Imagine if the next time you went to receive Holy Communion, instead of hearing the priest say, “The Body of Christ,” you heard a female voice say, “Take my Dearest Treasure.” You open your eyes and behold, the Blessed Virgin Mary is standing before you with the baby Jesus in her arms! With a radiant look of love on her face, she says to you once again: “Take my Dearest Treasure,” and places her Son gently in your arms and then disappears.
This imaginary experience actually happened in the life of St. Faustina one day during Mass. She writes: “[W]hen Mass began, a strange silence and joy filled my heart. Just then, I saw Our Lady with the Infant Jesus… The most holy Mother said to me, ‘Take my Dearest Treasure,’ and she handed me the Infant Jesus. When I took the Infant Jesus in my arms, the Mother of God and Saint Joseph disappeared. I was left alone with the Infant Jesus” (608).
When I read this in St. Faustina’s Diary, I had another experience of God telling me: “Awake from being hypnotized, Fr. Richard!” Yes, how easily I can be hypnotized into behaving like a consumer at Mass. How easily I can go to Holy Communion with the expectation or hope that Jesus might give me some feelings of consolation. And how easily I can be disappointed if I don’t “feel” anything. And tragically, without consolation from God, how easily I can turn into a black hole, and try to fill that God-sized hole in my heart with the things of this world, and end up even more frustrated and disappointed.
How about you? How do you approach Holy Communion? Do you approach the reception of the Eucharist like a consumer? Or like a consoler?
Regardless of our answer to this question today, we can all grow as consolers.
To inspire us to start approaching Holy Communion more as consolers, here is what Jesus revealed to St. Faustina about the pain He experiences when people receive Him in Holy Communion like consumers rather than consolers:
“Oh, how painful it is to Me that souls so seldom unite themselves to Me in Holy Communion. I wait for souls, and they are indifferent toward Me. I love them tenderly and sincerely, and they distrust Me. I want to lavish My graces on them, and they do not want to accept them. They treat Me as a dead object, whereas My Heart is full of love and mercy. In order that you may know at least some of My pain, imagine the most tender of mothers who have great love for her children, while those children spurn her love. Consider her pain. No one is in a position to console her. This is but a feeble image and likeness of My love” (1447).
To build upon these powerful words of our Lord, imagine for a moment the Blessed Virgin Mary’s love for her children – for you and for me. The mystics reveal that if you added up all the love that every mother in the world has for their children, it wouldn’t even come close to Mary’s love for each one of us. Wow! Now, imagine Mary, with a radiant look of that kind of love on her face, say to you: “Take my Dearest Treasure,” and you say, “No!” and you “spurn her love.” “Consider her pain,” Jesus says to St. Faustina, “no one is in a position to console her.” The sword of sorrow would truly pierce her soul again (see Luke 2:35). And yet, this sword of sorrow for Mary “is but a feeble image and likeness of [Jesus] love.”
Wow! Out of all the revelations that our Lord has given to Saints, this is the most powerful one that continually wakes me up from being hypnotized into behaving like a consumer at Holy Communion.
In a very real way, every time we come to receive Holy Communion, Mary is saying to us, “Take my Dearest Treasure.” Whereas many might say “Amen” as consumers and try to use this Treasure for their own benefit, we are being invited today to receive Mary’s “Dearest Treasure” as consolers, and take care of Jesus with our tender love and devotion.
When Jesus comes to us as a little baby, totally vulnerable, in need, dependent, it becomes clear to us that we shouldn’t ask Him for anything but rather give Him whatever we can.
St. Faustina said: “It is only in eternity that we shall know the great mystery effected in us by Holy Communion. O most precious moments of my life!” (840)
Yes, the time we spend with Jesus after receiving Holy Communion is the most precious moment we have in our lives. Until the veil is removed in eternity as we see the great mystery effected in us by Holy Communion, we are called to choose today to live in faith and really believe that Mary is saying to us every time we receive Holy Communion: “Take my Dearest Treasure.”
The invitation to spend at least 15 minutes in thanksgiving after your next reception of Holy Communion, meditating upon today’s reflection. Try to really envision Mary saying to you, “Take my Dearest Treasure.”
The challenge is to try to imagine Mary saying to you as often as possible: “Take my Dearest Treasure.” This can be a beautiful expression of a spiritual communion prayer throughout the day.
St. Faustina, pray for us!
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