Each day until Divine Mercy Sunday on April 7th, I will email you one thought from that day’s brief reading from Fr. Michael Gaitley’s fine book, 33 Days to Merciful Love. I render full credit for these thoughts, respecting copyright laws, to Fr. Gaitley. Each reading ends with a prayer, which I ask you to pray with me for this intention: the conversion of our parish.
Day Twenty-Four
St. Thérèse was “single-hearted” to an extraordinary degree, by the grace of God. She was able to train all her mind, heart, and will on one thing: immersing herself in the Heart of Jesus. To swim in the vast seas of Divine Mercy became her only purpose in life. Childhood had not been kind to her, with the death of her mother at age four, the insecurities and psychological dysfunction she suffered growing up, and the deterioration of her father’s mental health. Despite her limitations, she had been given a great soul, magnanimous desires and an extraordinarily strong will. She focused all her energies on a single object: union with the invisible God. “What attracts me to the homeland of heaven,” she wrote, “is … the hope of loving Him finally as I have so desired to love Him.”
Last night I celebrated the Holy Thursday Mass with my two other priests and 200 people. This “Mass of the Lord’s Supper” commemorates the Eucharist on the very day it was given to us, and only once a year does the priest say these words just before the Consecration: “On the day before he suffered for us … that is, today….” We priests look forward to those words all year because we realize, quite dramatically on Holy Thursday, that the Sacrifice of the Mass brings our “today” into heaven’s eternal day.
St. Thérèse’s hope for heaven is fulfilled now, in a veiled way, through the Holy Mass. When the priest lifts up host and chalice at the end of the great Eucharistic Prayer, Jesus is ours and we are His. The priest holds Him in his hands, and the people receive Him on their tongues. We have entered the eternal day, the deep seas of divine love, the desire for which we consecrate ourselves in this novena. So let’s try to prepare for, and enter into, each Mass with the spirit and fervor of the saints.
Prayer
Come, Holy Spirit, fire of mercy. Help me to participate fully, consciously, and actively in the “borrowed” divine love of liturgical worship.
Day Twenty-Four
St. Thérèse was “single-hearted” to an extraordinary degree, by the grace of God. She was able to train all her mind, heart, and will on one thing: immersing herself in the Heart of Jesus. To swim in the vast seas of Divine Mercy became her only purpose in life. Childhood had not been kind to her, with the death of her mother at age four, the insecurities and psychological dysfunction she suffered growing up, and the deterioration of her father’s mental health. Despite her limitations, she had been given a great soul, magnanimous desires and an extraordinarily strong will. She focused all her energies on a single object: union with the invisible God. “What attracts me to the homeland of heaven,” she wrote, “is … the hope of loving Him finally as I have so desired to love Him.”
Last night I celebrated the Holy Thursday Mass with my two other priests and 200 people. This “Mass of the Lord’s Supper” commemorates the Eucharist on the very day it was given to us, and only once a year does the priest say these words just before the Consecration: “On the day before he suffered for us … that is, today….” We priests look forward to those words all year because we realize, quite dramatically on Holy Thursday, that the Sacrifice of the Mass brings our “today” into heaven’s eternal day.
St. Thérèse’s hope for heaven is fulfilled now, in a veiled way, through the Holy Mass. When the priest lifts up host and chalice at the end of the great Eucharistic Prayer, Jesus is ours and we are His. The priest holds Him in his hands, and the people receive Him on their tongues. We have entered the eternal day, the deep seas of divine love, the desire for which we consecrate ourselves in this novena. So let’s try to prepare for, and enter into, each Mass with the spirit and fervor of the saints.
Prayer
Come, Holy Spirit, fire of mercy. Help me to participate fully, consciously, and actively in the “borrowed” divine love of liturgical worship.
St. Thérèse setting up for Mass at her Carmelite monastery
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