16th Day - Mary, Our Mother in the Cenacle

I. It is to our best interest to honor with an entirely special devotion the life of Mary in the Cenacle, altogether given up to the service and glory of the adorable Eucharist. We must try to catch something of her spirit and her love, in order to render to our Divine Saviour present among us, a worship of adoration more agreeable and more perfect in union with that which His most holy Mother offered Him. To become good servants of the Eucharist, we must be docile and devout children of Mary. It was not an empty claim that Jesus from the Gross gave us over the heart of His Mother. By that testament of love, we take His place in Mary's heart. That good Mother loves us henceforth as her true children.

Let us, then, breathe in Mary's spirit. It is the same as that of Jesus. She inhaled it from its divine Source. She is full of His grace, in order to communicate it to us. She is the only true and perfect copy of His virtues. She labored for three and thirty years, the Divine Original before her eyes. She possesses all the secrets of the Saviour's love for men. She shares His unbounded love for us. like Mary, let us tenderly love, let us love devoutedly! She loves us as Jesus loves us. She loves us as only a Mother so good and so powerful can love.

II. Her great mission is to form Jesus in us. It is the mission that He gave her on Calvary.

Mary wished at that moment to die with Jesus at the foot of the Cross. But when the flame of the love of her virginal heart encircled His Divine Person, Our Lord seemed to say, when giving to her Saint John: "By My sacrifice I become the Saviour and the Father of the great human family; but these poor children still so young, must have a mother. O strong Woman, be thou their Mother! Love them as thou has loved Me, as I have loved them. It was through love for them that I became man, and that My Heavenly Father made thee My Mother. It is for them that I am giving My Blood and My life. I love them more than Myself, and I transfer to them all the claims that I have to thy maternal love. Whatever thou wilt do for them, will be done for Me. I remit into thy hands the fruit of My Redemption, the salvation of mankind, the care of My Church, the service of My Sacrament of Love. Form for Me true adorers in spirit and in truth, that they may adore Me as thou hast adored Me, that they may serve Me as thou hast served Me, that they may love Me as thou hast loved Me!"

This was Jesus last legacy, signed with His Blood, and ratified by the heart of Mary, His divine Mother.

She ascended Calvary with Jesus to die with Him. She came down from it with the disciple, her son of adoption, with the holy women, her daughters, and went to the Eucharistic Cenacle, there to begin her Christian maternity at the foot of the Divine Sacrament.

It is she who will form for Jesus in the Eucharist His court of honor, it is she who will train for Him His servants.

O do not doubt it! If you have entered into the Cenacle, if you have the happiness of knowing, loving, and serving the Most Holy Sacrament, it is to Mary that you owe it. It is she who demanded you of the Heavenly Father as a guard of love for the Eucharistic King. It is she who preserved you pure in the midst of the world, who led you by the hand to the foot of the Eucharistic throne.

O thank this good Mother! You owe to her all the graces of your life, and the greatest of all, that of loving and serving, by consecrating your entire life to Him, the King of kings on His throne of love.

Practice. Render to Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament the respect, the duty, and the love of a true child.

Aspiration. It is thou, O Mary most amiable, who dost nourish thy children with the Bread of immortality.

- from Month of Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament, by Saint Pierre-Julien Eymard