The Word Incarnate is always there for us in the Eucharist. This overpowering mystery allows the unworthy hands of the priest to hold the same Body of Christ that the Virgin Mary held in her arms and pressed to her heart.
Yet it is the same Christ! The priest takes Christ in his hands and gives him to others!
When you receive him, you are like the Virgin Mary during the months she carried her child. You truly carry Christ within you and want to be absorbed in profound thanksgiving. You carry him living within you!
How necessary is silence so that the Holy Spirit can reveal to us the grandeur of this mystery.
Servant of God Père Jacques de Jésus
“To Give Back a Hundredfold”
Conference 14, Retreat to the Carmel of Pontoise
Sunday 12 September 1943
Jacques, P 2005, Listen to the silence: a retreat with Père Jacques, translated from the French and edited by Murphy F, ICS Publications, Washington DC.
Featured image: The Communion of Saint Teresa is an oil on canvas painting by the 17th c. Spanish artist Juan Martín Cabezalero (1645–1673), dated around 1670. We present a detail from the painting, which forms part of the collection in the Museo Lázaro Galdiano in Madrid. The subject of the work is taken from the book Historia y admirable vida del glorioso Padre San Pedro de Alcántara (1669) by Fray Antonio de la Huerta. In one of the passages, it mentions a Mass celebrated by Saint Peter of Alcántara and attended by Saint Teresa of Jesus, during which Saint Francis of Assisi and Saint Anthony of Padua appeared to act as deacon and subdeacon respectively. It is not known for whom the work was executed, although its subject matter could have been painted for either a Franciscan or a Carmelite convent, if it had been painted for a religious institution. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)
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