27th Visit to the Blessed Sacrament and the Blessed Virgin Mary
4 min • Digitized on April 27, 2023
From Visits to the Most Holy Sacrament, by St. Alphonsus de Liguori, page 100
By St. Alphonsus de Liguori
Twenty-seventh visit.
In the office of the most holy sacrament we read the following words: “Neither is there any nation so great, that hath its gods so nigh them as our God is to us.” The Gentiles hearing the works of love of our God, exclaimed, O how good is this God of the Christians!
And in reality, although the Gentiles formed Gods for themselves, according to their own caprice, still, if you read their legends, you shall find, that none of them had ever imagined a god so enamored of men as is our true God, who, to show his love for his adorers, and to enrich them with his graces, has, by a prodigy of love, made himself our perpetual companion, hidden night and day within our altars, as if he could not separate himself from us, even for a moment.
“He hath made a remembrance of his wonderful works.” Ps. ex. 4. Then, O most sweet Jesus, to satisfy thy desire to be near to us and present with us, thou hast wrought the greatest of all thy miracles.
And why do men fly from thy presence? How can they live so far from thee, or come so seldom to visit thee? Such is the tediousness which they feel in thy company, that a quarter of an hour spent in thy presence appears to them an age.
O my Jesus, how great is thy patience? Lord, I understand thee: thy patience is great, because thy love for men is infinite; it is this love which makes thee dwell continually among them in spite of their ingratitude.
Ah! my God, who, because thou art infinite in all perfections, art infinite in love, do not permit me to be henceforth as I have hitherto been, among the number of those ungrateful Christians. Give me a love proportioned to thy merits and to my obligations.
I, too, once felt tediousness in thy presence, because I did not love thee, or because I loved thee too little. But if with the aid of thy grace I attain an ardent love of thee, I shall never more experience tediousness in remaining with thee night and day in the holy sacrament.
O eternal Father, I offer thee thy own Son; accept him for me, and through his merits grant me so ardent and tender a love towards the holy Eucharist, that always turning to some church where he is present in the blessed sacrament, I may dwell in thought with him, and long for the time of going to entertain myself in his presence.
Prayer: My God, for the love of Jesus, give me a great love for the most holy sacrament.
The Spiritual Communion.
Twenty-seventh visit to the Blessed Virgin.
My queen! thou hast said to thy servant St. Bridget, that as often as a man sins, if he returns to thee with sincere repentance, thou wilt receive him and restore him to the friendship of God; that thou dost not consider the greatness of his crimes, but the sincerity of his repentance; and that thou art ever ready to apply a cure to his wounds, because thou art in reality, as in name, the Mother of mercy.
Since, therefore, thou rejectest no sinner who approaches thee with a sincere detestation of his crimes, and since thou hast both the power and the will to heal him, behold, I present myself before thee, and beseech thee to apply thy celestial remedies to the deep wounds of my soul.
Thy Son can refuse thee nothing: entreat him, then, to pardon me and to grant me his love.
Prayer: O Mary! my hope, I expect all through thee.