Importance of Visits and Holy Hours With Jesus In The Blessed Sacrament.
When Our Lord spoke to His disciples, “Could you not watch one hour with me? “ St. Matthew 26:40, this was a call of love for all of us down through the centuries. Jesus is really and truly present in the tabernacle with a divine yet human heart which loves us immensely and also desires our love in return. And He gives evidence of this love in his prayer to the Eternal Father when he prays, “Father, I will that where I am, they also may be.” St. John 17:24. St. Peter Eymard then says, “Our Lord wants us to be with him in the Most Blessed Sacrament.” So this is why Jesus invites us, “Come to me, all ye that labour, and are burdened, and I will refresh you.” St. Matthew 11:28, because, being the best friend we have, He also wants to help us in our needs. “Although the good God does not allow us to see him,’ St. John Vianney says, ‘’He is none the less present in the Blessed Sacrament, none the less ready to grant us all we ask.”
And if you will notice in the scriptures when the Gospel is read, usually the people who received the greatest graces were the ones who went to him directly. Yet, how few there are who go to him in their needs, and even fewer still who even know him in the Blessed Sacrament. As St. Alphonsus lamented in his prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, “It is in the tabernacle where Jesus is the least revered and the most abandoned.” Even many of his clergy, who should be his closest friends often leave him alone. St. Alphonsus again, complains of this in his book on the priesthood, “It must be confessed that Jesus Christ is unfortunate in his priests! All this comes from the little love they have for him. He that tenderly loves a friend, seeks to see him as often as he can, especially when his visits are most agreeable to this friend..”- DIGNITIES AND DUTIES OF A PRIEST. Pope John Paul himself used to spend much time before the Blessed Sacrament, and he encouraged us with these words, “Jesus waits for us in this Sacrament of Love. Let us be generous in going to meet him.” By the way, he also wrote an encyclical titled Inaestimabile Donum, The Inestimable Gift, 1980, concerning the Eucharist. Fr. Robert Brown said, “It was written to correct abuses in the liturgy.” How many of you have read it? How many of you have even heard a priest quote from it in a sermon?
Is this the way we treat our Master, our King, our Lord? Do we not have any greater respect for this sacred Body and Blood which suffered atrocious pains, and was poured out for us through his Passion and death? “Grieve over the contempt cast upon Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament,” St. John Vianney says, ‘’and try to make amends for it by a greater and more ardent love. To what outrages does our Lord expose himself in the Blessed Sacrament that he may remain in the midst of us! He is there to console us, and therefore we ought often to visit him.” No better example of the outrages he exposes himself to than in Communion in the hand, where countless Particles break off in the hand, falling to the floor or going God only knows where, and being trodden underfoot by the faithful walking behind them! “Have mercy on me, O God, for man hath trodden me underfoot.” Psalm 55:2. Fr. Nicholas Gruner and Father Ronald Tangen both warned that people are SUPPOSED TO LOOK IN THEIR HANDS FOR PARTICLES!!! This is desecration without parallel! Bishop Juan Rodolfo Laise warned that , “With Communion in the hand, a miracle would be required during each distribution of the Eucharist to prevent Particles from falling to the ground.” – Communion in the Hand: Documents and History.
Even in Jesus early life at the age of twelve He seemed to indicate that he would be ‘’found in the temple.’’ St. Luke 2:46, saying later in his public life,, “I sat daily with you, teaching in the temple,” St. Matthew 26:55. He is still here with us, waiting in the tabernacle, “sitting in our midst, ready to hear us, and ask us a few questions.” He wants us to come to him, “sorrowing,” for our sins, like the tax collector, so that he may forgive us and bless us, and we may go home forgiven. Will you go often to visit him, or, “Will you also go away?” St. John 6:68.
St. John Bosco said, “Do you wish many graces? Visit the Blessed Sacrament often. Do you wish few graces? Visit it seldom. Visits to the Blessed Sacrament are a powerful and indispensable means of overcoming the devil and of growing in virtue.” St. Mother Teresa said that love springs from faith. Yet if we say we love Jesus and do not go to visit him often, is this love? If not, our faith must be very weak because our love is weak. And how can we say we hope to love Jesus in heaven if we do not learn to love him on earth?