Reflections
The Eucharist for me
Sister Mary Bede Luetkemeyer
Professed 1952
Since being confined to Our Lady of Rickenbach, the Eucharist has become central for me in a way that it was never before.
At first, I felt too weak and sick to even attend the daily offering of Mass and didn‘t have the strength to argue with myself. Gradually, I was able to go in the afternoons to the chapel when the Blessed Sacrament was exposed. I found that however uncomfortable and weak, discouraged and desperate I felt there was always a stream of comfort and strength flowing to me from the unseen presence. I was constantly being offered the words, “Trust me, I will take care of you.”
Little by little, I began to experience that I was just one of the millions who were building up the body of Christ through suffering and that my offering was small in comparison, however, I along with them was being integrated into the deeper participation in Christ‘s Paschal Mystery.
This same experience began to follow me through the offering of Mass, although sometimes I was not sure whether I could persevere to the end. Yet after the long minutes of perseverance by holding on to the crucifix of my rosary, we came to the offering of the bread and wine and then the consecrating of it along with all our sicknesses and weaknesses. It became a whole burnt offering to the Father along with the perfect sacrifice of Jesus.
The Eucharist has grown to a depth of meaning I had never experienced before. I met there the whole body of Christ at each Eucharistic sacrifice, and together with the whole body was plunged into the great and irresistible offering of Christ.
The Eucharist has always been a real event, the Paschal Mystery, for me but the past months have made it also an event where the mystical body meets in joyful surrender and offering.
Eucharist Reflection
Sr. Margaret Mary Bielinski
Who I wonder is thinking of me at this moment in the whole wide world? Perhaps not a single person. But why should I worry about that. Is not Jesus there in the Tabernacle or the Monstrance? That is enough for me.
Before I entered I worked in a factory for the evening shift from 3 to 11PM. On my way I would stop at a church and speak to Jesus before the statue of the Sacred Heart. That meant a lot to me. In a weekend retreat I made they showed a movie of the Shroud of Jesus, giving a close description of his height and other details which affected me as he became more real. Very soon after that I decided to go to the monastery. I went to the parish priest and asked, “Which one shall I go to, The Sisters of the Perpetual Rosary or the Sisters of Perpetual Adoration?” Without a pause he said to go to The Sisters of Perpetual Adoration. I applied in 1944 and here I am in 2010 adoring and loving our dear Lord Jesus. He has taken very good care of me in all my ups and downs. He stretches out His loving arms to me and always reminds me of the love in his Sacred Heart. He fills me with new strength and courage. He hears every prayer and suffers with me. I know I can tell Him anything. I don’t think of this great love enough. He has an open invitation to “come and I will give you rest.” I can visit Him every day. My first thought in the morning is to thank Him for bringing me into this world and calling me to be His own. At adoration I unite with His adoration of the Father. The chief thing we need to know is that he teaches us to pray. We participate in His prayer life. He united us to His Father when He said “Our Father.” We should pray a great deal and then work enough for the power and blessing obtained in prayer to find its ways through us to the people of God throughout the world. The Good News is that Jesus is there in the monstrance at my service. What great benefit I derive from such a remembrance. He looks upon me with heavenly goodness and gentleness. He stretches out His loving arms to me. He points to His heart and says I love you.
If you wonder what to say to Jesus when you visit Him, just tell Him quite simply and confidingly that you love Him and that you really appreciate the greatness and the benefits He gives you and thank Him and tell Him that you would like to give Him the whole universe itself in return. Tell Him that you give Him everything that you love, desire and fear and all that you do, your disappointments and joys and desires and always thank Him.
For 65 years I have enjoyed this Presence and fellowship with Jesus. Prayer is not work or a burden, but a joy and a triumph. It becomes a necessity and almost second nature.
O Lord, teach me to pray. O, my Jesus, with my whole heart I praise You for this wondrous life of perpetual adoration. Keep me walking in the Presence of your glory so that prayer may be the spontaneous expression of my life with You. Most of all, thank you for letting me share your life of intercession. Your blessings flow through me to the world. Let your Presence make my life one of unceasing intercession to glorify Our Father in heaven. Amen.
How the Eucharist has Impacted My Life
Sister Pascaline Coff
Professed in 1951
I was named after my mom and dad’s mothers, so I was Margaret Mary from the beginning. Since the Sacred Heart appeared to St. Margaret Mary in her Visitation Convent, stories were stored up to share with me whenever possible. At a very tender age my mother took me in arms to the nearby Visitation Convent and dedicated me to the Sacred Heart. I truly emerged with a great love for Christ in His sacrament of love and life. After first holy Communion, young girls in our parish were invited to lead our Holy Thursday and Corpus Christi processions dressed in our Communion attire strewing rose petals before our Eucharistic Lord. Jesus was really and truly present in our tabernacle, so I frequently stopped in to visit with Him at random times.
In seventh grade, I chose to attend daily Mass as a Lenten penance. By the time Lent was almost over, it dawned on me that this was no penance but the joy of my heart, so I continued daily until I entered the monastery. In my senior year of high school, some of us arranged with the nuns to have a closed retreat, meaning we would stay overnight for three or four days and ask one of the Redemptorist fathers to give us two talks each day. The make-shift chapel was a dining room with a buffet to support the monstrance and a prie dieu placed before it.
During my turn for adoration with Jesus in the Eucharist, I was deeply moved and wanted to remain forever. It was then that I promised the Lord I would seek a religious community that had special devotion to Him in the Eucharist and stay forever if He would help me. My dad asked me to wait five years so I could see the world before entering a community. Whatever else I was doing I frequently visited the Lord in a parish church, especially on Sunday afternoons, saddened because usually no one else was visiting Him.
After four years of college followed by a year of work, I reminded my dad and he said he had hoped I would have forgotten, but since I kept my promise he would take me anywhere I wanted to go to pursue my heart’s desire. Within a year, the date was agreed upon with the Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration. On the first Friday of June, dedicated to the Sacred Heart, my dad drove my mother and me to Clyde, Mo., for my entrance into monastic, Eucharistic community life.
It was 1949. There were six postulants, and we truly vied with each other to see who could finagle a time for night adoration. There were problems with praying from a designated spiritual book and praying our required rosary during our adoration hour, but the joy of being with our Eucharistic Lord was primary. When my family visited repositories on Holy Thursday evening, I always cringed at hearing a group praying the rosary aloud before the Blessed Sacrament on such a sacred night. Jesus was always “up there” or “in there” until I came upon Bernard Cook’s book on the Eucharist wherein he explained that Jesus was in the tabernacle as Bread and Food for those who might be dying and need His sacramental presence, but He was there as food during the Mass, the Eucharistic celebration in order to be evermore present in our hearts. From then on I could close my eyes and visit with Him primarily in my heart and yet really and truly present in the tabernacle or monstrance. Liturgy and lectio fed in and out of adoration for me. Studying theology with the treatise by St. Thomas on the Eucharist further deepened my devotion and understanding of what we called adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.
I grieved when we ceased to maintain exposition and therefore Holy Adoration during the night hours in each of our monasteries. I grieved over the strong disagreements regarding the adoration Board and assigned times. I grieved when we realized we must amalgamate some of our monasteries, works and efforts because of ageing and fewer adorers to staff what had been.
I cherished adoration in our monastic ashram in the forest in Oklahoma. We were first to make use of the new status from Vatican II that suggested communal adoration periods, and while this was somewhat satisfying it never took the place of the individual visits we had in the novitiate. I rejoiced at the zeal and joy of the laity who participated with us.
I sincerely believe we are here in this life to enable the Divine to manifest through us. For me that manifestation is in the form of Eucharist, Bread for others, Life for others. So my hours of adoration this half of my life are mindfulness efforts, reminders to enable Him to manifest howsoever He wishes in me, to me, through me, wherever, however. My promise to Him remains non-negotiable!
Personal Reflections on the Holy Eucharist
Sister Mary Priscilla Trost
Professed 1943
The Eucharist is Jesus’s presence incarnate, His promise, to be with us always.
This promise becomes food for my body and soul. “He or she who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him/her, and I will raise him/her up on the last day.”
I long to prolong this divine presence incarnate, so Mother Church has given us a way by exposition of His sacramental presence. Kneeling before this Sacramental presence, I am aware of the divine gaze pouring His love into my heart, and I am drawn to gaze back with all the love of my heart.
This exchange can be repeated over and over again, not always with the eyes but with every beat of my heart! So when I leave Jesus’s sacramental presence, I still see or gaze at Him in any person and in incidents of the day.
Eucharist in My Life
Sister Ramona Varela
Professed in 1963
As I reflect on my devotion to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, I recall how as a child I was drawn to make frequent visits to our church. Since my family only lived about three blocks away I could easily – literally – run there any time I wanted. I knew Jesus was present in the tabernacle and can still recall the joy I felt running there. Once in church, after I said short prayers like, my Lord and my God, over and over, I didn’t know what to do with the silence. As a result, I would get bored or tired and then leave. It was many decades later that I learned it was myself I was bored with as I did all the talking. Many years later, I learned how to just sit and listen or sit and just be. I could stay put much longer.
It still remains a joy to visit our Risen Lord present in the Blessed Sacrament. The way I pray varies on what is going on in my life. I pretty much still talk a lot in His Presence, but I also take time to listen to what He has to say. I like to imagine that He is sitting or standing right in front of me.
After Vatican II with the study of the Celebration of the Eucharist, my understanding expanded. To discover that Eucharist is meant to be a way of life was and is both enriching and challenging. In trying to discover the riches of the Eucharistic Celebration and the Lord’s presence in the assembly, the word and the presider, somehow expressing my devotion through adoration was no longer in the forefront. It was many years later that I realized it was possible to have the best of both – an enriched understanding of the presence of Christ and a personal relationship which was expressed in adoration of the Lord present in the consecrated bread.
Personal experiences the Lord has given me throughout my life, which showed his love and mercy, have also helped keep my devotion alive. One experience was when I was helping Sister Euphasia with the Spanish sentinels. Once a month we would have a Spanish Mass in our chapel with mariachi music. Many attended this Mass which was followed with a meeting and refreshments or potluck meal.
One time the priest did not show up, and I was asked to conduct a communion service. I said I could, but we did not have enough consecrated bread in the tabernacle for all the people. I was told that not many would receive, so that the few (about six to eight hosts) would be all I needed if I broke them in half. So the service started and when it was time to give out communion – expecting only a few to come up to receive – there was a long line of people who came up two by two.
At that point I remember feeling very upset and complaining internally about being put in this position. All the people in the church must have come up to receive while I continued to complain in my heart about it. At the end, to my surprise, I had given communion to everyone and there was still half of a piece left of the consecrated bread to be put back into the tabernacle. God answered the desire of the people to receive Him into their hearts. As you can imagine, I was quite repentant at my lack of faith and complaining heart during such a holy time.
Another experience was during Christmas when going up to receive holy Communion, the realization came to me that everyday I am able to truly receive the Prince of Peace, Wonderful Counselor, Lord and Savior. My heart was overwhelmed with such joy and no words can express adequately the reality of Christ present in the Eucharist. I long for the day that the veil will finally be taken away from our eyes, and we will be able to see God face to face.
