Visits to the Most Holy Sacrament and to the Blessed Virgin MaryVisit 21

To the Blessed Sacrament.
My Lord Jesus Christ, etc., page 123.

Wheresoever the body shall be, thither will the eagles also be gathered together." The saints generally understand by this body that of Jesus Christ; and by the eagles, souls who, being detached from creatures, rise above the things of the earth, and fly towards heaven, after which they always sigh in thought and affection, and where they constantly dwell. These eagles also find their paradise on earth wherever they find Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament; so much so, indeed, that they seem never to tire hovering around him. If eagles, says St. Jerome,’ on scenting a dead body go from afar to seek it, how much more should we run and fly to Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament, as to the most delicious food of our hearts! Hence saints in this valley of tears have always as parched harts run to this fountain of paradise. Father Balthasar Alvarez, of the Society of Jesus, in whatever occupation he was engaged, used often to cast his eyes towards the place in which he knew that the Blessed Sacrament was; he often visited it, and even spent entire nights before it. He used to weep when he saw the palaces of the great ones of this world filled with people, who courted a man from whom they hoped for some miserable earthly good, and the churches so abandoned, in which the supreme sovereign of the world dwells, and remains with us as on a throne of love, rich in immense and eternal treasures. He used also to say, that religious persons were indeed fortunate, because in the very houses in which they reside, they can, whenever they please, either night or day, visit this great Lord in the Most Blessed Sacrament; and this lay people cannot do,

Since, then, my most loving Lord, notwithstanding that Thou seest me as a leper, and so ungrateful to Thy love, Thou invitest me to approach Thee, I will not be discouraged at the sight of my miseries: I come and approach Thee; but do Thou wholly change me. Drive from me every love which is not for Thee, every desire which displeases Thee, every thought which does not tend toward Thee. My Jesus, my love, my treasure, my all, I am determined to please Thee alone. I will give pleasure only to Thee. Thou alone deservest all my love; Thee only will I love with my whole heart. Detach me from everything, my Lord, and bind me to Thyself alone; but bind me so firmly, that I may never more be able to separate myself from Thee, either in this life or in the next.

Ejaculatory prayer. My most sweet Jesus, never allow me to be separated from Thee!’

Spiritual Communion, page 124.
Visit to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Denis, the Carthusian, calls the Most Blessed Virgin “the advocate of all the wicked who have recourse to her.” *

Since, then,O great Mother of God, thy office is to defend the causes of the most guilty criminals who have recourse to thee, behold me now at thy feet; to thee I have recourse, and I address thee in the words of St. Thomas of Villanova: “O gracious advocate, fulfil thy charge.” * Now quickly enter upon thy office, undertake my cause: it is true that I have indeed been guilty before my Lord, having offended him, after the many benefits and graces he has conferred upon me; but the evil is done; thou canst save me. Thou hast only to tell thy God that thou defendest me, and then I shall be forgiven, and shall be saved.

Ejaculatory prayer. My dear Mother, thou hast to save me!
[From the Naples Edition.]}
Prayer of William Bishop of Paris.

I address my petitions to thee, O Mother of God! whom the whole Church styles the Mother of mercy. Canst thou, whose prayers are always acceptable to God, refuse thy intercession in behalf of sinners? Justly does St. Bernard say, that we may cease to call thee the Mother of Mercy, if any one ever invokes thee in the hour of need, without experiencing thy assistance. Thou wilt not, therefore, exclude me from a share in thy compassion. Thou wilt intercede for me with more earnestness than I can for myself; and thou wilt procure more abundant graces than I could presume to ask. O Mother of mercy! can that clemency, which never abandoned any one, refuse me its assistance in the danger to which I am exposed of being eternally lost? *

Ejaculatory prayer. O Mary! I am thine: save me.?
The usual prayer, page 125.