In these days, when devotion to the Holy Eucharist is making such progress, when Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament is practiced everywhere, and even becoming perpetual; when the Visit, Holy Mass, and Communion enter into the Christian life as daily practices, and form the foundation of piety, still another need springs up. Should not Mary, associated as she is in all the mysteries of Jesus, Mary whom we find the loving apostle of every devotion, the devoted directress, the gentle and most amiable model of the virtues of Jesus shall not Mary have her place in the devotion to the Blessed Sacrament? And which is her place? When we perform our duty to the God of the Eucharist, what help shall we look for from Mary to aid us more speedily to find her Son hidden under the Eucharistic veils? In a word, is it here alone that Mary will fail to be our apostle, our model, our mother?
The need of her maternal protection is most sensibly felt. Jesus demands, by virtue of His real and living presence in the Sacrament, duties better fulfilled, virtues more elevated. It is more difficult to discover Him behind His veil of love. "O then, Mary, Mary, be our model! We so much desire to appear before our Eucharistic Jesus, but only in thy company. We shall be satisfied to know that thou thyself hast discharged toward the Blessed Sacrament the duties that our title of Christian imposes on us. And when we receive Jesus, when we adore Him hidden in the tabernacle or exposed in His sparkling throne, we shall be so happy to thank thee with Him, and to know that if Jesus gives Himself it is through thee; that if we possess the Holy Eucharist, it is to thee that we owe it; and that all Eucharistic graces pass through thy hands before coming to us. O Mary, show us, reveal to us the part that thou didst take in the amorous economy of the Holy Eucharist!"
Such is the cry that forcibly escapes from the heart when before the Blessed Sacrament. If, in the Gospel, Mary is so closely united with her Son, if the Magi found Him only with His Mother, prostrate before the same Infant, still more lowly, still more lovable in the Eucharist, we shall see there His Mother, also: Et invenerunt Puerum cum Maria Matre ejus.
Guided by love, the devout Christian has already given to Mary names expressive of his desire to associate the Mother to the homage rendered the Son in the Blessed Sacrament. We have, for instance, the Confraternity of Our Lady of First Communion, enriched with numerous Indulgences. Christian childhood is there entrusted to Mary, that that tender Mother may preserve it pure, and may adorn it with her virtues for the grand day on which Jesus will enter for the first time into those young hearts.
Our Lady of First Communion, sweet title! title full of love and touching reality! Whoever has made his First Communion well, let him proclaim aloud as a duty of gratitude, that he owes to Mary that grace of graces.
At Mauron, in Brittany, there is a beautiful sanctuary, which is the center of a "Confraternity of Thanksgiving," the members of which pledge themselves to thank God incessantly for His benefits, and, above all, for the unspeakable gift of the Eucharist.
How could it be that Mary would not have part in such a work, she, the most grateful of creatures, she who first sang, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, the canticle of thanksgiving par excellence? A beautiful window in the apse of the church represents Mary kneeling before the Sacred Host in an ecstacy of thanksgiving, and repeating the Magnificat. Whoever prays before that picture of Our Lady of Thanksgiving, gains forty days Indulgence, granted by the Bishop of Vannes.
At Lyons, is Our Lady of Viaticum, to whom prayers are offered to obtain for the agonizing the Adorable Sacrament, the pledge of a peaceful death and a happy awaking in the glory of God. They beg Mary to renew the mystery of her Visitation, and again to carry Jesus to those that His love wills to visit.
Christian art has everywhere spread a pious inspiration which applies well to our subject. Who has not seen Our Lady of the Tabernacle, sometimes kneeling before the prison of love which incloses her Son; or sometimes, according to the words of Scripture, herself the tabernacle, showing us in her heart the place which the Most High sanctified, and in which He took His delight?
The Christian soul adores in union with Mary. She comes with Mary to visit the Prisoner of love, and her visit is better made. She is more faithful and, inspired by Mary's presence and example, she finds words more consoling, a gift more generous to offer to the Divine Captive of the Eucharist.
Long ago, M. Olier, in order to offer us the most perfect model for Communion, had an exquisite picture drawn, representing Saint John communicating Mary, laying upon the trembling lips of the Mother the Adorable Body of the Son: Ecce Filius tuus!
The life of union with Jesus, the life of Communion, is admirably represented under another subject: Mary, her eyes lowered and attentively fixed upon the Host which she has in her heart, seems to be entirely absorbed in Jesus. She is presented to us as the perfect realization of that word of Saint Paul: I live no longer, it is Jesus who lives in me.
Lastly, at Solesmes, we gaze in rapture on a very old picture of Mary communicated by Jesus Christ Himself. The Blessed Virgin almost swooning from the ardor of her love, is supported by the Prince of the Apostles, whilst Jesus, rejoicing to restore to His Mother what He had received from her, laid upon her lips His Sacred Body hidden under the snowy Eucharistic species.
All these productions of faith and piety give us a little insight into the close and ineffable relations between Mary and the Eucharist. "I marvel," says a pious writer, "that after all these titles, a church has not yet been raised to Mary under that of Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament."
That desire has been accomplished. In the churches of the Society of the Blessed Sacrament, the chapel of the Blessed Virgin is dedicated to Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament; and Père Eymard, before his death, left this devotion to his children as the legacy of his love, recommending them to practice it fervently among themselves, and to spread it by all the means afforded by Christian piety.
Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament, such is the title that this venerable religious "raised up by God," as, says the Bishop of Tarbes, "to develop among us by his word, his writings, and his Congregation, the sublime devotion toward the Blessed Sacrament," has chosen in order to sum up all the relations that bind Mary to the Eucharist.
This title differs from those that we have enumerated only in this, that it is more expressive, and comprises them all. It is, also, the most glorious to Mary. The titles, Our Lady of Communion, Our Lady of the Tabernacle, Our Lady of the Viaticum, honor only one act of Mary's Eucharistic life, recall but one of her relations to the Blessed Sacrament. But Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament embraces them all, comprises the whole adoring life of the Blessed Virgin.
Still more, the title penetrates the mystery itself of the Eucharist, and, when well understood, manifests to us the most important part granted to Mary in the economy of the Holy Eucharist.
If we have thoroughly seized Père Eymard's thought contained in the title, Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament, we understand that she is, first, the Mother of Jesus, giving to the Word her most pure blood, which was changed on the day of the Incarnation into His own Body, into His own Blood, in order to consecrate it later, on the night of the Last Supper, into His Sacrament of Love.
Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament is, in the second place, Mary receiving in quality of universal dispensatrix of grace, the full and absolute disposition of the Eucharist and the graces that It contains, because this Sacrament is the most efficacious means of salvation, the fruit par excellence of the Redemption of Jesus Christ. To her, consequently, it belongs to make Jesus in the Sacrament known and loved; to her it belongs to spread the Eucharist throughout the world, to multiply churches, to raise them in infidel lands, and to defend faith in the Eucharist against heretics and the impious; to her it belongs to prepare souls for Communion, to rouse them to make frequent visits to Jesus, and to assist zealously at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. She is the treasure-house of all the graces comprised in the Eucharist, both those that prepare the soul for It and those that flow from It.
In both cases, it is Mary who gives the Eucharist to the world. In the first place, she is intrinsically united to the very essence of the mystery, inasmuch as she herself furnished the matter, the subject for it, namely, her Son; in the second, she applies the Eucharist to each one of us, she distributes It. She is the means of Its exterior life, of Its expansion, the instrument of the good that It effects in souls.
Again, and above all, Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament is Mary living for over twenty years after the Ascension of Our Lord, at the foot of the altar, passing her life in the Cenacle, nourished by the Eucharist, adoring her Son veiled under the Sacred Species, assisting at the Holy Sacrifice; in a word, Mary fulfilling toward the Most Holy Sacrament all the duties of an humble child of the Church, and making it her glory to serve Him of whom she is the Divine Mother.
Behold here my model, my perfect, my lovely model in my duties as a Christian toward the Holy Eucharist! I do what my Mother did. She inspires me with her gaze, she inspires my good dispositions. My aim in the service of the Sacrament of Love shall be to do as Mary did, to act according to her intentions, to clothe myself with her virtues, above all, her faith, her love, her recollection, and her life of Communion with Jesus in the Host. Then my duties will be better performed, they will better please Our Lord, they will give more glory to my Master, and they will be sweeter to myself.
Eucharistic Life, practiced in union with Mary under the eyes and the protection of Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament, how beautiful art thou! how good for the soul, how glorious to God! Thou dost give me Jesus living, Jesus loving, Jesus and His Heart, Jesus veiled for love of me. Thou dost introduce me to the friendship, the conversation, the familiar and intimate life with Jesus in the Sacrament. And at the same time, to fill up the measure of my happiness, thou dost unite me with Mary, the Mother of Jesus and my own Mother, Mary, the perfect adorer, the necessary channel of all holiness, the lovable, the maternal, the easily imitated model of all virtues!
What a horizon stretches out before me! Jesus attracting to the Sacrament, into that tiny Host, the entire Trinity, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, whom legions of innumerable angels surround in the most profound adoration; Jesus there uniting tor me His Divinity and His Humanity, the mysteries of His eternal and those of His temporal life, His divine attributes and His virtues, concentrating in this ocean of His Eucharistic Heart all the streams of His grace, all the merits of His action, of His prayers, and of His sufferings! And at the same time, that the Host may be truly a heaven on earth, I behold Mary taking her part in the economy of the mystery. Yes, Mary, the source of this Sacrament, from whom flows the Blood that we drink therein, the Flesh that we eat therein, and on that account, Mary the Mistress, the Sovereign, the Mother still of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Yes, Mary commissioned to give the Eucharist to the world, and to bring back the world to the Eucharist, to captivate the world by the Eucharist in order to regenerate it, to save it, and secure its happiness!
Behold all that is comprised in this beautiful title, which, when we understand it, we can repeat only in accents of gratitude and love: Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament, Mother and Model of Adorers, Pray for Us Who Have Recourse to Thee!
- from Month of Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament, by Saint Pierre-Julien Eymard