The Agony in the Garden

He appealed to His apostles for the first holy hour of prayer when He took them into the garden in the middle of the night and asked them to watch and pray with Him…

The agony (Jesus) suffered was the realization that the Holy Eucharist would be rejected by so many and appreciated by so few. To reject the Holy Eucharist is to reject Jesus Himself.  He saw down through the ages how He would be left alone…in so many tabernacles of the world when He comes to bring so much love and so many blessings.  Few would believe in His Real Presence and fewer still respond to be loved in the Blessed Sacrament…Your holy hour consoles Him for those who do not love Him and wins countless graces for many to be converted to Him.

Prayer:  Conscious of Your loving Prudence, Jesus, we unite ourselves deeply to Your attitude in the garden when You prayed: “Father, not My will, but Your will be done.”  During this decade we offer You the perfect love of Mary to make up for what is lacking in our own hearts and to repair for all of the rejection that You receive from the world in this Sacrament of Your love.

Fr. Martin Lucia

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“By His stripes we were healed.” (Is 53:4)

When we look at the Sacred Host we are reminded of the sacrifice Jesus made for us to be the very life of our soul, because the Eucharist flows from Our Lord’s Passion. It is the sweet fruit of all His sufferings.

Jesus chooses to come to us in this most Blessed Sacrament under the appearance of bread. It is a constant reminder to us of how much He loves us, for like wheat which is beaten, broken, and crushed before it becomes bread, Jesus our Divine Wheat was willing to be beaten at the pillar, broken in Heart and crushed in humiliation that He may become for us “the Living Bread come down from Heaven”. He said: “The Bread I will give is My flesh for the life of the world.”

Prayer: Jesus, by the physical wounds You suffered at the Pillar, help us to overcome the inclinations of the flesh that we may live in Your Spirit and prefer Your love to all other loves. Through Mary we pray that we may be pure in thought and deed. Through Mary we pray for a deep understanding of Your personal love for us in the Holy Eucharist and that, like her, we may respond to You with our whole heart.

Fr. Martin Lucia

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“When Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns, Pilate said to them: “Behold the Man!” (Jn 19:5)

We meditate on the crown of thorns not only around the heard of Jesus, but also around His Sacred Heart, for it is here that He suffers more now than He did during His entire Passion. The thorns around His Heart symbolize the pain He endures due to the ingratitude of the world toward His love in the Eucharist: “Behold this Heart which has loves so much and et which is so little loved in return.”

Again in the Holy Eucharist, as before Pilate and in His Passion, Jesus, the sacrificial Lamb, is not held in esteem because there is in Him no majestic or stately bearing that would make men want to look at Him. Yet when we look upon the Blessed Sacrament, we behold in faith the very beauty of paradise…

The Eucharistic Heart of Jesus is infinitely appreciative of the love you have for Him in the Blessed Sacrament. This is why every holy hour you make changes the thorns in His Heart into many flowers of indescribable consolation. With Mary we offer to Him any suffering in our own life caused by the feeling of not being appreciated, in order that all humanity may come to truly appreciate Jesus in this most Blessed Sacrament.

Prayer: Jesus, awakened to Your great love for us, we offer you the perfect gratitude of Mary in reparation for the indifference and ingratitude of the world toward your love in the Holy Eucharist.

Fr. Martin Lucia

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” Anyone who does not take up his cross and follow Me cannot be My disciple.” (Jn 14:27)

Jesus kissed and embraced His Cross for love of us because by His holy Cross He would become one with us in the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the gift of Our Lord’s Passion. With Mary we unite ourselves with Jesus and offer to Him all our sufferings in mind and body, in heart and soul.

We are never given more than we can carry or bear, and as Simon helped Jesus carry His cross, so Jesus Himself helps us carry ours. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted. All trials purify us and lead us into a deeper union with Jesus. We offer Jesus all our sufferings for the salvation of souls, even the sufferings we bring upon ourselves.

This is the triumph of the Cross: all suffering has lasting and redeeming value when offered to Jesus Who glorified all human suffering by His holy Cross! Three times He fell on His way to Calvary to teach us never to get discouraged, for here in the Blessed Sacrament He makes a divine success out of all our failure when we humbly surrender them to the redeeming love of His Sacred Heart.

Prayer: Jesus, during this mystery we embrace our cross for love of You who kissed and embraces Your Cross for love of us. With Your grace help us to fulfill our daily duties in life. We renew our baptismal vows and ask You to prepare our hearts for a worthy confession where You wash away our sins in Your blood. We beg you, Jesus, to pour out from Your Eucharistic Heat an abundance of strength and consolation upon all of the depressed and discouraged in the world, especially those who have fallen into despair and you are in most need of Your encouragement.

Fr. Martin Lucia

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“When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men to myself, says the Lord.” (Jn 12:32)

On the cross Jesus felt completely abandoned, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” Earth didn’t want Him and heaven wouldn’t have Him as for our sake’s God made Him who did not know sin to be sin so that in Him we might become the very holiness of God. Good Friday follows Holy Thursday because Christ’s sacrifice on the cross was the price He lovingly paid to give us the complete gift of Himself in the holy Eucharist and to become our Divine Companion in this most Blessed Sacrament.

When we unite ourselves to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, we love the Father with the perfect love of the Heart of Jesus. The Eucharist is an immolation of love where Jesus continuously pleads for us with the seven last words he prayed on the cross:

“Father forgive them“, for those in most need a divine mercy.

“Why have you abandoned Me“, for those who feel forsaken.

“Behold your mother”, to a world consecrated to her.

“I thirst”, to be loved by all in this most Blessed Sacrament.

“You shall be with Me in paradise”, to those who visited here, for the Eucharist is a pledge of glory and a foretaste of heaven.

“Into your hands I commend My Spirit“, as this time Jesus places each of us into His Sacred Heart and commends us now to His heavenly Father, that the Father may see and love in us what He sees and loves in His only begotten Son.

“It is finished”, as there is nothing more that Jesus can give us then the complete gift of Himself in this holy Eucharist which is all that He has and all that He is.

Jesus gave up His Body on the cross for love of us that He may give His Body to us in the holy Eucharist; that we may be one with Him forever in everlasting glory.

Prayer:  We offer You all the comfort of your holy Mother, Jesus, who stood by You when You were alone and abandoned on the cross for again You are alone and abandoned in so many tabernacles of the world. We beg you, Jesus, draw all men to Your Eucharistic Heart for You have said: “When I am lifted up from the earth I will draw all men to Myself.”

Fr. Martin Lucia

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Suffering, like fire tried gold, transforms us into the heart of Christ. God never intended nor wanted man to suffer. Man fell through disobedience from the paradise God created. Christ’s sufferings on the cross give our sufferings value, purpose, and meaning until the day when paradise is restored.

We unite our sufferings now, no matter how great or small, to Jesus truly present before us in the Blessed Sacrament. He takes them and offers them to His heavenly Father in union with those He suffered for us on Calvary. He purifies them with His Blood and gives them unspeakable beauty by offering them the love with which He endured his passion.

God uses sufferings for three purposes. One is to purify us from self-love, ego, and pride so that our disposition they always be that of the Psalmist: “I bind myself to do your will.” The freedom of heart is given when we run the way of God’s holy will. Otherwise, we are enslaved by our own selfishness.

Before he died, Venerable Bishop Sheen was asked by a telephone television reporter what the difference was between the young Fr. Fulton Sheen and the 80-year-old Bishop with whom he was talking. The answer was “wisdom acquired through suffering”.

The second purpose of suffering is that it creates a compassionate heart. Through suffering, one become sensitive to the crisis and needs of others.

The third purpose is that it has a redemptive value when we accept and offer it to God in union with the passion of our Lord. The will of God is that all His children be saved. For this end, He allows human suffering in order that one man may merit necessary graces for another who otherwise would be lost. Like St. Paul, through our suffering, we make up what is wanting in the mystical body of Christ.

Fr. Martin Lucia

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I have knowledge You, Jesus, come in the flesh in this holy Eucharist to continue Your incarnation on earth. I look upon You, Jesus, of whom the whole world says: “O come let us adore Him”.

In the sacred Host, I look upon the humility By which You came in the flesh, born as a babe in Bethlehem. I look upon the very love with which You gave Your flash at Calvary to be one with us in the Blessed Sacrament.

I look upon the power through which You rose again Easter Sunday to raise me up with You in glory. I belong to You and You belong to me, recalling the words of the apostle Saint John: “Indeed, this is the will of My Father, that everyone who looks upon the Son and believes in Him shall have eternal life. Him, I will raise up on the last day”.

Fr. Martin Lucia

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“This child is destined to be … opposed (rejected) … and you yourself shall be pierced with a sword. ” (Lk 2:34)

Mary presented and consecrated Jesus in the temple, we ask her now to consecrate and present us to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  Mary took Jesus to the temple because He Himself would become the New Temple who makes sacred and holy the house of God through His Eucharistic Presence on earth.

Simeon’s prophecy of Jesus being rejected continues in our age as the Holy Eucharist is an embarrassment to the proud today, just as His incarnation, and His Cross was a stumbling block to those not open to God’s plan of salvation 2000 years ago.

This is why your visit to Him today is so important. You console Him for those who turn away from His Eucharistic love.

Simeon’s joy is our joy today as in the Blessed Sacrament We behold what Simeon proclaimed at the Presentation: “My eyes have seen the salvation … for all the peoples to see: a revealing light to the Gentiles, the glory of Your people.”

In our consecration to Mary, she takes all our thoughts, words, and actions and makes them pleasing to Jesus BY PURIFYING THEM IN HER LOVE, clothing them in her merits, presenting them to His Eucharistic Heart that He may see and love in us what He sees and loves in His Mother.

This is the joy of consecration!

Blessed Sacrament Prayer : Jesus take our wretched hearts, and give us a ‘new heart’ by giving us Your very own. During this mystery, we renew OUR TOTAL CONSECRATION to the Immaculate heart of Mary, through Mary, we offer to Your Eucharistic Heart all that we have and all that we are, “totally Yours, totus tuus”.

(Fr. Martin Lucia: COME TO ME In the Blessed Sacrament)

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Ave Maria Meditations

Dear Jesus, truly present in the most blessed sacrament, in unity with the nine choirs of angels who constantly adore You in this holy Sacrament, I offer You the Immaculate Heart of Mary, to love You with the perfect heart of Mary, to thank You for the unspeakable gift of Yourself in the holy Eucharist, to adore You as the center and treasure of my heart, to praise You for Your infinite mercy, to console You for those who do not love You, and to ask You with confidence to open up the floodgates of Your merciful love upon the whole world, that all may be one in Your will, in Your love, in your Eucharistic Heart.

Fr. Martin Lucia

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Ave Maria MeditationsThe holy Eucharist is the continuation of Christ incarnation on earth. The mystery of the Eucharist gives us the joy of having Christmas every day. When we come to the Blessed Sacrament we come to Bethlehem, a name which means “house of bread”. Jesus chose to be born in Bethlehem because He would work with us forever as the “living bread “come down from heaven.

When the shepherds and magi came to adore Him, they brought Him so much joy with their humble visit to Bethlehem that their visit has been praised and retold down through the centuries.

God has never stopped honoring them for honoring His Son at Bethlehem. So too, your humble visit today to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament brings Him so much joy that it will be retold for all eternity and bring the world closer to His promise of peace on earth.

We are as privileged and being called to adore Him today as were Mary, Joseph, the shepherds and magi then, because here Jesus continues His incarnation on earth.

The Eucharist is divine Love made visible in the sacred host! This is why the angels continue to sing to Him here as they did in Bethlehem: “glory to God in the highest and peace to men of goodwill.” Come let us adore Him for here Jesus continues to come to us “filled with enduring love” as the Word becomes Flesh in the holy Eucharist and makes His dwelling among us.

Fr. Martin Lucia

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