Jesus Lives On In The Church (Pt. 3): The Mystical Tradition (cont.)

SOME REVELATIONS ON THE HOLY SACRIFICE OF THE MASS AND THE MOST BLESSED SACRAMENT (cont.)

(4) A Vision of Bl. Marie d’Oignies
“In the life of Bl. Marie d’Oignies it is related that Our Lord was accustomed, on the occasion of different Feasts, to show Himself to her in the Blessed Sacrament under a form in harmony with the mystery being celebrated.” (‘Christ in His Mysteries’)

(5) A Revelation to Mother Jeanne Deleloë* (d. 1660)
“At Christmastide,” she writes, “during all those solemnities of our Saviour’s Birth, I received great favours; His Majesty often gave me a vivid light so that I knew these divine mysteries as if they were then really taking place.” (‘Christ, the Ideal of the Monk,’ Bl. Columba Marmion)

*“Often, during her ecstasies, she was heard reciting the Divine Office; but a curious thing was that she pronounced the verses alternatively, as if the inhabitants of Heaven were repeating the psalms with her; she recited the whole without omitting a single syllable, whatever was the Office of the day…
We likewise see St. Catherine of Siena asking Our Lord to teach her to read in order to be able to chant the Psalms and praises of God during the Canonical Hours. Often, too, Our Lord walked up and down with her in her cell and recited the Office with the Saint. It was as two religious might have done.” (ibid.)

(6) A Vision of St. Mary Magdalene de Pazzi
“God also granted her to see Jesus in the heart of the sisters after they had received Holy Communion; and sometimes she manifested in what form she saw Him in each of them,
He showing Himself to her in some as a child, in others at the age of twelve, and in others still at the age of thirty-three years, in others as suffering and crucified, and in others as risen and glorious; and this diversity occurred according to the various meditations the sisters were engaged in, or according to the capacity and the merits of each of them.” (‘The Life of St. Mary Magdalen De-Pazzi,’ Fabrini)

St. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi in ecstasy

(7) Another Vision of St. Mary Magdalene de Pazzi
“One morning, it being Easter Sunday, whilst she was mistress of novices, and sitting at the table with unwonted joy and gladness, a novice waitress could not keep herself from asking her the cause of so great a joy. To whom Magdalen made answer: “Because I see Jesus resting in the breast of all the sisters, glorious and risen, as Holy Church to-day represents Him to us; and His presence is the cause of my being so joyful.” (ibid.)

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Jesus Lives On In The Church (Pt. 2): The Mystical Tradition

God Deserves Infinite Praise
‘Great is the Lord,’ says the Psalmist, ‘and exceedingly to be praised in the city of our God, in His holy mountain’ (Ps. 47:2). Truly, God is worthy of infinite praise: ‘exalt Him as much as you can: for He is above all praise’ (Ecclus. 43:33). How then are we to praise God adequately?

The Chalice of Salvation
The answer is simple: unite yourself to Christ; live by His life (1 Jn. 4:9), by His hidden, Eucharistic life. There is no other way: ‘What shall I render to the Lord, for all the things He hath rendered unto me? I will take the Chalice of Salvation; and I will call upon the Name of the Lord’ (Ps. 115:12-13).

God Alone Can Praise God Worthily
God alone can praise Himself sufficiently. For this reason, God was made man; to this end He established the Church (‘the City of our God’), which offers to Him, upon her Altars (‘His holy mountain’), the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, that is, the perfect ‘sacrifice of praise’ (Ps. 115:17), which mystically renews the offering of Christ on Calvary:

‘For from the rising of the sun even to the going down, My Name is great among the Gentiles, and in every place there is sacrifice, and there is offered to my name a clean oblation: for My Name is great among the Gentiles, saith the Lord of hosts’ (Mal. 1:11).

God is ALL
To reiterate: ‘What shall we be able to do to glorify Him? for the Almighty Himself is above all His works’ (Ecclus. 43:30). Be a host. Thus we shall realise, in full, the prayer of Jeremiah: ‘Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed: save me, and I shall be saved, for THOU ART MY PRAISE’ (Jer. 17:14). This is the key to Christianity:

‘Sing to the Lord,
in union with His Bride, the Church, Who lives by His life,
O ye His saints: and,
through the Holy Mysteries,
give infinite praise,
through Christ, the God-Man,
to the memory of His infinite holiness.’
– Ps. 29:5 (the words in italics are mine)

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SOME REVELATIONS ON THE HOLY SACRIFICE OF THE MASS AND THE MOST BLESSED SACRAMENT

(1) A Vision of St. Hildegarde of Bingen
“As I gazed upon this Flesh and Blood I saw the signs of the Incarnation, the Birth, the Passion, of Our Saviour reflected in them as in a mirror, and just as we know these events to have been accomplished when the Son of God was on earth.” (‘Scivias’)

(2) Another Revelation of St. Hildegard of Bingen
Words of the Eternal Father: “Hence these mysteries shine before Me in the Heavenly places; for I have not forgotten them, but they will appear before Me in great brightness, like the dawn, until the end of the world.” (‘Scivias’)

Bl. Columba Marmion: “Doubtless we must never forget that under the Eucharistic species is found only the substance of the glorious Body of Jesus, such as it is at present in Heaven, and not such as it was, for example, in the crib of Bethlehem.
But when the Father looks upon His Son Jesus in the Heavenly splendours, what does He behold in Him? He sees the One Who lived thirty-three years upon earth for us; He beholds all the mysteries that this mortal life contained, the satisfactions and the merits whereof these mysteries were the source; He beholds the glory that His Son gave Him in living each of them.” (‘Christ in His Mysteries’)

St. Gertrude in ecstasy

(3) A Revelation to St. Gertrude the Great
“It is related in the life of St. Gertrude, that one day, on the Festival of the Ascension, when she received the Sacred Host from the hand of the priest, she heard Jesus say to her: ‘Behold Me: I come, not to bid thee farewell, but to take thee with Me to Heaven, and present thee to My Father.'” (‘Christ in His Mysteries’)

The Power of Praise: A Sublime Revelation Given to St. Mechtilde

A Sublime Revelation to St. Mechtilde
On a certain day, while the Benedicite* was being sung in choir, Our Lord addressed these words to St. Mectilde:

“Whenever anyone sings that hymn, or a similar one [e.g. Psalms 148 – 150] in which all creatures are summoned to praise God, those creatures all come spiritually into My presence and praise Me for that person and for all men in general for all the benefits I have given them.” (Pt. 3, Ch. 7)

[*i.e. The Benedicite. This is a text based on Chapter 3 of the book of Daniel, the first verse of which is: ‘BENEDICITE omnia opera Domini, Domino: All ye works of the Lord, bless the Lord.’]

A Biblical Foundation
If this seems far-fetched, listen to St. Paul:

‘For all things are yours,
whether it be Paul, or Apollo, or Cephas,
or the world,
or life,
or death,
or things present,
or things to come;
for all are yours;
and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.’
– 1 Cor. 3:22-23

And yet again:

‘He that spared not even His own Son,
but delivered Him up for us all,
how hath he not also, with Him, given us all things?’
– Rom. 8:32

This ought to be the source of all our confidence! The treasury of Christ’s riches are ours! We access these riches by faith. This explains Our Lord’s words to St. Mechtilde: “CONFIDENCE BY ITSELF CAN EASILY OBTAIN ALL THINGS.”

A Model of Confidence
There are many: St. Therese, Bl. Columba Marmion, St. Gertrude, Sr. Benigna Consolata, St. Gemma Galgani, etc. But let’s take another example: Mechtilde of Magdeburg (another holy Mechtilde). “She took all Christendom,” writes Bl. Columba Marmion, “in the arms of her soul to present it to the Eternal Father that it might be saved.
‘Let be,’ said Our Lord to her, ‘it is too heavy for thee.’
‘No, Lord,’ replied the Saint, ‘I will lift it up and bear it to Thee with Thine own Arms, that so Thou mayest bear it Thyself upon the Cross.’

“This Divine Life that Jesus possesses personally and in its plenitude, He wills to communicate and lavish upon us:
I am come that they may have life,
and may have it more abundantly.”
– Bl. Columba Marmion

 

The Value of a Fervent Communion

‘Miraculous communion du Saint Teresa of Jesus’ by Niccolò Bambini.

‘Deus Cordis Mei: Thou art the God of my heart’
The graces of a fervent Communion are incalculable. One Communion was sufficient to cause Bl. Imelda (d. May 12, 1333) to die of love, so great was her longing for the God of her heart (Ps. 72:26).  “Tell me,” she would sometimes say, “can anyone receive Jesus into his heart and not die?” ‘My soul hath thirsted after the strong living God; when shall I come and appear before the face of God? My heart is ready, O God, my heart is ready!’ (Ps. 41:3; Ps. 107:2).

“No tongue can express,” writes the Venerable Abbot Blosius, “no heart can comprehend how boundless are the spiritual goods which come to the soul from the devout reception of this sweet Sacrament of the Eucharist.” (‘A Spiritual Mirror’) ‘He that spared not even His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how hath He not also, with Him, given us all things?’ (Rom. 8:32)

Four Fruits of a Fervent Communion
Listen to the words of “the devout Blosius” (St. Alphonsus), “a great Benedictine mystic” (Bl. Columba Marmion). The following words are from his work, ‘A Book of Spiritual Instruction’:

“O most worthy and most sweet Sacrament, in which, under the species of bread and wine, we receive the whole Christ, namely, the Body, the Blood, the Soul and the Godhead of Christ; we receive the whole Trinity, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. For the three Persons of one Godhead and essence cannot be separated from one another. The whole Trinity, therefore, dwells in the Body of Christ, because the whole Godhead is in It. The fruits, therefore, of the most Blessed Sacrament are many and precious.

(1) He who receives the Lord’s Body with due devotion is cleansed from all sins, even from those mortal sins of which he is not conscious or does not remember to have committed, provided only that he is in the disposition of mind to confess and do penance for them if he did know that he had fallen into them.

(2) He is made partaker of all those good things which Christ has merited for us in His Life, Passion and Death.

(3) Yea, also, he becomes a sharer in all the good things that have been done since the time of Adam, and will be done until the end of the world.

(4) Lastly, he is united to Christ and incorporated with Him, and therefore receives force and power to resist vice and to persevere in good works; and now, adorned with a more pure and excellent life, he is transformed and changed into God, and filled with all the grace of the most glorious Trinity.”

‘Elevation of the Host’ by Wenceslaus Hollar

‘Thou hast prepared a Table before me against them that afflict me.’
– Psalm 22:5