24th Friday Eucharist - Medjugorje

 

What is the role of Our Lady? Always Her primary role is the bring Her spiritual children to Her Son Jesus.

After the Rosary on Apparition Hill yesterday, as I was climbing down the pathway from the top, Ivan came by and I said his name, “Ivan!” He stopped and I said, “May I give you a blessing?” He smiled and nodded his head. I gave him a priestly blessing and he said, “Come tonight to my house!” I said, “What time?” He said, “4:45pm”. I said, “Okay, I’ll see you there.” He smiled and went down the hill in the most rapid manner like a goat.

When I arrived later at 4:45pm, the chapel at Ivan’s house, was filled with priests and there were about 7 religious sisters and brothers. We prayed the Rosary then he had an apparition that lasted about 5 minutes. During the apparition, I prayed for all of you, for the people of my parish, my family and godchildren, for Ivanna and her family.

After the Virgin Mary, Our Lady Queen of Peace departed, he explained what our Lady said, he said she prayed over the priests and prayed over our parishes and for each diocese from where the priest is from. She then said to the priests, “Open your parishes to perpetual adoration and they will be renewed.” Ivan said when She spoke about priests and religious, she always said, “My dear children, by beloved.”

In the US, there are many perpetual adoration chapels. My diocese of Wichita most every parish has either perpetual adoration or extended adoration. Some parishes are too small to have perpetual. When I was assigned to my parish of Holy Trinity, a very small parish with 60 families, I preached on Eucharistic Adoration on Sundays and then we started adoration. In fact, today is the 5^th anniversary of Sept 19^th of starting continuous adoration. We have adoration from Sunday after the 8am Mass until Tuesday morning at 7am. The people signed up for 42 continuous hours of adoration. Over 70% of all families signed up for a Holy Hour.

In the Gospel today, the apostles and other women, Mary Magdalene, Joanna and Susanna followed Jesus wherever He went. He preached the kingdom of God and proclaimed the Good News. Just as they wanted to be with Jesus, we too can be in His physical presence.

In the Eucharist is truly Jesus in His resurrected body. Do you spend time with Jesus in the Eucharist? Do you go to your church on a regular basis to be with Jesus? Find a parish near you that has perpetual adoration. Look to see if they have an opening that you can sign up to make a Holy Hour with Jesus every week. Jesus told Peter, James and John during His agony in the garden, “Will you not spend one hour with me?”

During adoration Jesus touches our soul and heals our wounds (spiritual, emotional, and physical). Untold graces are poured out upon us when we are sitting before Jesus in adoration.

The word adoration means “to gaze upon someone with love.” One day, St. John Vianney saw a man sitting in his church. He noticed the man sitting there every day for hours. He walked up to the man and said, “What are you saying to Jesus as you sit here all day?” The man said, “Nothing, I just look at Him and He looks at me!”

A saint said, “When you make a Holy Hour many souls go to heaven, who otherwise would have gone to hell.” St Carlo Acutis said, “The Eucharist is the highway to heaven.” He also said, “When we stand under the sun, we get sun tanned. If we spend time with Jesus before the Blessed Sacrament, we become holy.”

In the Eucharist Jesus longs for you to be with Him. When you go before Him, give Him your fears, worries and your heartaches. When are with Jesus ask Him for advice. Ask Him to touch the hearts of your family members, your friends and your enemies. And be sure to sit and listen to Jesus.

Pope Paul VI said, “When you make a Holy Hour, graces are poured out, not only on you, but your family, your parish and the entire world.”

When Our Lady comes as Queen of Peace, She wants to bring every person to Her Son, the King of Peace. Our Lady told priests when they start perpetual adoration their parishes will be renewed.

My friends, if you want peace in your heart, in your families and in the world, come and bow down in humble reverence before the King of Peace and allow yourself to be an instrument of peace. When you gaze upon the Eucharist you will gaze upon the humility of Christ. Jesus humbles Himself to take on the appearance of bread, but it's not bread at all. It is truly Jesus. St. Francis of Assisi said, “Let the world shake, let all mankind tremble, when the Son of God, God Himself becomes present in the hands of the priest. Look brothers at the humility of God! Humble yourself as Jesus humbled Himself. O sublime dignity. O humble sublimity.”

Finally, I would like to encourage you to give reverence to Jesus before Holy Communion by bowing your head, or genuflect or kneel. And pray about receiving Holy Communion on the tongue. Your tongue becomes a throne for the King and prevents Sacred Particles from falling to the ground when received on the hand. The Council of Trent taught that every particle of the Sacred Host is the true presence of Jesus.

Surely, the Virgin Mary received Jesus on the tongue from John the Apostle when She attended his Masses. After all, he took her into his home and as an apostle he offered Mass.

When we enter a Catholic Church, before going inside the pew, we are required to genuflect, not to the altar, but to Jesus in the tabernacle, because He as King of Heaven and Earth is truly present. We go down on our right knee, which by the way is reserved to God alone. When a man proposes to a girl to be his wife, he is to genuflect on his left knee, which is for human beings, but the right knee is reserved to God alone. Early Christians were killed for refusing to genuflect on their right knee to idols and/or images of the emperor, who claimed to be a god.

May Our Lady, help you to grow in love with Her Son in the Eucharist and spend time with Him in adoration and try to be with Him often as the apostles and the holy women in today’s Gospel.

Our Lady Queen of Peace, bring us to Jesus, You Son, the King of Peace, so as to receive Him daily at Mass and adore Him in Eucharistic Adoration. We have a tabernacle in the small chapel of Magnificat. There is Adoration next door at Oasis of Peace and there is a perpetual adoration chapel near St James Church, which has adoration from 2 to 4:30pm. How moving to see over 5000 pilgrims adore Jesus at night.

Let us give thanks to God for sending the Blessed Mother, the Queen of Peace, to us, here on earth, so as to draw all of us to Jesus, Her Son in the Eucharist, the King of Peace.