What a vocation, yes, a sublime vocation for clergy, religious and laity alike, is herein revealed! Why is this true? Because living from Communion to Communion means nothing else than to live perfectly the Catholic and sacramental life which formed the very purpose for which Our Lord instituted the sacraments. It means living the liturgical life, gaining the graces we need to practice virtue daily.

    Living this way, the soul preserves itself always ready to receive Communion by frequent Confession, multiplied acts of fervent contrition and desire for Holy Communion. The soul is constantly in one of two dispositions - either thanking Our Divine Savior for coming in the last Communion by fervent acts of gratitude, love, humility, etc., or preparing for the next Holy Communion by fervent acts of faith, hope, charity, desire for union, docility to God's Will, zeal for souls, frequent spiritual communions, and any other acts the Holy Ghost inspires. All this is done with the precise intention of imitating our Queen, who lived this way, constantly calling on this Mediatrix of All Graces for the aid and support we poor, ungrateful and weak creatures need to live such a sublime life. And this desire to imitate Our Lady and complete dependence on her is the very essence of holy slavery.

    Keeping oneself in this disposition is also an excellent preparation for death, for if we are always ready and eager for Holy Communion, then we shall be, as the saints were, eager when death comes, for those who "now joyfully receive Thine only-begotten Son as our Redeemer, may also, without fear, behold Him coming as our Judge." 12

    Knowing the vast importance of the sacraments, the ancient serpent, learning from nearly two millennia of failures in trying to destroy the Catholic Church via persecution, schism and heresy, has inspired her enemies in our day to destroy the sacraments, knowing this to be the only way to achieve the great apostasy desired, since the sacraments pour the very life-blood of Catholics, sanctifying grace, into our souls. The Great Apostasy is upon us precisely because the Mass and sacraments have been removed from the vast majority of Catholics. 13 This is why there is nothing better than we can do to sanctify ourselves, exalt the Church, frustrate the intentions of the Church's enemies, and save souls, than to live an intense sacramental life.

    Holy Communion was the very center of Our Lady's life. Once she learned that the Blessed Sacrament was to be instituted, she offered up some twenty years of constant labor, suffering and acts of virtue to prepare for it (Transfixion, pp. 113-4), and considered her first Holy Communion a "superabundant reward" for all she had ever done; yea, "I did not consider myself worthy of this one favor" (cf. Transfixion, pp. 470-1). After her first Communion she then lived from Communion to Communion.

    What a difference we would see in our lives if we with joyful alacrity obeyed our Queen and made the Blessed Sacrament the very center of our lives. How sad that so many Catholics act as if Our Lord is not present in our churches. "He is there!" the Cure of Ars was wont to say. Why do we not visit Him? Why attend Mass only when required? Why do we not receive Him more frequently and fervently? Why do we not see the love of Jesus Christ as being the very reason for our existence and the very essence of our happiness both now and in eternity?

    But these questions are the same as asking: Why do we not desire Christ as we ought? I firmly believe many children (and hence many adults) have never been taught or urged to make frequent acts of simple desire to see, to be with, Jesus Christ. True love is the desire for union. We are not enthusiastic and fervent in practicing our faith because we do not really desire God as we ought; this is because we are ignorant of Who God is, of His works, labors, sufferings and eternal love for us, and are too attached to things of earth. Reading Scriptures along with a book like the City of God provides fuel for our love.

    Let us therefore firmly resolve to imitate our Queen, and ask her to grant us the grace to live from Communion to Communion. We shall accomplish more in a short time with Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament as the center of our life, in total dependence on Our Lady, than in a whole lifetime following our own desires and convenience. How full of hardships is a lukewarm life! Only the fervent are fortunate enough to experience the truth of Our Lord's words: "My yoke is sweet and My burden light" (Matthew 11:30).

Thursday/Friday/Saturday

    A second way of practicing holy slavery revealed in the City of God also formed a major part of Our Lady's life. It was the habit of reliving, beginning with the washing of the feet on Holy Thursday evening, the entire Passion of our Lord each week:

   "The most blessed Mary retired for this exercise at five o'clock on Thursday and did not reappear until toward noon on Sunday... I will only say that beginning with the washing of the feet, the most blessed Mary commemorated all the mysteries up to that of the Resurrection; and in each hour and moment she renewed in herself all the movements, actions, works and sufferings as they had happened in her Divine Son. She repeated the same prayers and petitions as He Himself had made and as we have seen described in their place. Anew the most pure Mother felt in her virginal body all the pains endured by Christ our Savior. She carried the cross and placed herself upon it. In short, I will say, that as long as she lived, the whole Passion of her Divine Son was renewed in her week for week" (Coronation, p. 500).

    How, then, can we imitate Our Lady in this? Those who can could attend Mass on Friday in honor of the Passion of Christ, Saturday (if possible) to honor and comfort Our Lady of Sorrows, and even Thursday in honor of the institution of the Most Blessed Sacrament. We could also frequently make the Way of the Cross (yes, even outside of Lent).

    If distance or duty keeps us from this, could we not, wherever we are, strive to imitate our Queen by trying to relive the Passion in spirit? St. John the Baptist, spending his early life in the desert, was far physically from Christ, but always with Him spiritually. "He himself ceased not to adore Him in spirit and in truth from his solitude" (Transfixion, p. 215). Oh that we imitated him in this!

    No matter where we are or what we are doing, we can always "adore God in spirit and in truth" (John 4:24), focusing our love and attention to His Presence in the tabernacle (and in our hearts), fervently desiring Him, thanking Him, loving Him. This is simple even for those a great distance from the nearest traditional chapel.

    Beyond the legitimate excuses of distance or duty, I wonder what many Catholics do on Friday night and Saturday morning. Do we consider this "our time"? If available, what better practice could there be than attending Mass on Friday in honor of the Passion (coupled with frequent Confession and Communion), making each Friday a Good Friday as Our Lady did? If possible, how about Mass on Saturday "mourning" to comfort Our Lady of Sorrows, recalling Holy Saturday by grieving with her over our sins, the state of the Church, and the loss of so many souls for whom the Blood and atrocious pains and tortures of her Son are wasted? Then each Sunday would more vividly recall the triumphant Resurrection of our Crucified God.

    What do Catholics do on Friday and Saturday, especially those with Mass available at these times? Oh yes, there is always "I'm busy," or "I'm tired," "This is the only time I have for myself" (if that is true, the rest of the week needs to be reworked), etc. But woe if the excuse is "there's a TV show, or a sporting event, I must watch," or mere indifference or lukewarmness. If the world has us in its grip, if the world is what truly attracts us, then Christ will justly tell us at our judgment: "If the world is what has attracted you, if its pleasures have been your desire, and if you are attached to it, and you have neither desired Me nor served Me with fervor as you ought, since I have left Heaven for you, then remain attached to the earth as your punishment." Why do Catholics think Purgatory and (God forbid!) hell exist, if not to punish most justly those whose fervent desires in this life always centered on things of earth? If we are attached to the earth, then it shall be so after our death! What miracle at death shall suddenly wipe out the bad habits of a lifetime and detach us from all that we have vainly loved?

    "Where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also" (Matthew 6:21). Where is our treasure? Oh that it were in the tabernacle, for our Love Who is there is He who sedes ad dexteram Patris. Oh that we would truly live the perfect sacramental life, the perfect liturgical life, first practiced by Our Lady and revealed in the City of God by living from Communion to Communion and attending Mass as often as possible, especially on Friday and Saturday. What good we would accomplish! What happy and holy slaves we would be!

    In conclusion, our happiness depends upon how well we imitate Our Lady. "By [Our Lady's] incomparable holiness [the saints] are all surpassed and they all partake of so much the greater felicity as they imitate her, whose holiness redounds over all" (Transfixion, p. 62). Let us, then, be grateful to Our Lord and Our Lady for having given us the Mystical City of God, and let us hasten to read it, watching daily at Our Lady's gates (Proverbs 8:34), and receiving the floods of grace the Mediatrix of All Graces wishes to pour upon us (Ecclesiasticus 24:40-47).

    And since ingratitude is such a leading cause of our problems today, we would do well to pray for the virtue of gratitude. Perhaps God does not grant us more gratitude because we would be ungrateful for it. So let us pray: O Lord, grant me more gratitude and I shall be so grateful!

Epilogue

    To those who say the City of God is too long to read, I say: Holy Scriptures is much longer, but this is no excuse for us not to read it! It would be a tremendous "life's goal" of every Catholic to read at least once both Holy Scriptures and the City of God cover to cover (of course, taking years to do this and interspersing other readings as the Holy Ghost inspires).

    How happy we would be if we would not look at months or years at a time, but lived day to day, practicing the spiritual life daily, picking up our cross daily (Luke 9:23). St. Therese, the Little Flower, expresses this beautifully in "My Song of Today": "The cross and suff'rings today-today, dear Lord, today-but only for today!"

    So let us start - today!

FOOTNOTES:

12 Collect, Vigil of the Nativity

13 Indeed the reign of Antichrist will come not only when the Mass has been completely removed from the earth for 3 V2 years (cf. St. Alphonsus, The Holy Eucharist, p. 22), but because it has been removed (cf. II Thessalonians 2:6-9; I believe "he who now holdeth" refers to Our Lord Jesus Christ, and "until he be taken out of the way" refers to the loss of the Mass).

(First Published in Reign of Mary #81, Summer 1995)

For the full volumes of Venerable Mary of Agreda's work on line, see THE MYSTICAL CITY OF GOD

For past articles in Fiat Voluntas Dei, see 2005tim.htm Archives