THE TREASURE
"Where your treasure is, there your heart will also be," (St. Luke 12:34).
Jesus Christ tells us that where we think our treasure is, it is there also we place our affections.
The Saints valued and loved One Treasure only―and their Treasure was Jesus Christ; hence their hearts and all their love went out to the Most Holy Sacrament.
O Holy Sacrament, Most Lovable Jesus, for the love of me you remain night and day a Prisoner in the Tabernacle. I entreat you to attract my heart to you: so that I may think of nothing but you; so that I may love nothing, and seek for nothing, and aspire to nothing―but you. Do this through the merits of your Passion through which I seek and hope for this great grace.
Yes, O Divine Lover, be for me a Sacrament of Redemption. How loving and how kind are the means your love has directed to this one end―to conquer the love of souls for yourself. O Eternal Word made Man, you were not content to die for us only; over and above all this you have given us the Blessed Sacrament to keep us company, to be our Food, and to be our Pledge of Paradise.
You appear among us as a Babe in a Manger; as a poor workman laboring in a cabin; as a criminal upon a gibbet―and now as bread on an altar. Tell me, is there anything further that could possibly be thought of to make us love you? O loveliness without any bounds, will the time ever come when I shall begin in all sincerity to correspond with love of such an exalted kind? O Supreme Lord and Master, I wish to live no longer unless it be in loving you only. And indeed of what benefit is life to me if it be not to use it up solely in loving you and in pleasing you, my Beloved Redeemer―you, whose whole life was spent for me.
If it be not you, what else is there for me to love; seeing that you are Beauty Unbounded, Kindness without limit, infinitely good, infinitely loving, and infinitely worthy to be loved? O let my life be consumed in loving you only; let my heart melt with love at the very thought of the love you have for me; at the very mention of the words―Crib, and Cross, and Sacrament. Let me wear out my life in my intense desire to do great things for you, O my Jesus: for you have done and suffered for me things which were very great indeed.
ASPIRATION - Before I die, O my Lord, let me accomplish something for you.
SPITITUAL COMMUNION
A VISIT TO MARY
THE BEAUTIFUL OLIVE TREE
"She is like a beautiful olive tree in the meadow."
Mary tells us: I am the lovely olive tree from which the soothing oil is ever flowing. I stand in the midst of the meadows so that all can see me and everybody can come to me.
Let us speak to her with St. Bernard: "O Most Loving Mother, keep it in mind that since the beginning of time nobody has heard it said that you ever cast off one that came to you for protection." O Most Gentle Queen, nobody has ever heard of such a thing that a client who went to you for help was left forsaken. So it is not likely that I will be the only poor unfortunate one that came to you and was left an outcast.
ASPIRATION - O Mary, this is the grace I seek―always to come to you for help.
PRAYER AFTER VISIT
ETERNAL REST GIVE UNTO THEM, O LORD, AND LET PERPETUAL LIGHT SHINE UPON THEM. MAY THEY REST IN PEACE. AMEN.
