The love of Jesus in the most blessed sacrament

Jesus, not wishing to separate Himself from us even in death, instituted the Most Blessed Sacrament in order to remain with us therein until the end of the world. _Behold I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world-(_Matt. xxviii. 20).

I. Our most loving Redeemer, knowing that He must leave this earth and return to His Father as soon as He should have accomplished the work of our Redemption by His death, and seeing that His hour was near at hand– Jesus knowing that his hour was come that he should pass out of this world to his father (Jo. xiii. l)– would not leave us orphans in this valley of tears. What, then, did He do? He instituted the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, in which He left us His whole Self. “No tongue,” says St. Peter of Alcantara, “can express the greatness of the love of Jesus for our souls; and hence this Spouse, before He departed this life, in order that His absence might not be the occasion of our forgetting Him, left us as a memorial this Most Holy Sacrament, in which He might Himself remain with us, not being willing that any other pledge but Himself should remain to remind us of Him.” Jesus, therefore, not wishing to separate Himself from us by His death, instituted this Sacrament of love, in order to remain with us until the end of the world: Behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world (Matt. xxviii. 20). Let us behold Him, therefore, as Faith teaches us, residing upon numberless altars, shut up in so many prisons of love, that He may be found by all who seek Him. “But, O Lord,” says St. Bernard, “this does not become Thy majesty.” Jesus Christ answers_: It is sufficient that it accords with My love._

O my beloved Jesus, O God Who lovest us with such great love, what more canst Thou do to make us, ungrateful sinners, love Thee? Oh, if men loved Thee, all the churches would be continually filled with devout people, prostrate on their faces, adoring and thanking Thee, burning with Thy love at beholding Thee with the eyes of Faith hidden in a tabernacle! But no, men, forgetful of Thee and of Thy love, wait indeed upon a mortal man from whom they expect some perishable good, and leave Thee, my Lord, abandoned and alone. Oh, that I were able to make Thee amends for so much ingratitude by my own devotion!

II. Those persons are tenderly affected who go to Jerusalem, and visit the place where the Word Incarnate was born, the hall where He was scourged, the Mount on which He died, and the Sepulchre in which He was buried; but how much greater ought our tenderness to be in visiting an altar on which Jesus is present in the Most Holy Sacrament? The Blessed John of Avila was accustomed to say, that there was no sanctuary so excellent and holy as a church in which Jesus was sacramentally present.

I am grieved, O my Jesus, that I have hitherto been like unto such, careless and forgetful of Thee. But for the future I will not be one of their number. I will devote myself to Thee and visit Thee as often as I am able. Inflame my heart with Thy holy love, that for the future I may live only to love and to please Thee. Thou deservest to be loved by the hearts of all. If at one time I despised Thee, I now desire to love Thee. My Jesus, Thou art my Love and my only Good my God and my All. Most Holy Virgin Mary, obtain for me a great love of Jesus in the Holy Sacrament.