For the feast of the Seven Sorrows of Our Lady, we present to readers an excerpt from the book In Sinu Jesu: When Heart Speaks to Heart—The Journal of a Priest at Prayer, which has featured here before.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Yes, my beloved little son, the eighth sorrow of my maternal and Immaculate Heart is that my Son is so offended in the Sacrament of His love. This sorrow of mine will endure until the end of time, when the real presence of my Son in the Most Holy Sacrament will give way to the sight of His divine majesty. Then will faith give way to vision, and hope to possession. Then will love be secure and everlasting for all who will have died in the embrace of His divine friendship.
Until then, know that my maternal Heart suffers and grieves over the irreverence, the coldness, and the ingratitude of so many souls towards the Sacrament of my Son’s undying love. It is in this Sacrament that He loves His own, loving them to the end—to the end of every created possibility and to the end of this passing world. His Eucharistic love surpasses all the laws of perishable nature: there is no greater miracle on the face of the earth than the real presence of my Son in the Sacrament of the Altar. Even so, He is forsaken, neglected, and handed over to sinners to be betrayed, again and again—and this by His chosen ones, His beloved priests, the men whom He chose to be the consolation and joy of His Heart.
This is my own Heart’s eighth sorrow: the betrayal and neglect of my Son in the Most Holy Eucharist. How is He betrayed?
His priests, my own sons, betray Him when they fail to make Him known, when by not teaching the mystery of His real presence they leave souls in the darkness of ignorance, without fire or light.
They betray my Son when, by their example, they discourage reverence, and adoration, and a loving attention to His presence.
They betray Him when they offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass unworthily, and when they hand Him over to sinners who have no intention of giving Him their hearts and seeking His mercy and His pardon for their sins.
They betray Him when they leave Him alone in locked churches and when they make it difficult or impossible for souls to approach His tabernacles and rest in the radiance of His Eucharistic Face.
They betray Him when they allow His churches to become places of noise and worldly chatter, and when they do nothing to recall souls to the living mystery of His love, that is, His presence in the tabernacle.
Shall I tell you more of this eighth sorrow of my Heart? It is when you are lacking in generosity, when you fail to respond to love with love, when you are not generous in being present to Him who is present in the Most Holy Eucharist for love of you. I speak here not only to you, but to all my priest sons and to all consecrated souls who live with my Son under the same roof, and yet treat Him coldly, or casually, or with a distant formality.
This, too, is the eighth sorrow of my Heart: that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is celebrated quickly, with little reverence, with no thanksgiving, and with all the attention given, not to my Son, the Lamb, but, rather, to the human presence of His minister, who, by calling attention to himself, takes from God what belongs rightly to God alone: the loving attention of every heart during the Holy Mysteries. What more shall I tell you? Do you not grieve with me over this eighth sorrow of my Heart, made up of many sorrows repeated again, and again, and again? Grieve with me today, and console my maternal and Immaculate Heart by adoring my Son, the blessed fruit of my womb, and by giving Him all that you are in an immolation of love.
(In Sinu Jesu, pp. 183-85)
