar,
in the Tabernacle, at the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass? Think well
before you answer, little one, for much depends upon how you answer
this.
If
your behavior would be any different, if your reverence would be greater,
your love more fervid ... oh, little one, you are then lacking so much
in faith; and what is more grievous still,
your behavior does not accord with your belief:
you aver, profess to hold to, one thing ... and behave
as if you do not believe what you profess at all ...
It may
sting you, my child, and it so pains me to tell you, but this grievous
disparity between what you profess to believe, and how you actually
behave is either the deadly sin of pride or the shameful sin of
hypocrisy. Either you pretend to believe what you really do
not believe, or you do believe but are too proud
before the world, before the eyes of men, to humble yourself in my Real
Presence. Were I visible to their eyes, you would not hesitate;
but because I am not, that act of Faith that conquers Pride defers to
the world of men. You have Faith, my child, but you have no courage.
Instead of ignoring men ... you ignore your God. And think,
my child ... is that not the essence of sin?
"How so?",
you ask, "and in what ways?"
Look
back and think of the many, many times you have passed by me in the
Tabernacle – how lovingly I have watched you approach, thrilled
at your coming, ... and how sadly I have watched you pass me by with
not so much as a silent greeting, a genuflection or even a bow. You
have passed by me as by a column in the Church, which is unknowing of
you, heedless of you, without love for you. Quickly, thoughtlessly,
and most often attentive to your neighbor whom you would not dare to
affront by ignoring or disregarding their presence. Surely you would
not pass by even a casual acquaintance, let alone a loved friend, without
so much as a word, a gesture – and yet you seem to fear, as it were,
scandal, by acknowledging me.
Do you
not know by now that to be one of mine is to be
a scandal to the world, a contradiction to it?
You shrink
from the epithets they will hurl at you, even as they hurled still greater
ones at me. Do you think I do not know of them? "See how pious
he makes himself appear to be!" "Look at her, ever holier than thou."
"She should be humiliated by these acts of piety!" "He is doing
it for the praise of many, to be thought holy in the
sight of men. What a hypocrite!" "Who does she think she is
... a St.? Pretending to be one! ... shameful!"
You know
they will avoid you, marginalize you, accuse you of subtle evil ...
and most often they will think you ill of mind; you will be
shunned, and even hated ... and so often, to my unspeakable sorrow,
by the very people held to the holy: by your priests, your deacons,
your nuns – you will be a scandal to them because you will cause them
to accuse themselves. You will be a reproach to them, and they will
hate you for it. But take heart. Did I not tell you that if the
world hates you, know that it hated me first? You wish to share
in my glory. But will you share in my shame? You will be glorified with
me; but will you also be humiliated with me? For your sake
I bore humiliation. For my sake will you bear it also? Is the
servant greater than the Master?
Beloved
child, I hear you sing that I, the Lord of Heaven and Earth, am "the
center of your life", and at once behold the breathless celerity with
which you leave my church, a haste that will not allow a reverent genuflection
before me, an unspoken word of love to me ... Who has fed you with the
Bread of Angels, and Who ever beholds you ... and sustains you
in my love. I am puzzled, my child; but more than puzzled, I am greatly
sorrowed.
The
Empty Vestibule
Do
not be discouraged, little one,
by what I tell you. Ever and always I speak to you in the gentlest love,
and yet, my child, I must ask you now to consider more. We are Heart
to heart, are we not? And Voice to voice? Even Ear to ear? Listen to
me, my child: Had I chosen to remain with you in my true Body,
Blood, Soul, and Divinity ... that is to say, in my total being,
as your Lord, your Redeemer, and your God – had I chosen but
one place to abide, – let us say with my servant
Peter in Rome – and in no other Church except St. Peter's, how many,
many pilgrimages would be made, and at what great cost and sacrifice
to the faithful, to be truly in my Real Presence,
where I may be found as in no other place on earth! No expense would
be spared, no suffering not gratefully endured, no hardship happily
undertaken ... as long as the journey brought them to Me!
With what
reverence, love, and devotion would they accord themselves before me!
Having enjoyed this but even once in a lifetime would suffice to make
for a happy death. Each would say, in utter consolation,
"I
have knelt before my God, I have been in His Presence, I have offered
him my love – and what is more .... what is infinitely more ... He gave
himself to me! He gave me, fed
me, placed upon my tongue, his very Body, his very Blood, his very Soul,
his very Divinity! He
Himself! All this ... all this ... He deigned to give me, an
unprofitable servant in the mid-day sun! I have received ... Communion
with God. I have become one with Him and He with me. I have partaken
of the Bread of Angels. I have received the pledge of life eternal:
"Who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has life eternal, and I will
raise him up on the last day." Truly ... truly, what possible return
could I make to my God for so unspeakable a gift! His very Self! Is
this not the Gift given the blessed in Heaven?"
But I see
that you are eager to speak. Come, then, let us whisper. Now I
will be silent. It is your turn, little one .... speak."
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CONTINUED: Part II:
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