Thursday, May 20, 2021

The pro-life position and Jesus in the Eucharist

Excerpt from In Sinu Jesu (Where Heart Speaks to Heart  -- the Journal of a Priest at Prayer, a Benedictine Monk), Page 132. 

Saturday, January 9, 2010

Make Me the object of all your desires and you will never be disappointed. Seek Me and you will find Me. Ask for the grace of My presence in the inner sanctuary of your soul, and there hold conversation with Me, for I am in you, and you are in Me, I am your life, and apart from Me, all that this earthly life offers you is bitter and unable to satisfy your heart. I have created you and called you to live in My friendship and to long for Me on earth until that longing is satisfied in heaven.

In the meantime, for as long as your earthly exile lasts, you have Me in the Sacrament of My love. There you have My Heart; there you can contemplate My Face; there you can hear My voice; there you can enjoy My friendship and live in My presence. I was no more really present to My Apostles than I am to you at this moment in the Sacrament of My love (1). Do you believe this?

I replied, "Yes, Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief."

I will strengthen your faith in My real presence and make it so strong that the rest of your life will rest upon it as upon a solid rock. I am making you the priest adorer of My Eucharistic Face that I have so long desired. Allow Me to form you, to shape you, to purify and to illumine you in preparation for the work that I have given you to do among My priests. For this to happen, you have only to abide in My presence. The work of adoration is also, and first of all, My work in you. When you are before My Eucharistic Face and so close to My Heart, I am acting in you and acting upon you.

Footnote (1) The category of substance does not admit of degrees: a given substance is either fully what it is (e.g., a man, a horse, a dog) or not that thing at all; it cannot be half-man, half-horse, half-dog. This is the basis of the pro-life position: either the embryo is human or not human, and if human, it has the same dignity and deserves the same honor as any human person, regardless of what the accidents—the size, shape, color, weight-may be. Similarly, because the substance of Jesus Christ is present in the Blessed Sacrament, and substance does not admit of degrees, the essential reality of Our Lords there, neither more nor less real than it was for His apostles. Although His accidents do not appear to us and we see, hear, taste, and touch those of bread, the very same Person in His divinity and humanity, is present in our midst, under the sacramental veil.