Becoming One in the Eucharist

Another time the cycle repeats: we say bye to a year that ends and receive a new year with new hopes and renewed desires. We all experience the passing of time; it is, in fact, humanly unstoppable. The challenge is to live in the present.  We are frequently reliving the past or planning the future. It is ever so difficult to remain in the present.

When I was a 16 year old, I truly enjoyed attending "quinceañeras." Ah! Those days in which we all were coming of age: the music, the friendship, the dancing, the chatting, discovering who is going out with whom... One day everything changed. I was in the school chapel, and I heard a sister reading a biblical passage: John 15:16. "You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you."  This is all it took for Jesus to conquer my heart.  I had been chosen!  The impact of this invitation was not to be palpable until after I attended the next party.  The joy of preparing for it and the joy of dancing and socializing were there, but what a void it all left in my heart afterwards.  My heart now longed for something else.  It was a longing that was almost painful. Like the bride in the canticle by St. John of the Cross, I had been wounded by love.

Where have You hidden Yourself

and abandoned me in my groaning, O my Beloved?

You have fled like the hart,

Having wounded me.

I ran after You, crying; but You were gone.

From then on, nothing satisfied me.  The sweetness of intimate talks with friends, the joy of parties, and the love of my family could not satiate this longing for oneness and intimacy with Jesus. Little by little I realized that it was only through Him that I could become really one with the whole universe; in Him I could embrace everybody; with Him I could learn to live and die in Love. My young heart was longing for Love, an infinite Love.

How many people I encounter in the Eucharist, in my daily time of adoration, through my very poor prayers! It is in Him that we all become real brothers and sisters.  In Him and with Him we become one! We are never alone!

As Jean Corbon says in The Wellspring of Worship, God has one impatient desire, one passion, and that is "to be with the children of men." Wow! In other words, our longing for love, for oneness, is not a crazy desire. It has been implanted in our hearts by God, who Himself longs to become one with us!

Through this blog, we, the Mercedarian Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, want to invite you to share in our Eucharistic-Marian spirituality. We seek to become like our Eucharistic Lord, souls that are willing to give it all; willing to be broken and given to others. May we pour out our hearts each day to the Blessed Sacrament, and, in silence, listen to the palpitations of His Heart. May we pour out our hearts to the Blessed Sacrament each day, and, through the intercession of Our Lady of Mercy, bring Christ to the rest of the world.

Men have been called into existence, but will they accept and respond? Will they gaze back into the adorable Face of God? (Corbon).