The Guardian Angel: Eucharistic Miracle of Germany, Meaning of Easter, Eucharistic Quotes

Didn't Jesus say to love each other as He has loved us. What are we/you waiting for. Listen again when he asked Peter, "Do you Love ME?" and "Who do you say I am." We had better get busy, God bless, GregoryMary

In the Eucharistic Miracle of Germany, Meaning of Easter a priest was assailed by doubts concerning the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist during the Holy Mass. At the moment he was elevating the chalice, the wooden crucifix above the tabernacle came to life, and the Lord slowly extended his arms to the priest, took the chalice from his hands and exhibited the Holy Eucharist for adoration of the faithful. On Holy Thursday, March 25, 1255, a priest of Ratisbonne was taking Holy Viaticum to a dying patient when, upon entering the city, he suddenly found himself before a stream overflowing because of an unexpected storm. To allow the people to pass from one bank to the other, they had placed a simple plank of wood. While crossing it, the priest slipped and dropped the ciborium containing the consecrated Hosts.

As an act of reparation, the priest, the faithful, and the civil authority decided the same day to construct a chapel on the site of the accident. On September 8, 1255, Bishop Albert consecrated the chapel in honor of the Savior, to which the Blessed Sacrament was carried in solemn procession. From that moment the sanctuary began to be frequented by numerous faithful. Two years later an extraordinary event confirmed the holiness of the place. A priest was celebrating the Holy Mass in the little chapel, when he was struck by doubt regarding the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. He delayed, therefore, in elevating the chalice and suddenly heard a light noise come from the altar. From the wooden crucifix above the altar, the Lord slowly extended his arms to the priest, took the chalice from his hands and exhibited the Blessed Sacrament for the adoration of the faithful. The priest, repentant, fell to his knees and begged forgiveness for having doubted. The Lord returned the chalice to him as a sign of pardon. The miraculous crucifix is still preserved to this © 2006, Istituto San Clemente I Papa e Martire / Real Presence Eucharistic Education and Adoration Association Origin Chapel of the miracle The Crucifix of the miracle Antique print depicting the miracle Eucharistic Miracle of day in the nearby town of Regensburg, and many of the faithful go to the place every year in pilgrimage. "The time you spend with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is the best time you will spend on earth. Each moment that you spend with Jesus will deepen your union with Him and make your soul everlastingly more glorious and beautiful in Heaven, and will help bring about everlasting peace on earth," - Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta "I adore and venerate you as much as ever I can, though my love is so cold, my devotion so poor. Thank you for the good gift of this your holy Body and Blood, which I desire to receive...,"

- St. Anselm (Archbishop and Doctor of the Church) "When I was in Church waiting for confession, I saw the same rays (that is, as those depicted on the revealed image of the Divine Mercy) issuing from the monstrance and they spread throughout the church. This lasted all through the service. After the benediction (the rays came forth) on both sides and returned again to the monstrance. Their appearance was bright and clear as crystal. I asked Jesus that He deign to light the fire of His love in all souls that were cold. Beneath these rays a heart will be warmed even if it were like a block of ice; even if it were as hard as rock, it will crumble into dust," - St. Faustina Kowalska Meditation of St. Francis of Assisi Let everyone be struck with fear, the whole world tremble, and the heavens exult when Christ, the Son of the living God, is present on the altar in the hands of a priest! O wonderful loftiness and stupendous dignity! O sublime humility! O humble sublimity! The Lord of the universe, God and the Son of God, so humbles Himself that He hides Himself for our salvation under an ordinary piece of bread! See the humility of God, brothers, and pour out your hearts before Him! Humble yourselves that you may be exalted by Him! Hold back nothing of yourselves for yourselves, that He Who gives Himself totally to you may receive you totally! "My soul, if you wish to penetrate the depths of this Mystery, your gaze must be illumined by Love! You need to see and understand! Contemplate the Last Supper: see Jesus Who knows that He will soon be separated from the body of His humanity, and yet wishing to be united to us forever; contemplate the Love by which He institutes this Sacrament which permits Him to be corporeally and forever united to mankind. O Inextinguishable Love! O Love of Christ! O Love of the human race! What a true Furnace of Love! O Jesus, You already saw the death which awaited You; the sorrows and atrocious tortures of the Passion were already breaking Your Heart, and yet You offered Yourself to Your executioners, and permitted them, by means of this Sacrament, to possess You forever as an Eternal Gift, O You, Whose delights are to be with the children of men! "O my soul, how can you refrain from plunging yourself ever deeper and deeper into the love of Christ, who did not forget you in life or in death, but who willed to give Himself wholly to you, and to unite you to Himself forever?" - St. Angela Foligno "Mary's adoration was profound, interior, intimate. It was the gift of herself. She offered her whole self to the service of love of the Eucharistic God. For love lays down no conditions, makes no reservations; it thinks no longer of self, lives no longer for self; it is a stranger to itself and lives only for the God which it loves. Everything in Mary was directed to the Blessed Sacrament as Its center and end. A current of grace and love established itself between the Heart of Jesus-Hostia and the heart of Mary-Adoratrix. These hearts were like two flames blended into one. God was then perfectly adored by His creature,"

- St. Peter Julian Eymard When his excellency, Bishop Ott, spoke to Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, he asked her "how she got so many women to join her religious order". She explained: "We were just like other religious congregations with few vocations. Then at our chapter in the 1970s we made a decision to have a holy hour in all our convents each evening. Many blessings resulted from this Holy Hour the Bishop witnessed, for Blessed Mother Teresa continued, "We began to see more clearly our mission to serve the poor in Christ’s name. We began to live a more fruitful family life among ourselves. We experienced double the number of vocations in our congregation. And we grew personally in our intimacy with the Lord present in the Eucharist." The Bishop is "confident" that this will occur in his diocese too. - "Bishop’s Notebook", Stanley Joseph Ott, Bishop of Baton Rouge, "The Catholic Commentator", August 5, 1992, p. 4 ..."The great and generous thoughts of Catholic heroism are conceived, or rather inspired, at the altar where the Adorable Sacrament reposes; there, depend upon it, in silent prayer the noble damsel in heart rejects the world and its vanities, and plights her troth to the Spouse of her chaste heart; there the young ecclesiastic, bowing in meditation calm and sweet, muses on the triumphs of his schoolmates over the swords and red-hot pincers of Tonquin, and resolves to share in their crown of martyrdom; there whatever is planned for the Church of God that requires zeal and persevering energy is matured and resolved." - A Victorian reflection from the writings of Cardinal Nicholas Patrick Wiseman (1802-1865) on the Blessed Sacrament & Catholic Heroism "O inestimable charity! Even as You, true God and true Man, gave Yourself entirely to us, so also You left Yourself entirely for us, to be our food, so that during our earthly pilgrimage we would not faint with weariness, but would be strengthened by You, our celestial Bread. O man, what has your God left you? He has left you Himself, wholly God and wholly Man, concealed under the whiteness of bread. O fire of love! Was it not enough for You to have created us to Your image and likeness, and to have recreated us in grace through the Blood of Your Son, without giving Yourself wholly to us as our Food, O God, Divine Essence? What impelled You to do this? Your charity alone. It was not enough for You to send Your Word to us for our redemption; neither were You content to give Him us as our Food, but in the excess of Your love for Your creature, You gave to man the whole divine essence..." - St. Catherine of Siena The Meaning of Easter by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J. Easter is the most important feast in Christianity. In fact, it is the pivot of the ecclesiastical year around which everything in the Church's calendar revolves.

Already in the first century of the Christian era, Sunday replaced Saturday as the Lord's Day, a weekly commemoration of Easter. Yet in secularized cultures like the United States and Canada, Easter is not much celebrated except liturgically. It is too religious and too Christian for people who are immersed in the things of this world to pay much attention to a world to come and to a life after death, yet that is what Easter is all about, to those who believe. My purpose here is to ask three questions and briefly answer each one in sequence:

• What do we commemorate on Easter Sunday?
  

• Why did Christ rise from the dead?
  

• How are we to live out the mystery of Christ's resurrection?

What Do We Commemorate?

On Easter Sunday. we commemorate the fact that Jesus Christ rose from the grave on the third day after His crucifixion and death on Calvary.

Of course. the resurrection of Christ is a mystery that we believe. But it is also and emphatically a historical fact that we know actually took place.

It is a historical fact that Jesus of Nazareth really lived, really died, was really buried, and really rose from the grave.

It is a provable fact that Jesus came back to life after being crucified, that His disciples were unwilling to accept the fact, but were given overwhelming evidence that Jesus had truly risen. It is a fact that Christ's resurrection was no mere subjective experience. It was no illusion or merely spiritual phenomenon. No, the risen Christ had a body, and flesh, and could be seen, heard and touched. Why Did Christ Rise from the Dead?

The great minds of Christianity have written volumes in explanation of why Jesus Christ rose bodily from the grave.

The resurrection of Christ is the great vindication of divine justice, which elevates those who humble themselves. In the words of St. Thomas. "Since Christ humiliated Himself even to the death of the Cross out of love and obedience to God, He was therefore exalted by God even to His resurrection from the dead." It is this glorification of His risen humanity to which Christ refers in St. Ignatius' Spiritual Exercises when He says, "My will is to conquer the whole world and all my enemies, and thus to enter into the glory of my Father."

The resurrection of Christ is also the great proof of His divinity and in that sense the keystone of our faith. During His mortal life Christ had often professed Himself to be God in human flesh. "The Father and I are one." He declared. In testimony of this claim He allowed Himself to be crucified, died, and by His own power arose from the dead; thus clearly manifesting that He was indeed the Resurrection and the Life, first in His own favor and then for all the rest of mankind. Without the divinity of Christ, confirmed by the miracle of Easter Sunday, the incarnation is a misnomer and the redemption a sham. "If Christ has not risen," says St. Paul, "vain then is our preaching." And vain all the mysteries of our faith.

Besides confirming our faith in His divinity, Christ's resurrection gives the hope of our own restoration from the grave. As the first fruits of those who sleep, the Head of the Mystical Body became a pledge of immortality to His faithful members on the last day. This is integral to the promise of Christ that those who follow Him in labor and suffering will also follow Him in glory. While only part of the reward, the glorification of our body after the example of Christ can be a powerful motive in the spiritual life. Since the control of bodily passions by "acting against sensuality and carnal desires" often demands a great deal of sacrifice, there should be a corresponding remuneration, not only for the soul but also for the body which shared in the earthly struggle. For the soul, this reward is the beatific vision, for the body, it is the resurrection which endows the sensible faculties with transcendent powers and inebriates them, in the words of revelation, with the torrent of God's pleasure.

Finally and most importantly the resurrection of Christ is the cause of our reinstatement in the friendship of God. As the result of Adam's fall we were twice removed from divine love, once by reason of original sin that infected our human nature and once again by the loss of sanctifying grace that gave us a title to the vision of God. Two kinds of life were to be restored, as there were two kinds of death from which we had to be redeemed, the one bodily and the other spiritual. As the passion of Christ removed both forms of death, so His resurrection restored both forms of life. How Can We Live the Mystery of Christ's Resurrection?

The answer to this question is as simple as it is startling. We live the mystery of Easter by our devotion to the Holy Eucharist. Let me repeat: We live out the mystery of Christ's resurrection by our devotion to the Eucharist.

How is that? Or better, how is that possible? It is not only possible but practicable because the Holy Eucharist is the Risen Christ. It is the Risen Jesus, now on earth in our midst.

In the Eucharist the Risen Lord is ready to bestow His graces, provided we believe and humbly ask Him for what we need. The Eucharist is the Risen Savior offering Himself in the Mass, coming to us in Communion, and living among us by His very Real Presence on our altars.

The Catholic Church is undergoing the most difficult ordeal in her history. She has had more martyrs since 1900 than in all the previous centuries put together.

But the Church will survive and even thrive where and in so far as she has faithful members who believe that the risen glorified Jesus Christ is with us - as He promised - in the Holy Eucharist, even until the end of time.