Say: This is My Body, This is My BLOOD! (Live the Eucharist Series Pt V)

“The World is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil”

Gerald Manley Hopkins, S.J.[i]

My family has had a busy summer with two of our six kids getting married: Sarah in June and Katie in July. Lately, I have been experiencing how this change of state alters our relationships with each other. We are intimately a part of each other’s lives still, but now more people have to be taken into consideration. They have new purpose and focus in life and I am in the background. I remember watching my preschool children playing with neighbor kids, thinking I had so much time to have them all around. How wrong I was! Time is short in family life. I remember my mother telling me to live the moments to the full for at the drop of a hat, they would grow up. She wasn’t lying. It is like that in the spiritual life, too, and Venerable Concepción (1862-1937), our mentor in the Faith, has a mystical perspective that can spur us on to live the Eucharist and not lose sight of what is at our fingertips. She beckons us to be intense in the spiritual life and grasp the ordinary moments, as opportunities that unite us with God and make us channels of grace for others. Too many faithful Catholics defend themselves from the world rather than engage it in Christ to redeem it with Him. Unknowingly, many await our willing generosity.

Concepción wrote:

“I had a glimpse of thousands of souls approaching God with a devotion of love and I begin this Chain of love [ii] [systematic holiness through the virtues] today for the glory of God and the good of many souls.”

As we continue with this series on living the Eucharist, we open our eyes to see that Christ bids us into intimate union with Him for a purpose. Just as in the body, blood is life giving, for it flows and supports our growth and well being, we are meant to live the Eucharist more personally. Mrs. Cabrera tells us, we are to become the very blood of Jesus for those around us!

Jesus told Venerable Concepción:

ChristCarryingTheCrossElGreco1580“There is nothing so intimate in the God Man as his blood that gives life, that moves the heart, that breathes existence. This I seek that you and the ones that follow your way be, this fruitful spiritual vitality, always bearing the seal of sacrifice on behalf of others. And they will be my blood giving life spiritually to souls, as I give myself to them materially (the blood…) in communion. What a great grace I am giving you, and those that follow this way, in asking you to be my very blood, by developing an intimate union with me, by immolation for others and in the spiritual fruitfulness on behalf of others” (Account of Conscience 33:263-264).

Father Luis Ruiz Vazquez, M.Sp.S, a member of the Missionaries of the Holy Spirit[iii], a community of priests that Concepción inspired, tells us that “the Lord desires that our life acquire this new dimension”[iv], to be Him and bring His vitality to others. We do this by practicing the virtues[v] and learning how to work with our shortcomings and limits. Transformation in Christ, to be His blood, takes intentional work, to see ourselves as we are, but not stopping until we let Him be more in us. We don’t make ourselves the “blood of Christ.” Christ does it in us, but he awaits our willing cooperation. We offer ourselves to Christ and say, like Concepción wrote in reference to her faults,

“But, ah! These are my riches and what’s most abundant, which I can present him each day, flattening myself. Suddenly, I have felt like the Queen of my heart, being stripped of everything and even of my very self, leaving an empty field so that the Word fills it” (Account of Conscience 3:83-84, and 25:65-72).

When the Word fills us, he directs us to say with Him, in the joys and sorrows of our everyday life, as an ordained priest says at the altar:

“This is my Body, this is my Blood.” Jesus told Concepción as He does us “These words are transformative…What a surprise it is that I wish and ask that souls united to Me say to the Father: ‘This is my Body, this is my Blood.’ Souls are sinking and it is necessary to save them. I ask for their salvation. Repeat to the Father who saves them and say these words with me. These are redemptive words that I promise you that heaven will be opened upon hearing them from pure and loving hearts, from souls and bodies abandoned to my will” (CC 40:299-300, 32:124-125).

Let us grasp the ordinary moments and squeeze every spiritual drop so we may enter the life-giving flow of Christ’s redeeming blood. Let us become the flame of Christ that reveals the grandeur of God!

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[i] Manley Hopkins, Gerald, Poems of Gerald Manley Hopkins, edited by Robert Bridges, Humphrey Milford, London, 1918, p 124.

[ii] See my posts on the Chain of Love in Roman Catholic Spiritual Direction archives.
PadreFelixRougierMSpS

[iii] The Missionaries of the Holy Spirit are a religious order of priests that Venerable Concepcion and her spiritual friend, Venerable Félix Rougier, founded in Mexico City on Dec. 25, 1914. Father Domenico di Raimondo, M.Sp.S. is Provincial for the United States. The charism of this religious order is to promote priestly sanctity through the ministry of retreats, spiritual direction and retreats.

[iv] Ruiz Vazquez, M.Sp.S., Father Luis, Priestly Oblation of Christ and Priestly Dimension of Baptism in Concepción Cabrera, unpublished English translation, p.32.

[v] See my posts on the virtues and the vices in Roman Catholic Spiritual Direction archives.
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Art:  Venerable Concepción Cabrera de Armida, used with permission.  Christ Carrying the Cross, El Greco, 1580, PD-US, Wikimedia Commons.  Venerable Félix de Jesús Rougier Olanier, M. Sp. S., from the uncopyrighted site http://cidec.org.mx/felixrougier.html.

About Mary Kaufmann

Ms. Mary Gannon Kaufmann, M.A., M.S. is Director of Incarnate Institute and co-founder of Word of the Vine Online. Through Word of the Vine Online Ministries, Mary offers face to face and also online interactive retreats. She teaches internationally on vocations, priesthood, the role of the laity, the Theology of the Body and topics of spiritual growth. Information can be found at www.incarnateinstitute.org. Mary holds a post-graduate certificate in Spiritual Direction and Retreats from Creighton University in Omaha, NE, a Masters in Theology from Loras College in Dubuque, IA and a Masters in Nutrition from the University of Minnesota in the Twin Cities. She attends classes with her husband John, who is in formation for the Permanent Diaconate for the Archdiocese of Dubuque. They live in Cedar Rapids, Iowa with their six children.

This article is reprinted with permission from our friends at Roman Catholic Spiritual Direction.

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