DAILY EUCHARIST - from a letter by Fr. Andrew SDC

If we really believe in (our Lord’s) coming in the Blessed Sacrament, we shall learn to rest in His coming a good deal more.  Do you think that when He comes He does not come to stay and will leave us, and that we must be hurrying back to the altar again and again in order to be sure of having Him in our hearts?  It is to me the greatest possible privilege to say Mass daily … but I often have to go without saying Mass for a day or two, and … if illness or obedience take that away from me I know very well that the Presence which I have received will never leave me except I sin wilfully.

It must have been very hard for S. John the Baptist who loved our Lord so tenderly to go right away from our Lord’s presence at Nazareth, and live all those years in the wilderness, but you see he knew that it if it was our Lord’s will that he should live apart from His visible Presence on earth, he would gain a greater nearness to the spiritual, invisible, Real Presence in the wilderness.  

You say, ‘It would be terrible not to take one’s Communion daily.’ S. Francis was forty days alone, and he did not make his Communion.  S. Benedict was months without hearing Mass or making his Communion. The saints of the Egyptian desert, who knew more about our Lord than anyone, only had Mass on Sundays and Saint’s days.

There are people who are saturated in Sacraments and don't know God.  They don't want more grace: they want to learn to use grace.

S. Paul the Hermit only made one Communion in his whole life S. Antony, S. Bernard, S. Bruno, S. Francis all had their periods when they were deprived of the Sacraments.  S. John of the Cross went months without his Communion when he was imprisoned by the bad monks at his monastery, and during that time he learned all his greatest knowledge.

The thing is to put first is the will of Jesus and the love of Jesus, and not the consolation of the Presence of Jesus.  

I have learnt to know that it is very possible to go to Mass daily and not to go to Jesus at all interiorly, and to go to confession weekly and never to repent.  It all comes from a want of interior silence and detachment, and as the natural comes before the spiritual and the exterior in a measure before the interior, you must get an exterior silence and an exterior detachment before you can have any idea how it is with your soul.  …  there is no such thing as a daily Mass with God.  It is an everlasting Sacrifice, and if we are true to our Communions we are always in the attitude of those who are assisting at the everlasting Sacrifice.

The Caldey Brothers in their beginning had to go weeks sometimes without a Mass, I am almost absolutely sure.  Certainly I know they took that risk in order to gain the essential silence and separation.

From: The Life and Letters of Father Andrew SDC, ed. Kathleen E. Burne, Mowbray, London, 1948, p.109f
(Emboldened texts by J-FF)

VIRAL THOUGHTS 1 - IN A TIME OF PANDEMIC: Living the Eucharist

AT A TIME when public celebrations of Mass have been prohibited due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us are expressing real hunger for the Eucharist.   As I read some of their posts, I recalled words I wrote in my book, Enfolded in Christ: the inner life of a priest.  Although they were written with clergy in mind, I hope they might speak to a wider audience:

‘THE EUCHARIST cannot be contained within the church for it is greater than the liturgy we celebrate.  Teilhard de Chardin SJ, the early 20th c. palaeontologist, geologist, philosopher and priest, expressed this most profoundly in his Hymn of the Universe probably written on the Feast of the Transfiguration in 1923 when he was living in the Ordos desert of Inner Mongolia. Lacking the necessities for Mass he was led to compose his majestic Mass on the World which opens with one of the most remarkable statements ever made about the Eucharist as he realises the need to raise himself beyond any symbols to offer all that lay before him ‘up to the pure majesty of the real itself.’

He acknowledges that the words of Christ, spoken by the priest over bread and wine, flow beyond those forms to the whole Body of Christ. In fact they reach into the cosmos itself so that all matter is affected by them. His Eucharist may lack bread and wine but before him lie the elements of creation that will provide the substance for celebration. His ‘prayer of consecration’ contains a wonderful invocation that the ‘radiant word’ would embrace and breathe life into the depths of creation so that Christ’s hands might ‘direct and transfigure’ all that is brought into this Eucharistic act to remould, rectify: ‘recast it down to the depths from which it springs.’  Over what greater celebration could a priest preside? 

Teilhard reminds us that all are invited to ‘live eucharistically’, to live out of that great ‘sacrifice of prayer and praise’ and look at the world with wonder and awe, recognising all things as a sacrament of the Divine. He realised that Eucharistic spirituality overflows the Liturgy to embrace life itself and is made real as we seek to discern everyday holiness. The way we walk down the street with thankfulness in our hearts offering to God all that we might encounter – the joys and sorrows, brokenness and wonder; the conversations we engage in, the sights that greet our eye whether that be in a green and pleasant place or amongst the houses, shops and factories of a neglected inner-city streetscape – all are the matter for our ongoing celebration. Our calling is to incline the heart to the real presence of Christ in all things.

(Eucharistic) spirituality, then, involves living with the intention of making of each moment an offering to God. The Eucharist is central to how our spirituality evolves because it is the nexus linking that which lies at the heart of our relationship with God and God’s creation, the place where Divine Love is most fully revealed. To be lovers of God-in-all-things must be the focus of our lives, not parishes, schools, cathedrals or whatever. They are the context. But we are called to love God and to live out of his compassionate Heart realising that the life which we celebrate is one that emerges from his sacrifice to which we are conjoined.  Sacrifice is at the heart of priestly life, an ‘Act of Communion’ with God in love. It is the means whereby we attain and rejoice in our true, Godly, life.  At the altar we join all our small sacrifices to his one saving sacrifice and beyond the altar we seek to live sacrificially that we may share in the life of our great High Priest. For in Jesus we see how one person can belong utterly to God.

Gerard Manley Hopkins also recognised this and shared his exuberance in the poem God’s Grandeur:

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil….

But it’s not easy in the hum-drum of daily life.  What often happens as we walk down the street or sit on the train is that we notice life, shrug our metaphorical shoulders or cross our metaphorical arms and get into a conversation with that ‘evil spirit’ who happily waits just out of sight, ready to cast a critical glare.  He plays some old tapes about how awful things are and gently leads us down the spiral into the place of darkness. It’s then we need to wake up and realise that the sursum corda is not only necessary in the Liturgy: we are not to look on the world with a critical glare but a contemplative gaze. And when we catch ourselves going down that spiral we need to return to the simple spiritual practices which can re-awaken us to the wonder of creation – even though the glory may be smeared with dirt:

May you be well; May you be happy; May you know the compassion of Christ.'

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When it’s possible to re-open churches, or where it’s possible to look into churches, I hope that the Blessed Sacrament will be exposed for people to see, for such Exposition is a continuation of the Eucharist and a powerful means of encounter with Christ.

Fr. John-Francis Friendship, March 2020,
extract from Enfolded in Christ: the inner life of a priest, p.110

REFLECTIONS ON ST CHARLES OF JESUS’ ‘PRAYER OF ABANDONMENT’

Father,
I abandon myself into your hands;
do with me what you will.
Whatever you may do, I thank you:
I am ready for all, I accept all.

Let only your will be done in me,
and in all your creatures -
I wish no more than this, O Lord.

Into your hands I commend my soul:
I offer it to you with all the love of my heart,
for I love you, Lord, and so need to give myself,
to surrender myself into your hands without reserve,
and with boundless confidence,
for you are my Father.

__________________

Father, I abandon myself into your hands. 

To be abandoned is a terrible thing, 
an act of carelessness 
that takes no account of what may happen to the one abandoned.  
Only an adult can abandon themselves, 

a child does not have the ability to make this reckless act.  

For it not to be reckless requires trust in another 

and a belief that the process of abandonment has a purpose. 

Jesus abandoned Himself into the hands of His Father;

He did so with faith in the One whom He had come to know and trust.

Every aspect of who I am I gift to You with no strings attached. 

I cut all ties; I entrust myself to You and let go of myself in Your absolute care. 

I place myself before You as a child before its Father, leaving myself at the doorway of your house. 

I hand over all power to You and entrust my future to You whatever happens.

do with me what you will. 

As I give myself to Him, God tells me to trust Him, 

trust that in saying ‘thy will be done’ I will be held safe 

and that God will never desert me whatever may happen. 

What matters is to live in the present moment. 

I need to turn to my Father as a child might turn to theirs and look into His loving eyes. 

There is something liberating in living in the Divine Will, whilst needing to resist evil – 

‘Jesus, I trust in You’.

To know God’s will means turning to Him in prayer, and simply saying

 ‘Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven’.

Whatever you may do, I thank you:. 

Let me live thankfully, eucharistically, whatever may happen to me. 

And when my heart becomes overwhelmed by sadness and anxiety, 

or desolation begins to cast a shadow over me, 

inspire me to give thanks that the darkness may be turned into light.

In all places and in all things let me see your hand and give thanks. 

In every blade of grass and every mountain peak may I see your glory and give thanks.

And when I cannot see you or sense your presence, teach me to thank and praise you.

I am ready for all, I accept all.

I know that both good and evil will come my way; teach me to accept them

with a necessary detachment and not be blinded by them. Teach me to love through them.

Give me a freedom of spirit to greet them and wisdom to know how to respond

as you responded to those who were the cause of your Incarnation, Passion and Death. 

Grant me gratitude and patience, courage, fortitude and detachment in the face of good and evil.

Let only your will be done in me, and in all your creatures -
I wish no more than this, O Lord.

My one will and desire must simply be this: ‘thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven’.

For in that prayer is encompassed all that God desires and it expresses all that we can desire:.

that the divine good might be accomplished in me and all that exists.

It is what Jesus taught us to pray for and we can pray for no more or less than that:

‘Thy will be done’.

Into your hands I commend my soul: I offer it to you with all the love of my heart,

Take, Lord, and receive all that is your own

For I long to live in you,

to be enfolded in your love,

for my love to be your love

that I may flow with you.

Take my heart and mould it into the form of your most Sacred and Compassionate Heart.

for I love you, Lord, and so need to give myself,

‘From Love in Love the leaping flame of Love is spread,

for none can love except by Love possessed.

The love that is outpoured was first Love’s gift of love.

Give, give, and give again is Love’s own song.

For Love is giving love and there is no end to Love.’ * 

 Lord, you continually awaken love in my heart; you who are the source of love and life.

When I gaze upon your revelation in Jesus

my heart is moved and I so want to give myself to you,

to let love flow through me –

love for the one I love and love for the whole of your creation,

especially the most unloved.

Yet it is hard to love those who seem unlovely

and only by your grace can I do this.

Let me gaze on all things with your inner eye of Love

as you gaze upon me and all things

that I may give myself to all that I encounter.

* Fr. Gilbert Shaw: A Pilgrim’s Book of Prayers