Source of Unlimited Grace

“Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament has His hands full of graces and He is ready to bestow them on anyone who asks for them”  (St Peter of Alcantara).  Our Lord Jesus Christ wants us to come and visit Him at our local Catholic Church and make a “Holy Hour” (an hour spent in Eucharistic Adoration) whenever we can.  The Eucharist is the Real Presence of Jesus: He is present body, blood, soul and divinity.  He is our Savior and our Friend.  What a joy it is to spend time with Him!

Venerable Fulton J. Sheen enthusiastically promoted the making of Holy Hours during his lifetime.  He stated, “During a Holy Hour we grow more and more into His (Christ’s) likeness.”  He also remarked, “The only time our Lord asked the Apostles for anything was the night He went into agony.  Not for activity did He plead, but for an Hour of companionship.”

Can’t you find a little companionship time to spend with Him in our Adoration Chapel?

Guide to help get the most out of time in the chapel

(used in bulletin 052123)

Fatima Anniversary

 First Apparition of Our Lady of Fatima

Beginning May 13, 1917, Our Lady appeared six times to the 3 shepherd children at Fatima.  Each time she appeared she stressed the importance of saying the Rosary on a daily basis.  When we say the Rosary, Mary herself helps us to deepen our relationship with her Divine Son Jesus.  The Rosary is a powerful way we can turn to Mary with our needs and petitions.  Sister Lucia, one of the 3 children, said “there is no problem, I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary.”

One of the best places to pray the Rosary is in our Adoration Chapel where we find the Real Presence of Our Lord and His Mother.  It is also where you can listen and hear what God has to say to you by simply sitting in His Silence.

 

Our Lord showers us with his blessings when we show him our love by making a weekly commitment to spend an hour in Adoration.  Every hour can accommodate additional Adorers; so make a commitment by going to www.adorationpro.org/ihmmi and clicking on the box that says:  ‘Weekly Commitment’.

Experience The Heavenly Court

 The Presence of the Heavenly Court

Our Savior has brought Heaven to earth by giving us Himself in the Most Blessed Sacrament, for He is the same God who is in Heaven, surrounded by His angels; and in His presence in our chapel we can associate ourselves with all the heavenly court who form an invisible guard around Him.  You would deprive yourself of the sweetest joys of your life if you failed to come and pour out your love and petitions before His real presence.  He allows Himself to be the true refuge of our souls, where we can find comfort, guidance, strength, peace, sanctity, and happiness.  Even though the burdens of our lives seem almost unbearable at times, we all have a Friend who will never fail us - God in the Holy Eucharist.  His Sacred Heart calls to each of us, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”  (Matt. 11:28)

In our world more than 360,000 Masses are offered every twenty-four hours, or four elevations of the Eucharist each second.  When He said I will be with you always - He wasn't kidding.  Praise Be Jesus!

Spiritually Lazy

 Spiritually Lazy

“Most Western people are just spiritually lazy.  And when we are lazy, we stay on the path we are already on, even if it is going nowhere.  It is the spiritual equivalent of the second law of thermodynamics: everything winds down unless some outside force winds it back up.”

Scott Peck quoted in Falling Upward by R. Rohr  p.xix

If you find your spirituality in need of a jump start why not make a commitment to spend time in the Real Presence of our Lord during Eucharistic Adoration.  Time in the chapel could be the ‘outside force’ needed to jump start your Spiritual Journey.

www.adorationpro.org/ihmmi

Window to Heaven - 5

A Window to Heaven - 5

This past Thursday our Lord Jesus Christ gave to us the greatest gift He possible could have on earth, Himself.  This gift is meant to carry us through our spiritual journey on earth, and prepare us for meeting Him in His heavenly home.

But before we do that; each and everyone has to embrace His gift and use it to experience “the greatest peace, calm and joy that comes from being in the presence of the Bridegroom of our souls.”  No one, certainly nothing else on this earth, will ultimately satisfy our deepest longings.  In all creation, in all the beautiful things and people He has made, we see something of Him.

In the Eucharist, we see Him.  Not as we shall see Him when we leave this world, not as He wants to be known by us in eternity, but in the form in which He has chosen to come to us on our earthly journey.  Someday, when this present darkness ends and God is “all in all,” we shall see His beloved face, and we shall be embraced by and love the One Who made us out of love, redeemed us, gave Himself to darkest death for us.

For now, we gaze up at Him as our food encircled by light.  The Eucharist we adore is the window to heaven, the true Body of Our Lord truly present.  “Oh come let us adore Him.”

    (Father Raymond T. Gawronski, S.J.)

Window to Heaven - 4

 Window to Heaven - 4

“The doctrine of the Real Presence means that Jesus is no less present in the Eucharist today than He was at the home of Martha and Mary.  “Oh”, someone might say, “we have the Eucharist on earth: the historical Jesus lived back then; the risen Jesus is in heaven.”  But don’t you see?  In Jesus, earth and heaven became fully one, fully wed: the risen Jesus is earth taken up into heaven.

In Him, the wedding feast has begun.  And Jesus is God, the Lord of heaven, made visible and tangible for us: seeing Him, we see the Father (Jn 14:9).  Our fleshly eyes see bread, for being earth all they see is earth.  But cloaked beneath that form of bread and wine is Jesus Christ, whose risen Body is the heart of heaven.  About Him dance all the company of angels and saints in mirthful adoration.  And some children of earth kneel and sit at the gate of heaven, looking up longingly through the circle of light that is heaven’s heart, and while they are there, all of earth gives way like husks that yield a flower: in His presence all is peace, all is light.

The Eucharist is a real, ongoing presence, not just a moment of communion, but an ongoing being with, and abiding, the eternal reality of the Incarnation, present “in every tabernacle of the world until the end of time,” as the prayer puts it.  In our day, Eucharistic Adoration has become an ever more popular way to be in the presence of Jesus, to adore Him: a way to be in heaven while on earth.”

   (Father Raymond T. Gawronski, S.J.)

Window to Heaven - 3

 A Window to Heaven - 3

“Our Lord Jesus Christ is as much present in our tabernacle, and our Adoration Chapel, as He is at the Vatican, or Jerusalem, at Lourdes or Fatima or any other holy place to which people travel.  In fact, no place on earth is more holy than our Adoration Chapel.  Every Mass, every consecration, is a miracle, greater by far than any other, really: for God to come into matter and transform it into Himself is far greater than His creating that matter in the first place.

That is why, Catholics have always shown a special reverence in their churches by genuflecting when entering the presence of the sovereign King who is really and truly there; by assuming stances of adoration, kneeling, or keeping silent in His presence, for it is in fact, God who is present, and by keeping silent we have a better chance of hearing what He has to say to us.

His presence is called “real”, for in the end, it is not we who are real, the piece of consecrated bread a mere symbol; no, our reality in this earthly form is padding away.  Right now we have this human form, but what we shall be is up to God, and none of us has seen it, this side of death (1 Jn 3:2).  We, who seem so real, are really mere phantoms of a day, our flesh grass that will pass away as we fall into the inscrutable mercy of God.  But now He comes to us as nourishment, as the food of life.  And as we change, we shall come to see the face of Him who has chosen to be among us as one who serves, and who serves by giving us His Body to eat, His Blood to drink, His presence to adore.”

      (Father Raymond T. Gawronski, S.J.)