I Thirst for Your Love

The time for mincing words is over. The most significant crisis in the Catholic Church today, from which all the other problems we are experiencing flow, is the fact that an overwhelming majority of those identifying themselves as Catholic, no longer believe that our Lord Jesus Christ is really, truly and substantially present Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Blessed Sacrament The sad but truthful reality is that in far too many of our Catholic parishes we have lost the sense of the sacred and an appreciation for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass that are both essential for fostering and maintaining a belief in the Real Presence. Instead of cursing this darkness, ignorance and disbelief, it's time to do something affirmative to console Our Lord and to help rediscover a sense of the "sacred" and of "awe and amazement" in this gift of the Eucharist, as Saint John Paul II and Benedict XVI had so frequently urged us to do. We do not need any more study groups or committees or commissions in our Church. All lukewarmness toward or outright opposition to the promotion of Eucharistic adoration and spirituality must cease. We need Bishops, priests, religious and laypeople to frequently get on their knees before their Eucharistic Lord. It is He, not any of us, Who will gift us with a deep, abiding, life-changing, sanctifying belief in His Real Human and Divine Presence here among us. Everything else we need or think we need individually or as Church will flow from Him. Ponder this Truth: Our God does not need any of us, not even for a millisecond. Yet, as Jesus hung from the cross more than 2000 years ago, He let us know He was thirsty - not a physical thirst - but an unquenchable spiritual thirst as our Lord, Savior and Redeemer to be loved by those He created and for whose eternal benefit He died. In the ensuing centuries, not enough of us have made sufficient effort to quench His thirst. For the most part, many of us ignore His plea to love Him as He loves us. He still thirsts for our love. He is still waiting for us to love Him Has He not waited long enough? Why have so many of us been unwilling to quench His thirst? There is only one credible and honest answer to that question - one that should make each of us uncomfortable but spur us to action. If we really believed Jesus Christ was truly here with us, we would come visit Him. Nothing would prevent us from doing so. We would not permit anyone or anything to take precedence over Him. But we do not come as we ought because not enough of us believe He is here We are the only ones who can quench His thirst. All we have to do is come into His Presence and tell Him we love Him That's it But most of us don't and won't. He remains not only thirsty but heartbroken Shame on us for denying Him what He deserves, what He has asked of us and that which would be so very easy to give Him To have such a great gift, to have a God so easily accessible and not to reverence and appreciate that Gift, is the greatest of all human failings. It is the author's hope that after reading this book you come to Love Him Reverence Him Visit Him Quench His thirst