Missionaries of the Blessed Sacrament

This continues a series of ideas to use in your parish or area. They are based on St. John Paul II’s encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia, (On the Eucharist and Its Relationship to the Church).

Week 37  “Mary brought a pound of costly perfume made of genuine aromatic nard, with which she anointed Jesus’ feet” (Jn 12:3).“Like the woman who anointed Jesus in Bethany, the Church has feared no ‘extravagance’, devoting the best of her resources to expressing her wonder and adoration before the unsurpassable gift of the Eucharist” (48). Ask your pastor to preach about the Holy Eucharist at Sunday Mass throughout this month.

Week 38  “Feed My Sheep” (Jn 21:17).“It is in the Eucharist that prayer for vocations is most closely united to the prayer of Christ the Eternal High Priest” (31).  Invite those who recently made their Confirmation to sign up for and attend weekly Adoration, with a friend or individually, that they may hear and respond to God’s call to feed His sheep.

Week 39 “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof” (Mt 8:8; Lk 7:6).  “The Eucharistic Banquet is truly a ‘sacred’ banquet, in which the simplicity of the signs conceals the unfathomable holiness of God” (48). Offer a Mass in honor and thanksgiving to the Body and Blood of Jesus in the Eucharist.

Week 40 “This cup is the new covenant in My blood” (1 Cor 11:25). “No one is permitted to undervalue the mystery entrusted to our hands: it is too great for anyone to feel free to treat it lightly and with disregard for its sacredness and its universality” (52). As the Church prepares to celebrate World Youth Day, invite youth to offer special Holy Hours, with music, prayers and reflections for the success of this awesome event.

Week 41 “Father . . . I pray that they may be [one] in us, that the world may believe that You sent Me” (Jn 17:21). “A hope, and even a pledge, of the desired fullness of communion in faith and in celebration . . . [demands] a profoundly Eucharistic Church” (50). Offer a Mass and a Holy Hour for unity between all Christians of the East and West.

Week 42  “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ instruction and the communal life, to the breaking of the bread and the prayers” (Acts 2:42).“The Eucharist offers sustenance not only to individuals but to entire peoples” (51). Include a Mass intention that all people know and love Jesus in the Holy Eucharist.

Week 43 “At that moment Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said: ‘I offer You praise, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth’” (Lk 10:21). “The Eucharist, while shaping the Church and her spirituality, has also powerfully affected ‘culture’” (49). Sing a Eucharistic song of praise and worship at Mass.

Week 44 “All of these with one accord devoted themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus” (Acts 1:14). “Mary is a ‘woman of the Eucharist’ in her whole life” (53). This month, offer a Rosary before all of the weekend Masses so that the hearts of young people at World Youth Day will be inspired to be Eucharistic disciples.

 Week 45 “Come, Lord Jesus!” (Rev 22:20). “Gazing upon Mary, we come to know the transforming power present in the Eucharist. In her we see the world renewed in love. Contemplating her, assumed body and soul into heaven, we see opening up before us those ‘new heavens’ and that ‘new earth’ which will appear at the second coming of Christ” (62). Crown a statue of Our Lady in your parish and ask her intercession for faith in and adoration of her Son in the Holy Eucharist.

 Week 46 “Do whatever he tells you” (Jn 2:5). “Mary seems to say to us: ‘Do not waver; trust in the words of my Son. If he was able to change water into wine, he can also turn bread and wine into his body and blood” (54). Pray for faith in the Eucharistic Jesus in daily Mass intentions. 

Week 47  “Blessed is she who believed” (Lk 1:45).  “[Mary] bore in her womb the Word made flesh, she became in some way a ‘tabernacle’ – the first ‘tabernacle’ in history – in which the Son of God, still invisible to our human gaze, allowed himself to be adored” (55). Pray for the great grace to start Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration in your parish and community during this year.