The Eucharistic Meditations of the Cure d'Ars (St. John Mary Vianney)
#12
MEDITATION 12:

THE BLESSED EUCHARIST, PLEDGE OF LIFE ETERNAL AND OF THE GLORIOUS RESURRECTION

What was the cause of the resurrection of Lazarus? It was because he had often received Our
Lord into his house. The Saviour loved him so much that He shed tears when He saw that he was
dead. How then could He leave in the humiliation of the grave, those whom He has honoured by
His visit in Holy Communion, who have longed for Him and who have received Him into a pure
heart inflamed with love. He has said: “I am the Resurrection and the Life. He who eats My Flesh
and drinks My Blood shall live eternally, and I will raise him up at the last day.”


1. THE PLEDGE OF ETERNAL LIFE.

Holy Communion is for us the pledge of eternal life, so that it guarantees heaven to us. It is a
pledge sent from Heaven to tell us that it will one day be our dwelling place.
Oh I if we could really understand how much Jesus Christ loves to come into our hearts! Once
He is there, He would wish never to leave it. He can no longer separate Himself from us during our
life nor after our death.

Consider St. Teresa, she received Holy Communion frequently and fervently. By this means,
she became so pleasing to God that one day Jesus Christ appeared to her, and said to her that she
pleased Him so much that if there was not a heaven already, He would create one for her alone.
She appeared one day accompanied by Jesus Christ to a religious. This religious was astonished
and she asked:

“Why, O Jesus, is Teresa with You?” The Saviour answered that Teresa during her life had
been so united to Him by Holy Communion that He could not separate Himself from her.
Oh, how beautiful will be a soul that has often and worthily received the good God! It will be
united to the soul of Our Lord. Then it will enjoy a happiness pure and perfect. It will shine like a
beautiful diamond, because God will be reflected in it.

When the soul of a Christian who has received Our Lord enters Paradise, it adds to the joy of
heaven. The Angels and the Queen of Angels come to meet it because they recognise the Son of
God in this soul. Those who receive. Holy Communion at the moment of death are very fortunate.
At the particular judgment which takes place immediately after death God the Father sees His Son
in them! He cannot condemn them, Oh! no.


2. HOLY COMMUNION - PRINCIPLE OF THE GLORIOUS RESURRECTION.

Jesus Christ will raise up our bodies as much more glorious as we shall have more often and
more worthily received Him. There is nothing we do which adorns the body more for Heaven than
Holy Communion.

At the day of Judgment, the body of Our Lord will shine through our glorified body. His
adorable Blood through our blood, as we see gold shine in copper and silver in lead.
Can one doubt it when we realise how close is the union effected between Jesus and the
devout communicant? If then, whilst He was still passible and mortal, Jesus Christ raised the dead
by His mere touch, how will He not raise us up, we, who have eaten His Flesh and drunk His
Blood.

What happiness for the just when at the last day the soul all embalmed with the fragrance of
Heaven will come to seek its body to enjoy God for all eternity! Then our bodies will come out of
the earth as linen which has been washed in dye. The bodies of the just will shine as beautiful
diamonds, as globes of love.

What a cry of delight when the soul comes to unite itself with the glorified body, to this body
which will be no longer for it an instrument of sin nor a cause of suffering.

It will revel in the sweetness of love as the bee does in the flower.

If a little leaven, says St. Francis of Sales, makes a great mass of dough to rise, if a spark suffices
to set a house on fire, if a seed put into the earth makes it fertile and productive of other seeds,
have I not reason to hope that your Holy Body coming into mine, when the time comes, will raise
it up from its corruption, will glorify it and bring it forth again immortal, impassible, agile, subtle,
resplendent, and furnished with all the glorious qualities that it can hope for.
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RE: The Eucharistic Meditations of the Cure d'Ars (St. John Mary Vianney) - by Hildegard of Bingen - 03-24-2021, 11:20 AM

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