E-mail from heaven: Is your computer on?
The Holy Eucharist is the center of our Catholic faith. From Pentecost onward popes and saints taught we must receive Jesus in fear and trembling. Will my Communion be an intimate embrace with my Savior or an act of hate and indifference? If I bring Jesus into a heart ruled by Lucifer I crucify Him once again. Atone for sins against the Eucharist. Listen and imitate the saints.
Blessed Columba Marmion, d. 1923: “In every soul there are three spirits trying to take control. The spirit of falsehood and blasphemy which, from the beginning, continually suggests the opposite of what God whispers in our ears; the spirit of the world, which inclines us to judge matters according to the desires of the senses and the prudence of the flesh – but the prudence of this world is foolishness in the eyes of God; finally, there is the Spirit of God which inspires us to raise our hearts above nature, and to live by faith. This Spirit fills us with peace and joy, and produces in us the fruits of which Saint Paul speaks. The Spirit of God, even when It reproaches us or inclines us to feel distress for our sins, always fills the soul with peace and filial confidence in our Heavenly Father. The other spirits dry up our souls…plunging us into despondency and discouragement.”
St. Justin Martyr, 2nd Century: “Christians do not differ from other men as to habitat, language and custom. They live among Greeks and barbarians, wherever destiny has put them. They follow local custom in garb and diet and other matters….They marry as men do and beget children, but they do not practice abortion. They share tables but not beds. They live in the flesh but not according to the flesh. They dwell on earth but regard heaven as their city. They follow established law, but in their way of life go beyond what the law requires….To put it all briefly, what the soul is to the body, Christians are to the world….Christians live in the world but do not have their origin there….God has set them in the world as his sentinels and they may not leave their posts.”
Blessed Jose Maria Rubio d. 1929: Fr. Rubio often preached about the four last things: death, judgment, heaven, and hell. Once, an older woman asked him to hear the confession of a man who was going to die. He went immediately and found, not a man on his deathbed, but a young musician in apparent good health. Since Father had climbed three stories the man invited him in to rest. On a table was a picture of the woman who had asked Father to visit. “That is my mother,” the young man said. “She has been dead for a long time.” When Fr. Rubio explained how his visit came about, the man was moved to confess. The next day he was found dead in his bed. Fr. Rubio’s devotion to prayer and penance show us how to overcome the world. “Everything comes to me from my God and everything must be returned to Him. So too my heart must remain in love with my gentle Lord Jesus, my good, my repose, my consolation, my richness and one day, in Heaven, my eternal joy and glory.”
St. Francis de Sales d. 1622: “Throw yourself with utter self-abandonment into the arms of Providence. Practically everyone knows how to entrust himself to God amid the comfort and peace of prosperity; but to commit oneself to God in the midst of storms and tempests is proper to His children. I say to commit oneself to Him with complete abandon.”