To Make all of You Free of Care
by Ray at THCNicole Gausseron was a wife, mother and head of a homeless shelter for men in Chartres France. During the 1980s and 1990s she kept little notebooks of on ongoing dialogue she had with Jesus. She struggles with the death of her father and husband, the seeming absence of Jesus and other difficulties. Through it all, He is her consolation. From such notebooks, the following is taken.
“June 5 (chapel). This evening the Lord is neither standing nor sitting. We are united. It’s good to pause with Him.
— Where are you, Lord?
— ‘In you, in Pierre. I’m at home in you.’
I wait. At the moment Pierre raises the Host, the image of Christ’s face from the Holy Shroud appears on the Host.
— Lord, is what I’m seeing really true? I feel very calm but I can hardly believe what I’m seeing, nor do I say it.
— ‘Dare.’
I tell it to the others.
— Why are you giving me all this, Lord?
— ‘To make all of you free of care so that you care only for me.’”
(Taken from My Daily Eucharist II by Joan Carter McHugh, and an excerpt contained there from The Little Notebook, by Nicole Gausseron.)
The Likeness of a Human Face
by Ray at THCFr. Johnson Karnoor was a parish priest in southern India when he witnessed certain events for which he later had to give a deposition. In that deposition, he described them as follows: “On April 28, 2001, in the parish church of St. Mary of Chirattakonam, we began the Novena to St. Jude Thaddeus as we did every year. At 8:49am, I exposed the Most Holy Sacrament in the monstrance for public adoration. After a few moments I saw what appeared to be three dots in the Holy Eucharist. I then stopped praying and began to look at the monstrance, also inviting the faithful to admire the three dots. I then asked the faithful to remain in prayer and reposed the monstrance in the tabernacle. On April 30th, I celebrated the Holy Mass and on the following day I left for Trivandrum. On Saturday morning, the 5th of May 2001, I opened the church for the usual liturgical celebrations. I vested for Mass and went to open the tabernacle to see what had happened to the Eucharist in the monstrance. I immediately noted in the Host, a figure, to the likeness of a human face. I was deeply moved and asked the faithful to kneel and begin praying. I thought I alone could see the face so I asked the altar server what he noticed in the monstrance. He answered: ‘I see the figure of a man.’ I noticed that the rest of the faithful were looking intently at the monstrance.
“We began Adoration and as the minutes went by, the image became more and more clear. I did not have the courage to say anything and I began to cry. During Adoration, we have the practice of reading a passage from Holy Scriptures. The reading of the day was the one from Chapter 20 in the Gospel of John, which narrates the story of when Jesus appeared to St. Thomas and asked him to look at the wounds. I was only able to say a few words in my homily, and, having to leave for the nearby parish of Kokkodu to celebrate Mass, I immediately summoned a photographer to take pictures of the Holy Eucharist with the human face on it. After two hours all the photos were developed; with the passing of the time the face in every photo became more and more clear.
(Taken in substantial part from “The Eucharistic Miracles of the World,” a Vatican international exhibition, as reported by The Real Presence Eucharistic Adoration Association, http://www.therealpresence.org/eucharst/mir/engl_mir.htm)
No Need for a Walker
by Ray at THCLinda Callaghan reluctantly joined Paul, her husband, for Mass at Marytown on August 1, 1996. She felt the presence of Our Lord and Our Lady in a way she had not experienced since childhood. She made Paul bring her back the next day. And the next. Four days in a row she attended Mass at Marytown, and now she found herself unable to remain separated from the Eucharist.
On Saturday, August 4, 1996, Linda prayed, “Please hear me God. I’m so sorry for not having gone to confession. But I’m going to go up for Holy Communion anyway. Please forgive me. I want you so badly.” … “I had such a burning desire that I was actually sweating. I had no thoughts except my desire for the Eucharist.” Her eyes closed and her smile widened as she remembered the crucial event.
“And I inched to the end of the pew and headed up the aisle. I was near the altar as I realized that I had left my walker in the pew. And I was walking!”
Linda’s body froze upon discovering what was happening. “I just stopped, feeling trapped. I can still see myself glancing back over my shoulder. I was looking back at the pew, thinking about whether or not to head back for the walker. But I had to trust God, and I just kept walking towards the priest and that Eucharist, which I received. And I haven’t stopped walking since.”
(Taken from My Daily Eucharist II by Joan Carter McHugh, and an excerpt contained there by Carrie Swearingen from the March/April 1997 edition of Immaculata magazine.)
relationship
by kayphilI have been in a relationship for 4.5 years but now our relationship has run into some troubled waters .I caught my boyfriend lying to me and this has caused so much of troubles between us and part of it is my fault please pray that we can make things right between us cause now he wants to walk away please let him remember all the good times we had and know how much i love him and let him want us to work out as much as i want us to .Please let him come back to me and let us start our relationship a new and grow stronger in our relationship .Lord Please bing us closer Please put me on his mind, put us being together on his mind & let him follow through with that thought with confidence that we will be good together & we can make it Remove any & all negative doubt he may have about our relationship or me. Help him to see that it was a beautiful relationship, Lord I truly feel that he is my soulmate, please guide him back to me Lord. Lord please speak to his heart & mind right now, in the name of Jesus. Fill him with your Holy Spirit! Lord please help us, you are the only one that can. Please Lord lend your ear to this prayer, please hear my cry & this prayer.Also I Have been without a job for over 7 months and have only enough money left to take me through this month i am a single mother and only earning member of my house please pray that i find a job soon
For Employment
by rasPlease pray for my employment ….. a source of steady income to pay my bills and my auto expenses.
Thank you so much,
God Bless you,
Rick
The Overlooked Part of the Bread of Life Discourse
by Ray at THC“For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the last day.” John 6:40.
Jesus said these words to his disciples just before the more famous passages of the bread of life discourse. To whom was He speaking? Was He speaking only to his disciples gathered before Him at that moment? If so, are they the only ones to be raised on that last day? If not, and these words are meant for us as well, when could we possible “see” Him?
The answer to that is obviously when the priest elevates Him at Mass or when we adore Him in the monstrance. Here again, as at the Last Supper, Jesus speaks of the Eucharist and His Real Presence in it.
Jim Anderson
by Ray at THCJim Anderson grew up with a Methodist background, became a Lutheran when he was 19 and was still trying to determine, in his early adult life, which Christian denomination professed the truth. As many Protestants believe that the Catholic Church had strayed from its proper course over time, he turned to the writings of early Christians and came upon a letter by St. Ignatius, written in 107 A.D. to the Church in Smyrna. St. Ignatius had been ordained by St. Peter and was a student of St. John. In his letter, Ignatius proclaimed clearly that the Eucharist is the body of Christ, the same body which was sacrificed for our sins and was raised up by the Father. Anderson also considered passages in the Bible in which Jesus had promised to send the Holy Spirit and to protect His Church. If Ignatius was wrong, then Jesus had to be wrong as well. The Holy Spirit could not have been sent and Jesus could not, within a single generation of His death, have been protecting His Church. If Ignatius was right, then the Catholic Church, which teaches the same thing today about the Holy Eucharist, also had to be right.
When Anderson was 23, he would write in his personal journal:
“In the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist Christ, true God and true man, is present wholly and entirely, in His Body and Blood, under the signs of bread and wine. The presence of Christ does not come about through the faith of the believers, nor through human power, but the power of the Holy Spirit through the Word. … The Eucharist is also the sacrifice of the Church. In it, the Church makes its sacrifice of praise to the Father. At the Eucharist, Christ is re-presented to His Church and the act of the Cross is brought to the present.”*
Six months later, he happened to be in Rome and knelt down in the Blessed Sacrament chapel in St. Peter’s Basilica. He later described the feeling he had as one of being at home. Having previously attended a Protestant seminary, Jim Anderson nonetheless entered the Catholic Faith at the age of 26.
He had found Christ alive and still living among His people. He found a need for the Mass, to be present when the sacrifice on the Cross was remembered and thanksgiving was offered in memory of Christ, as He had wanted it to be. He found his home.
*Grodi, Marcus, editor, Journeys Home (Zanesville, Ohio, CHResources, 2005), p. 67.
What Do You Do During Those Long Hours
by Ray at THCOne day, someone asked St. Francis of Assisi, “Father, what do you do during those long hours before the Blessed Sacrament?” He replied: “My son, in return I ask you what does the poor man do at the rich man’s door, the sick man in presence of his physician, the thirsty man at the limpid stream? What they do, I do before the Eucharistic God. I pray, I adore , I love.”
(Taken from My Daily Eucharist by Joan Carter McHugh, and an excerpt contained there from The Life of St. Francis of Assisi by Nesta de Robeck)
Under the Live Oak
by Ray at THCKitty Cleveland was struggling. She had given up a career as a lawyer, was beginning a transition into a career as a teacher and was wondering whether she should, instead of either, pursue a career as a singer. Her father, a lawyer and a Catholic deacon, had just been wrongly convicted on charges of tax fraud and political corruption, charges that were later to be thrown out by U.S. Supreme Court. Her life was in turmoil.
In advance of a retreat being hosted by Sister Briege McKenna (who has been the source for several stories reported earlier on this site), Ms. Cleveland went to a local Eucharistic Adoration chapel. While in the midst of her prayers, she was “interrupted” by a vision. She was sitting on a hill of green grass, under a live oak. Christ was there beside her. He was carving his initials and hers, “JC + KC,” on the tree. He said that he had always loved her, that he had called her personally by name, that she had given part of her life to Him, that He wanted her to give Him all of it, so He could live more fully in Him and He in her.
A few nights later, at the retreat, she found herself saying “ave nomine cantora,” which means “you name me a singer.” One of her other gifts, that manifested itself as early as high school, was an ability at times to speak in tongues. At a retreat in high school, she similarly found herself saying “Christe aria,” which although she did not know if then, means “song of Christ.”
Ms. Cleveland did become a “music missionary” as she calls it. She goes to Eucharistic Adoration to write songs. Two of her greatest songs, “Surrender” and “Now You Come to Me” were written before the Real Presence.
The Eucharist is Not Optional
by Ray at THCThe following was submitted by someone as a:n understanding gained at Mass, after the consecration:
The gap between God and man was not settled by the Incarnation. Once divinity and humanity were combined at the Incarnation, when His human body was given up, it was given up with His divinity combined with it, so there had to be another body connected with His divinity that followed. That is the Eucharist. That is why the Last Supper was so necessary. That is why I have been feeling for months there is a connection between the Last Supper and the Cross that I was not grasping.
The Incarnation was the start. The Last Supper and the Cross were the culmination. He combined divinity with humanity at the Incarnation. He combined it at the Last Supper and the Cross. When He came into the world to be one with us, He did not intend that to stop. That is why Christmas is so special.
The Jewish people believed that God dwelt among them in the Ark of the Covenant, first in the tent that housed it and then in the Temple. With Christ, that changed. He was the New Covenant. He dwelt among us, in us. With the Incarnation, a dramatic change took place. He came into this world to replace the Old Covenant, to replace how He dwells among us. He came in knowing the Cross would be the end. He came in knowing the Last Supper would precede it. With His death on the Cross, He could not dwell among us in the body His disciples called Jesus. He would, once the change was made from Old to New at His birth, continue the change through the Last Supper.
The Eucharist is not optional. If we choose not to believe in it, it is still real. It is the culmination of His decision to enter this world and change how He dwells among us.