Divine Union and Creation (3-22)

What is the Lord longing to create with you?  Be fruitful!!  

Early yesterday morning, before I even stepped out of my vehicle after selecting its resting place in the church parking lot, the Lord had already joined me.  


There is so much to be said about preparing one’s heart while on the way to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.  

Don’t ever just think your encounters with Jesus are limited to when you walk in the church doors. Or when you need something.

When we prepare our hearts in advance to be there at the moment in time when Jesus gave up His life for us, He is willing to meet with us beforehand.  By giving the Lord the attention and honor He deserves, we welcome Him into our company. 

He comes where He is welcome.   

It is very important for every one of us to cultivate an understanding that the kindest of Men,  love Incarnate, willingly suffered and died to save us because He loves us that much.  This requires a response on our part, but the Lord will never force it from us.  

See it this way:  you don't want to force others to love you, you want them to love you because they value you.  Jesus is no different.  In fact, He longs for our love more than we long for love from other people, because He is our Creator.  

Rejection is painful for us.  Imagine what it feels like to Jesus.

Do not ever take the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and Jesus’ love for you for granted!  Be sure to begin preparing your heart in advance to accept such tremendous Treasure and to properly love Jesus in return. 

The Lord does not wait until you arrive at the church to love you, care about you, guide you, teach you…  He remains with us, always.  

He tells us, "I long for your love." 

Yesterday morning’s encounter with the Lord in the parking lot focused once again on His tremendous love for mankind, and how He loves each one of us with a love personally tailored to our unique souls.  When we receive Him completely in His Divinity and His Humanity during Holy Communion, it is a moment of spiritual and physical Divine intimacy that we cannot fully fathom.  

How difficult it is to describe the indescribable, yet how easy it is for us to experience.  May we never, ever see these moments of union with the Author of Love as ordinary.  May we never, ever take them for granted.  

You should know, and never forget, that the Love of your eternal life makes it a point to keep loving you throughout your entire life. Each and every day.  Moment by moment.  He remains with you always.

If only we would appreciate such loving, meaningful, and deeply personal encounters. If only we would recognize them!

Jesus absolutely surrounds us with His love. His love is like a silent symphony whose beautiful, quiet notes permeate us completely.  He doesn't hold back His love.  He gives it to us, along with Himself, completely.

God created love, provides it, orchestrates it, fills us with it, and provides the most intimate moments of union we can ever enjoy in this life when we accept His love and physically receive His Real Presence in the Eucharist. 

To be sure, there are so many different ways of enjoying Divine intimacy with our Lord.  Certainly we receive God’s love in very beautiful moments through the other Sacraments.  So much could be said here.  How have you experienced Intimacy with our Triune God through any of the Sacraments, or through someone else's reception of the Sacraments?  Oh, so much more could be said here!

God also shares very meaningful and loving moments through all the circumstances of our lives, through all the people we encounter, through our successes and through our mistakes. 

His love for us is constant.  Unfailing.  Secure.  Guaranteed. Meaningful.  Deeply personal.   

And guess what?  His love is also very fruitful! Read on.

The Lord went beyond making known His incredible, unfailing, and eternal generosity yesterday morning.  Why?  He longs for His love for us to be reciprocated.  


"O my Jesus, I know that, in order to be useful to souls, one has to strive for the closest possible union with You, who are Eternal Love... I can be wholly useful to the Church by my personal sanctity, which throbs with life in the whole Church, for we all make up one organism in Jesus."  ~ Saint Faustina


When love is freely and selflessly exchanged, a very unique relationship is created.   

By definition, these unique relationships are very, very special and are meant by design to be profoundly loving, meaningful, intimate, and powerful. And fruitful (read on).  

You will never, ever be disappointed when you selflessly seek a genuinely loving relationship with Jesus. Give yourself to Him completely, as He gives Himself to you completely, and you are guaranteed to have the very best relationship possible, with the Love of your eternal life.

The moments we share with Jesus when our souls are united with the Lord in a moment of Divine Intimacy during Holy Communion are the most meaningful and loving moments of our lives, and should serve as the model for all our other personal relationships. 

The Lord never disappoints.  

Are you aware that your relationship with God is even deeper than that?

Similar to God’s plan for creating life when two people are unified in love, when we are supernaturally unified with God physically, spiritually, and emotionally while receiving Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, a different type of conception occurs in the silence and sanctity of these deeply intimate moments.


Notice the parallel:  the Lord conceives the most beautiful things when two people are joined by the power of His love, and the devil seeks to destroy the beautiful things that are created, whether it is children through the union of two people or other things conceived through a person's union with God.   

Every single time we receive Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament worthily, the Lord uses these moments of intimacy and union with us to create the most beautiful things. 

The next time you receive Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and are unified with Him completely, think about that.  Not only is He loving you while you love Him in return.  Not only do you have a beautiful, meaningful, and intimate relationship with God.  Your physical, spiritual, and emotional union results in another form of conception. 

Just imagine what the next new creation may be!  It could be many, many different things.

Now imagine how often the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is celebrated around the world each day, and how many people are receiving Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament each time Holy Mass is celebrated, and try to come up with a number to indicate how much goodness is conceived not only for each soul individually but for each couple, family, community, country, continent, and for our world.   

Many, many wonderful things for souls individually and collectively have been born because of these unions with our Creator. 

On our own we can do nothing.  With God, all things are possible.

How is He at work in you?

“Together with the natural virtues placed at the service of apostolic charity, it is also necessary to consider the other human qualities which give the apostle an ascendency in his field of activity, not for his personal gain, but for the benefit of the Christian ideal.  To say that notwithstanding his culture and abilities, the apostle can do nothing without the help of God, is not a condemnation of these natural values;  it is merely the statement that,  of themselves, these qualities are insufficient to attain the essential end of the apostolate, that is, the communication of grace to souls, and end which only the divine action can effect.  However, that which does not suffice in itself, can become in the hands of God a most excellent means for procuring the good of souls. “ ~ Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen 1

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Sources

1. Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, Divine Intimacy (Tan Books and Publishers, Inc., 1996), p. 1015.

Images taken at Ss. Cyril and Methodius Slovak Catholic Church, 

Sterling Heights, Michigan, U.S.A., in the Archdiocese of Detroit.