Novena Day 8 - Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross

PRAYER:  Dearest Blessed Mother, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, it is to you that we raise our hearts and minds to beg you to make us truly Eucharistic souls. Help us to acquire a sufficient knowledge of the dogma of the Mass. Help us to have a faith, a confidence, a veneration and a love proportionate to the sanctity of this Adorable Sacrifice. Help us to assist at the Mass with respectful attention and tender piety. Help us to offer this Sacrifice with the Priest, according to the four ends for which it has been instituted – Adoration, Thanksgiving, Expiation and Propitiation. Help us O Mother of the Blessed Sacrament to have your love and zeal for the Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist.
 
MEDITATION: Let us recall what the Church teaches us about this adorable Mystery. It is the great Sacrifice of the New Law, of which the sacrifices of the ancient alliance were but gross and imperfect figures. They, with all the blood of their victims, could not efface the least stain of sin, while one single drop of the Precious Blood of the Lamb without spot, immolated upon Calvary, suffices to wash away, and superabundantly, all the sins of the world. Now, the Sacrifice of the Altar is a continuation and a renewal of the Sacrifice of the Cross, of which the fruits and the merits are and will be applied until the end of the world, to all souls who form a part of the Church; in such a manner, however, that these souls participate in these fruits, and these merits, in proportion to their dispositions, their preparation and their union with the Lamb immolated.

Seeing near the Cross our Queen and our Mother participating so intimately, so generously in the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ, immolating herself completely with Him for the glory of God and the salvation of souls, should we as Carmelites not strive as far as possible to enter into her admirable disposition? The true solitary of Carmel, worthy child of Mary, will then bring to the Sacrifice a spirit of zeal for the interests of God and his neighbor, a spirit of immolation of his entire self, and of union, absolute and without reserve, with the great Victim Who is being offered.

To this general disposition, he will add the intentions which refer to the four ends of the Sacrifice, intentions concerning which he should be perfectly instructed. In effect, the Eucharistic Sacrifice is offered first, to glorify God and in recognition of His sovereign dominion over all creatures; secondly, in thanksgiving for all the benefits which His divine munificence ceases not to pour upon us in the temporal and spiritual order; thirdly, to offer to His justice a Victim sufficient and even more than sufficient for our sins; fourthly, to obtain from His bounty in virtue of the merits of His Son, all the graces necessary for our salvation,  and in general for all the helps we need. A soul enlightened by faith, which discovers to him the value of the Blood of the Divine Lamb and the superabundant merits of His Sacrifice, clothed with them, presents himself with unbounded confidence before the Throne of God, knowing that he can offer worthy homage to His Infinite Greatness, thanksgiving proportionate to His benefits, and that he will be heard, whether he beg for new favors or for the pardon of sin. For the voice of His Blood, more powerful than the voice of our sins and miseries, will rise and ascend even to the Heart of God, to call down His benefits and His pardon.

As the Communion is the completion of the Holy Sacrifice, since it applies to the soul all the merits of the Life and Death of Jesus Christ, all the fruits of His Divine Passion; when we have not the happiness of communicating sacramentally, we should not fail to make a Spiritual Communion. At the moment that the Priest consumes the Sacred Host, we can form the most ardent desires of communicating with him, and opening the door of our heart, to beg Jesus to enter and dwell there, not only for a few moments, but during the whole day and the night which is to follow, to be the interior guide of all our steps and the motive of all our thoughts, words, actions and affections.
​
Holy Mother Mary, please pray for us to love Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament with the same fervor and zeal that you had while on earth. Give us a love for the Eucharist and help us to be true sons and daughters of Mary by loving Jesus truly present in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.