Although written for a Sister, it can apply to all. Our best friend is Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist! What a grace, when we truly come to realize this!
We may not have our Lord in the same house with us, but He is there for us always within our heart….and to make visits to the Blessed Sacrament, to go to daily Mass is something we should strive for.
from The Catholic Teacher’s Companion by Rev. Felix M. Kirsch, O.M., 1924
It has been said that a woman’s happiness consists in loving and being loved. Here we have the deepest reason for the respect that the Sister receives from men: they honor her for having given her heart to the greatest love that can come to woman, the special love of Christ.
The same love is the source of the Sister’s strength. Frail and delicate she may be, but she does superhuman work in the schoolroom. And the source of her strength? Look at her after Holy Communion or while she kneels before the Blessed Sacrament, and you will know the source of her strength.
After hours she slips into the chapel to commune with her Lord and Spouse, and she returns to her work, refreshed and strengthened with supernatural vigor, for she has conversed with Him to who she has vowed eternal loyalty.
WOMAN’S HAPPINESS
Guynemer, the brilliant aviator, whose countrymen called him “The Bright Sword of France”, was asked whence he derived strength and courage.
He pointed to the tabernacle. Guynemer went to Communion daily.
For the Sister daily Communion and the presence of the Eucharistic King in the same house with her will be a source of untold blessings.
She should therefore esteem this privilege of living under the same roof with Christ as did Cardinal Newman when he wrote to Henry Wilberforce: “I am writing next room to the chapel. It is such an incomprehensible blessing to have Christ’s bodily Presence in one’s house, within one’s walls, as swallows up all other privileges and destroys, or should destroy, every pain. To know that He is close by—to be able again and again through the day to go in to Him…”
In the Holy Eucharist the Sister learns to understand in what consists the true liberty of children of God: Here she learns a truth which the modern world cannot understand, viz., that the highest exercise of man’s freedom is in the most perfect subjection to God’s will in all things.
How much will that lesson mean for her perfect happiness!
For of the Sister, too, we may say what the Rev. Charles Quirk, S.J., says so beautifully of the priest:
“Not my will, but Thine be done!”—
These sweet, these awful words are spun
Through all his life’s oblivion,
From rise, ah yes! to set o’ sun!
From the perfect obedience of Christ in the Holy Eucharist she will also learn to render always genuine service. We are loath to accept counterfeit money from anyone. But how often are we tempted to render counterfeit service to the Lord?
Again, the Eucharistic Presence should give the Sister a feeling of security. In the shadow of the Blessed Sacrament she may feel like the chick under the wings of the mother-hen. The chick is small and weak and helpless and lost in the darkness of its mother’s wings; yet while there it is hid away in the very safest place.
So the Sister, too, though she may be in darkness and even in the shadow of death, will be most secure as long as she remains in the shadow of God’s wings.
‘The theater of all my actions is fallen,” said an ancient hero when his chief friend was dead; and they are fortunate who get a theater where the audience demands their best. How fortunate is, then, the Sister, for her chief friend is Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. She may apply to herself the words of Christ: “I will not now call you servants; but I have called you friends. You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you; and have appointed you, that you should go, and bring forth fruit; and your fruit should remain.”
A friend has been described as one who knows us and yet loves us. The description is good. It shows how Christ, who knows the Sister best, is her best Friend. It shows, too, that friendship must be founded on truth.
“We all like to bring back to our mind the happy thought of our childhood days. It was at our Mother’s knee that we first began to whisper the name of God, and to make the sign of the cross, the sign of our Redemption. Our own hand being guided by that of our Mother, at the same time repeating: the words “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen”. Thus it was at home the little seed of our faith and love of God began to develop, making us the beloved and cherished children of God.” -Precious Blood and Family Prayer Book
Father Lovasik Tidbit:
Coloring pages for your children. “It’s what we Catholics do on Sundays…”
Do you need some good book suggestions? Visit My Book List here.
Dutch Artist: Nicolaas van der Waay, 1936
A very beautiful reading to Our Lord! And I love that angel, “it’s easy to be an angel when they’re is nothing to riffle your feathers.” that is so true. 🙂 a blessed Sunday to you!
I love receiving your emails. As a homeschool mother of 8, there is always something changing here. Do you have any book recommendations with guidelines for the parents for children who are beginning to date? I was not very Catholic when my husband and I got married 30 years ago and would like to make sure we’re helping our children properly. I’m sure you have referenced this before so please forgive me.
Thank you for all you do!
God bless you.
Beautiful! <3