AMDG
The Last Supper is brought to us in the Mass, transcending time. Thus the Eucharist is a sacred meal for us. The 40 Hours Devotion of Eucharistic Adoration gives us the opportunity to be with the Lord Himself as the apostles were in Christ's public life.
The Forty Hours Eucharistic Devotion is a special exposition of the Blessed Sacrament with prayers and adoration continuing for an approximate total of 40 hours over a period of three days. The beginning and culmination of the 40 Hours is the solemn Mass, a Eucharistic sacrifice that we consume as a sacred meal in unity with Christ and neighbor. It concludes with a Eucharistic procession and benediction.
The devotion is a tradition that began in
Milan, Italy about 1527. The 40 hours of
prayer represent the time between Jesus' burial and resurrection and the number
40 has significant meaning in the Bible, often representing trials and
suffering. Examples are the great 40
days if rain and flood that destroyed the earth, 40 years that the Jews
wondered in the desert after being freed from Egyptian slavery, and Christ’s 40
days of prayer and fasting in the desert in preparation for His active ministry. It was initially celebrated as a way to atone
for the community's sins and to pray for God's protection during wartime.
The 40 Hours Eucharistic Devotion spread
quickly in the West through such great leaders of the Counter Reformation as
St. Ignatius Loyola, St. Philip Neri, St. Charles Borromeo, and others. Popes Clement VIII and Clement XII further
promoted it. In America, St. John
Neumann was the first church leader to practice the devotion.
At our own St. Louis Church we are
celebrating it on Friday August 30, Saturday August 31, and Sunday September 1 as
part of our community’s participation in the ongoing National Eucharistic
Revival.
We can be at peace as we gaze upon the
Blessed Sacrament, simply meditating upon Christ’s great love for each one of
us and we love Him in return, praising Him, adoring Him, and giving thanks for
all that He has done for us. As a
natural consequence, we will have a greater love for those around us and
everyone in the community as we grow in charity and kindness. We ask for the Lord’s mercy and the ability to
have mercy and compassion for others. To
help in our meditation on God’s love we have below a summary of the greatest
love story of all time. The story spans
milleniums.
There is much we can do during this time
of being one on one with God Himself. Simply
converse in your own words with the most faithful and closest friend you could
possibly imagine. Our Lord really wants
a personal relationship with you and the best way to build that up is through
Eucharistic Adoration. One cannot go
wrong in life by seeking the will of God, following it, and trusting in Him no
matter the circumstances. There is no
better setting than Eucharistic Adoration to discern God’s will for your
life. Be willing to do and to go
wherever He sends you …..offering to Him
the crosses (suffering) that come your way and you will be on your way to
holiness and sanctity.
Share your problems, hurts, trials,
decisions to be made, etc. Ask the Lord for
His help and listen. He may give you an
inspiration and will certainly give you the strength to get through your
current trial, but we must trust Him and His will, which is for the best in the
long run. He allows us to enlist and
mobilize the power of prayer and draw upon the reservoir of His grace. Review your life and be sorry for past sins,
especially the more recent ones and ask for His help to do better in the quest
for holiness.
Bishop Fulton Sheen was the greatest Catholic communicator of
the 20th Century. He was a
prolific author and gave entertaining and deep talks first on radio and then on national television with top audience ratings.
A tremendous source of energy and creativity for him was daily
Eucharistic Adoration and prayer before the Blessed Sacrament for one hour no
matter where he was. In fact, he would
prepare his talks for national television in front of the Blessed
Sacrament. St. Mother Teresa depended
upon it for herself and her nuns for their very fruitful apostolate.
Ask the Lord to bless and help your loved ones by name as well
as the sick, unfortunate, and needy. Prayer
for those who are drifting away from the Church is crucial. Ask Him to grant world peace. Pray for the sanctification of priests and
families, for the Church, for the poor souls in Purgatory, for our
Country. And of course there are the
traditional prayers…..the Rosary, the Chaplet, Stations of the Cross, prayer
books, the Bible, spiritual reading, meditation, etc.
The monstrance containing the miracle of the Eucharist (the Body and Blood Soul and Divinity of Christ Himself) that the faithful adore during adoration. Some parishes have periodic Eucharistic Adoration for the faithful, while the larger ones have a special chapel for perpetual adoration 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Thus the faithful can visit at any time. Perpetual adoration only works if there are enough people in the parish to commit at least one specific hour a week with a backup to assure that there is always a person responsible in prayer. The red rays symbolize the blood Christ shed for us and the blue (white) rays the cleansing water. A mixture of blood and water came from the side of the crucified savior when the Roman centurion pierced His heart of the savior with his lance to assure His death.
During an apparition Jesus Christ asked St. Faustina in the 1930s to
commission a painting of what she saw to help the people realize that He is not
only a God of judgment, but also a God of mercy, who loves them beyond their
imagination. Our Lord told her that if
the Divine Chaplet is recited in the presence of a dying person, He would come
to him/her. The Lord also asked her to
write down everything that He told her.
That became the classic book, “The Diary of St. Maria Faustina Kowalska:
Divine Mercy in My Soul”.
The Great Love Story, a Subject of One of the Talks at the
National Eucharistic Congress.
God is love personified. His greatest act of love was creating us, His
most magnificent creation, to share Heaven with us for eternity. Adam and
Eve yielded to a temptation they knew was wrong (they wanted to be their own
god) but didn't care. Aren't we the same? As a consequence of
committing the original sin, God the Father closed the gates of heaven to
humanity, but in His Divine Mercy promised a Redeemer.
God chose the Jewish people to be the vehicle for the Redeemer (Mesiah)
to enter the world. He made a series of
covenants with them, all explicitly saying “I am your God and you are my
people”. He taught them how to live
righteous lives faithful to Him, but they were a fickle people. The Jewish race began with Abraham, his son
Isaac, and grandson Jacob. From the
latter came his 12 sons who bore the 12 tribes of Israel.
The Exodus. God raised Moses as a prophet and
leader, His instrument to free the Israelites from the yoke of the Egyptians
and lead them to the Promised Land with many miracles to help them, including
the parting of the Red Sea as a pathway to escape from the pursuit by the
Egyptian soldiers. However, instead of
trusting God, the Jews drifted into complaining, disbelief, and idolatry. Therefore, God extended the rather short journey
for nearly 40 years to purify them.
The next two millenniums consisted of a
series of cycles. When the
people were faithful, God helped them to victory over their aggressive
neighbors and they were blessed with prosperity as a powerful nation as under
King David and most of the reign of King Solomon. The Jews would drift into idolatry, corruption,
and sin. Aren’t we the same? The Lord’s prophets (His spokesmen) tried to
lead them on the right path and warned them of the consequences of their
sins. Thus the Lord allowed them to be
oppressed or conquered by the Egyptians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Persians,
Greeks, and Romans to bring His people back to Him. Each time the Jews would return to God contrite
and the nation again became prosperous.
Even when forced to be slaves in Egypt and Babylon, God did not abandon His
people and preserved them as a nation.
Although the Jews were scattered all over
the world, God remained faithful with
His love and never abandoned His chosen people.
Talented and gifted, the Jews maintained
their culture over the centuries and prospered in business and the professions,
arousing envy which led to intense persecution. After the Holocaust, God
brought them back to Palestine in 1948 to form the modern nation of Israel,
which prevailed over the intense opposition of its Arab inhabitants and neighboring
countries.
Both Jews and Christians believe in the
Old Testament of the Bible,
which reiterates the promise of the Redeemer (Mesiah). The Old Testament, a chronicle of the battle of
the ages between good and evil is really a history of salvation and preparation
for the Redeemer. One cannot understand
the New Testament --which is the fulfillment of the promise-- without
understanding the Old Testament. The
Holy Family was Jewish and Christ was raised as a Jew. Thus it can be said that salvation came
through the Jews.
Four thousand years after the fall of Adam
and Eve, God kept His promise
and sent His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, the second person of the
Holy Trinity, humbling Himself to become one of us with many of the same
difficulties of living, first as a helpless infant and later to teach us how to
live and save us from our sins. He loved us so much that He wanted to become just like us, fully human and fully divine, in every way except sin from the womb to the tomb.
In anticipation of His Ascension into Heaven Christ instituted the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist on Holy Thursday......"This is my Body" and "This is my Blood", the transubstantiation of ordinary bread and wine into His body and blood, soul and divinity......the Lamb of God which the apostles consumed as we do today in Holy Communion. He then ordained the apostles and their successors to do the same today in His name with the words: “Do this in memory of me”.
That evening Christ went out to the Garden of Gethsemanes to pray. He knew that one of his beloved apostles
betrayed Him. He knew that His epic passion
would be the next day. Being human as
well as Divine, our Lord was so afraid that He sweat blood. He prayed for strength. He asked His father to relieve Him of it all:
please let this cup pass, but not my will, but your will be done. He loved us too much to abandon His great
mission to save us from our sins. The
next day He could have come down from the cross, but He loved us too much.
The very next day, Good Friday
Jesus gave us His own Mother from the cross at Calvary; and offered Himself and
His immense, perhaps infinite suffering physical, mental, and spiritual as a
sacrifice in reparation for all the sins of the world…..past, present, and
future…. thus opening the
gates of Heaven and unimaginable happiness for us if we follow Him and His
teaching that He left with the Church that He Himself founded for us.
Our Lord continues to sacrifice Himself for us in an unbloody way through the
priest (persona Cristi) at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass 24/7 all over
the world as Calvary is brought to us in a mysterious way that transcends time
(time collapses). And we have the opportunity to participate in that
awesome sacrifice every time we assist at Mass.
The moment of sacrifice begins when the
priests raises the Eucharist under both species and says the prayer,
"Through Him, with Him, and in Him is to Thee Almighty Father all honor
and glory.....". The sacrifice is complete when we consume the Lamb
of God as the Jews of the Old Testament did after their sacrifice of an
unblemished lamb. The Romans also consumed their pagan sacrifices.
Thus the early Christians accepted death
rather than eat of the pagan sacrifice which would mean active participation in
a pagan ritual.
When we receive the Eucharist, we are for
a few precious moments in intimate communion with the almighty God, the
creator of the Universe, Christ the King of the Universe. How
awesome is that? He manifests His infinite love for us in the gift of
Himself in the Eucharist.
Christ departed from us when He ascended
into Heaven, but yet remains with us in a very real way in the Eucharist. He welcomes us with open arms to receive Him
in the Eucharist and spend time with Him in prayer .....one on one.
Jesus further manifests His infinite love
for us in His mercy in the sacrament of Reconciliation and when we ask for it
with sincere sorrow and repentance. His great love for us is further
manifested in His instituting the Church to help us on the journey to eternity
and the sacraments as tremendous sources of grace.
In His love He sent us His Holy Spirit as a sanctifier, a counselor to teach us,
to guide us, and to sanctify us. He constantly shows His love in answered
prayer.
He even sends His own earthly mother Mary,
the Queen Mother to
perform miraculous cures of ailments and to deliver messages of peace and
repentance as a modern day prophet in her apparitions to selected people around
the world as the greatest missionary ever over the centuries. …..Guadalupe, Lourdes, Fatima, and many
more.
In times of greatest crisis He has raised up the greatest saints
and Popes as leaders, as models for living, as messengers (modern day
prophets). By all logic our Church, the Body of Christ, should not have
survived through 2000 years due to periods of intense persecution, laxity,
corruption, scandals, secularism, and materialism. Today the Church still
stands under the guidance of the Holy Spirit whom He sent to preserve it. The
gates of hell shall never prevail against it.
Completing certain devotions as the First Fridays of the month, the
First Saturdays, reciting the Divine Chaplet in the presence of a dying person
are great aids to salvation as He revealed to St. Faustina. The power of God’s
grace has changed many a life headed toward perdition.
Our Lord allows us to participate in His
work of on-going redemption. That is through redemptive suffering
by prayer and offering up of one's crosses (suffering due to illness, accident,
hurts, setbacks, failures, misfortunes, bad days, etc.) as dynamic prayers for
the conversion of sinners as Mary requested at Fatima, for world peace, for the
Church, for our country, for our loved ones.
In that way suffering becomes productive with purpose instead of misery.
Each one of us is essential to the life of
the Church and He gives us the opportunity to have a role in the mission of the
Church which is to steer souls to Heaven.
That role may be prayer, word, and/or deed…..all an expression of
virtue, especially charity.
And don't forget the word of God, the
Bible through which our
Lord continues to teach us. He gave the four evangelists, the
mission of recording Christ's teachings in the four Gospels. St. Matthew
wrote one specifically for the Jews and their culture; St. Mark wrote one for
the Romans; and St. Luke wrote one for the Greeks. St. John's Gospel
explains it all theologically in much greater depth. In addition St. Paul
and some of the other apostles explained the Gospels in their Epistles to the
different peoples they evangelized.
Awesome,
but true. For more evidence just look at Chapter 6 of the Gospel of
John. Jesus Christ explicitly
said: “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I
will raise him up on the last day”. Only a symbol? If so,
Christ would have made a clarification when many of his disciples and most of
the people who heard Him walked away. Is it beyond the power of our
omnipotent God to change the bread and wine into his Body and Blood, Soul and
Divinity through the priest, another Christ during the Mass?
Ask
Mary to help you to love her son profoundly.
Loving God above all things leads to love of neighbor. The
Two Great Commandments say it all and summarize the Ten Commandments which God
gave to Moses on Mt. Sinai! God loves us
more than we could ever love Him.
