The Twenty-Eighth Day of May

Mary’s Life of Union with Jesus.

I.

Mary lived in the Eucharist. He who loves truly, thinks, desires, acts, rejoices, or sorrows in the person loved, his natural center of life. Indeed, Jesus has said: "Where your treasure is, there is your heart." And to His Apostles: "Remain in Me, remain in My love as I remain in My Father's love."

Mary remained, then, in the Divine Eucharist, the Center of her love. All her thoughts, words, actions came forth from It as the sun’s rays come forth from that luminary. The Eucharist was the oracle that she consulted, the grace that she followed.

II.

But Jesus in the Sacrament lives the same life of love which consumed Him in the days of His mortal existence. In His Sacramental state, He continues to adore His Father by His profound annihilations. He is still the Mediator and Intercessor before the Divine Goodness for the salvation of men.

Mary united with Jesus in prayer, adding thereto the exercise and the merit of the virtues that Our Lord, in His glorified state, can no longer actually practice. To Jesus state of humiliation in the Sacrament, she responded by the virtue and acts of humility; to His condition of victim, by her actual endurance of suffering; to His state of propitiation, by her voluntary acts of mortification. To honor the hidden life of Jesus, Mary effaced herself aiming at being nothing more than a human appearance, as it were, whose whole being and substance are changed, transformed into Jesus Christ. She is poor, like Jesus in the Sacrament, poorer even, since she can experience the real privations of poverty. Like Jesus, she obeys, and honors His sacramental obedience by submitting to the last of the ministers of the Church. To imitate His obedience, so sweet, so simple, and so prompt, she is happy to obey, eager to yield at the least sign. In one word, Mary realizes in herself the Eucharistic life of Jesus Christ.

Mary, moreover, renewed in the Eucharist all the mysteries of the Savior’s mortal life, perpetuating and renewing her gratitude with ever increasing fervor.

III.

Such ought to be the life of the adorer, if he wishes to live in the Eucharist. But to reach this life of union, he must free himself from all slavery, from the life of self-love, which sees only self even in God’s service; which speaks to Jesus only of self, of its own personal interests, of its own affairs; which knows not how to entertain itself with Jesus by speaking of Him and the interests of His glory, of the desires of His Sacred Heart; which knows not how to remain calm and tranquil at His feet, satisfied with Him, desiring nothing but Him. He must free himself from that life which has not the patience to listen to Jesus, but which renders us like mercenaries impatiently awaiting their wages, as commissioners eager to set out on some journey.

Jesus has very few adorers who consider themselves sufficiently recompensed and happy to remain with Him, occupied in serving Him like the angels in heaven, like Mary in the Cenacle. He sees at His feet only beggars, or the fever-stricken, asking for help. In a royal palace, how ever, they w r ho assist before the throne know how to be courtiers, doing nothing but honoring the king by their presence. Alas! there is the reign of sense, and that costs the creature nothing. At the Eucharistic court of Jesus, it is the interior reign of His love, and we are afraid of it, we flee from it, we wish to act. Jesus alone does not suffice for us, we must have something besides Him!

Mary never lost the Eucharistic presence of Jesus. She acted only when He wished it, considering herself sufficiently occupied to be at His feet, sufficiently recompensed in possessing Him.

Practice: In union with Mary, to live the life of Communion and thanksgiving by interior recollection.

Aspiration: Heart of Mary, magnificent Throne of the Hidden God, be thou exalted to the heights of the heavens!