Wonderfully, our theme today is the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist — the Most Blessed Sacrament of our souls, the purest and richest truth on earth, flowing from the mystery of the Holy Mass, which is Heaven on earth; the most precious good that Jesus left us, together with His Mother, for it is He Himself.
And we shall reflect together on dependence!
There are, of course, more dependences than the ones we will treat here, but so as not to make the theme far too long — you probably already have an idea — we will speak briefly of four kinds of dependence. Curious? Then read on, my beloved! May God bless you abundantly, and may you make good use of this material that comes from the Heart of God for you. If it adds anything to you, share this blog with those you think would most need to read it.
To get us started, let us begin with a marvellous word from young John, who in his first letter gives us this wonderful counsel:
"Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the concupiscence thereof: but he that doth the will of God, abideth for ever." (1 John 2:15-17)
How interesting the way the apostle of the Heart of Jesus describes what is in the world — the CONCUPISCENCE OF THE FLESH and OF THE EYES, and the PRIDE OF LIFE. But what does this mean? The word concupiscence is the craving for sensual pleasures, the exaggerated longing for satisfactions, the desire for material goods (attachment), the libertine craving, the human urge to dominate things both natural and supernatural.
So it is the desire to possess and dominate the pleasures of the flesh and whatever the eye can see (but often cannot truly perceive). That is the pride of life — wanting to put ourselves in the place of God. And many of us, by wanting to be the administrators of the pleasures of body and soul, end up being controlled, dominated and made dependent on all these things.
The most important counsel we can give here is this: strive to be who you are, and stop trying to occupy the place of God!
The first dependence we will treat is that of cigarettes and drugs. And a question worth asking is: WHY DO PEOPLE START SMOKING OR USING DRUGS?
Many people begin to smoke because their parents, uncles, relatives or friends smoked — even when they have seen the damage tobacco caused in those very lives. Others because they want to try it and know what it is like. Smoking was once seen as rebellion, but today it has become a social factor, and many start smoking simply to fit in.
"Blessed is the man who hath not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the chair of pestilence." (Psalm 1:1)
In the case of drugs, users are moved by three great factors — to flee from suffering (or to try to forget it); from a lack of choices (through poverty and in deeply deprived places), so that they are almost forced and imprisoned in that condition; and, finally, because it is something becoming ever more popular. "Just a little something to relax!"
Of course it is pleasant to smoke; of course there is pleasure in drugs! There is a pleasure in it, just as there is pleasure in everything that is sin. If it were not pleasurable and did not cause an agreeable sensation in the body, no one would do it or keep at it. Your illusion lies in believing that it will never end and will always feel good. The taste of that honey is very sweet at the beginning, but soon its bitterness is far worse than gall. THE WORLD PASSETH AWAY WITH ITS CONCUPISCENCES...
Whatever the reason that leads us to begin, the fact is that the vast majority of people who enter this path of cigarettes and drugs keep going in that direction until they become addicted — dependent, slaves of the momentary pleasure a cigarette or a drug can provide.
In a single cigarette there are more than five thousand carcinogenic substances (among them carbon monoxide, ammonia, nitrosamines, tar and nicotine), and among the harms, one of the most common is lung cancer — which has become one of the leading PREVENTABLE causes of death since the end of the twentieth century. And this is without mentioning the other harms: reduced oxygen delivery to the tissues (premature ageing), raised blood pressure (risk of thrombosis and poor circulation), increased heart rate (risk of heart attack), risk of stroke, cancer of the mouth, pharynx, larynx and trachea, cancer of the oesophagus, stomach, kidneys, bladder and cervix, sexual impotence, and many more.
With drugs we could speak of marijuana, cocaine, crack, LSD and others, but let us focus on marijuana, because it is the most popular and most widely consumed in the world.
LSD is a very strong drug and causes alterations in perception (in sight and hearing), leading to anxiety, panic and delirium. Besides its harmful psychological effects, regular use leads to increased heart rate, blood pressure and body temperature, dry mouth, tremors, loss of appetite and insomnia.
CRACK is a less pure form of cocaine and causes greater damage than cocaine itself, because of the speed with which it reaches the lungs and the brain. The most common problems are hypertension, heart trouble, stroke and emphysema. The risk of death by overdose is extremely high, and studies say that even the first use can cause a cardiac or cerebral infarction.
COCAINE causes an intense, fleeting euphoria, followed by intense depression, tension and craving for more of the drug. The user cannot eat or sleep properly. Because of the heart rate it produces, muscle spasms and convulsions are very frequent, and its users are generally always angry, anxious, aggressive and paranoid. After the period of tolerance (the need to increase the dose to feel the same sensations), the person begins to suffer psychoses and hallucinations. Tolerance and dependence are born from the very first use.
MARIJUANA is the most famous drug in the world because of how easy it is to obtain, its price, and the amount of misinformation about its harms. A study by the British Lung Foundation revealed that marijuana can be even more harmful than tobacco itself, despite all the chemicals used in producing a cigarette.
The harm of a single joint can be compared to a whole pack of twenty cigarettes. There is five times more carbon monoxide and four times more tar in a marijuana cigarette, and because the inhalation is deeper than with tobacco, the user's intoxication is intensified. Diseases such as bronchitis, tuberculosis and lung cancer, along with damage to fertility in both men and women, are some of the harms.
How can anyone claim that this drug does no harm and is harmless to health? People say so because they were simply lucky — just like those who smoke and never develop cancer; but when something does happen, it will be fatal. Do not be foolish enough to believe that an exception becomes the rule, and that the evils of this drug will never reach you.
Perhaps we could measure this harm according to a person's level of dependence — whether they are already a slave or not yet. And we can affirm with complete certainty: SMOKING AND USING DRUGS IS NEVER GOOD! It brings no benefit to body, soul or spirit; on the contrary, it gradually destroys all three. What is the benefit of dependence on cigarettes or drugs?
In the Old Testament, wine (the main drink) was seen as a sign of joy ("Thou hast given gladness in my heart" — Psalm 4:7), and its consumption a means of celebrating the great deeds of the people of God.
At the wedding at Cana, Jesus changed water into wine and restored joy to that marriage feast with a wine better than the one already served (cf. John 2:1-11). At the institution of the Eucharist, Jesus changes wine into His blood, the true drink that gives us His divine life (cf. John 6:53).
So the problem is not wine or alcohol in itself (unless you have a specific mission, like John the Baptist, who from the womb never tasted wine or strong drink — cf. Luke 7:33), but the use and abuse made of it.
When we speak of alcoholic drinks we touch on something that has become very common in society. From the poorest community in a developing country, which has its own drinks, to the richest communities of the world that enjoy their drinks with class — with class and much money, or without class and little money, these are lives exposed to the harms of a little thing called alcohol.
The problem lies in the fact that, rich or poor, people do not know how to measure the amount they could consume before losing control and their sense of reality. Alcoholism is, today, the word used to describe a PSYCHIATRIC ILLNESS in people who drink compulsively and uncontrollably — which negatively affects their health, their relationships and their role in society.
What leads a person into alcoholism? It is something similar to what leads to drugs: the attempt to flee from reality, stress, the person's mental health, and their family, social and behavioural history. Everything in this world of darkness cooperates to make us weak, foolish and carried away by the impulses of the senses — from the people around us to the advertisements in the streets, on television, on the radio, in newspapers and magazines. Everything pushes us, consciously or unconsciously, towards becoming dependent.
Besides the disease of alcoholism, excessive consumption of alcohol leads to drunkenness, hangovers, the possible development of liver cirrhosis (a chronic and progressive process of inflammation that destroys the liver), the development of more than ten distinct types of cancer, the possibility of damage to every organ of the body (including the brain), physical dependence and increased tolerance (where the person has to drink larger doses to obtain the same effect).
As for our relationship with God, the great problem is that the Lord will never invade a person's private space. The person himself must give Him freedom and ask God to act in his life. Now, if that person lives drunk, cast aside in the corners, abandoned by society — how will he remember God?
This is why it is so important to teach people to pray, because in a situation like that — drunk — if the person remembers and calls upon God, the Lord will most certainly come to his aid, for Jesus came for the sick and not for the healthy. But how rarely does the person remember to pray or to ask for help!
In the same way we see the importance of recovery groups and of the people who work to restore lives that were lost, often unwillingly, to the addiction of alcohol, of other drugs, and of cigarettes. Many who went through this and overcame it can now help others return to sobriety with far more authority than those who never went through it, for they know the dangers, the harms and the temptations such people suffer.
And how wonderful are those who also help people return to spiritual health, for how many are out there — cast aside, abandoned, lost, destroyed, the living dead — because no one presents to them the God who can heal, restore and transform everything. And the great sadness, most of the time, is that this is me, and it is you, who live a lukewarm life with God and are not able to help even an ant with its spiritual life.
What is the benefit of dependence on alcohol?
"Fly fornication. Every sin that a man doth, is without the body; but he that committeth fornication, sinneth against his own body." (1 Corinthians 6:18)
If there is a deafening cry from society for people to enter into dependence on alcohol or drugs, there is also a cry and a longing that begins within the human being and finds support in the lie preached by society about an exaggerated need for sex.
We are not so foolish as to ignore what makes us feel pleasure and feel good; and sexuality is the most marvellous gift God gave us — it identifies us as man or woman, and God placed in it a pleasure meant to be felt, but... AT THE RIGHT TIME AND IN THE RIGHT WAY!
The fashion of our day, even in the eyes of many Christians and Catholics, is to set aside the SACRED SCRIPTURES and to prize whatever makes us feel good. It is the religion of modernity, where nothing is right or wrong anymore, nothing is sin, there is no heaven or hell, there will be no final judgement or resurrection of the dead, there is no absolute truth and there is no tomorrow... the whole game is to seize the day!
And so, to defend their need for sex, many have strayed from the truth and drowned in pleasures, smearing themselves in the illusions of this life, and can no longer get out, for they hand themselves over body and soul, thinking they will be happy, since that is the true longing of every human being.
"Amen, amen, I say unto you: that whosoever committeth sin, is the servant of sin." (John 8:34)
And what they gain is a fine set of shackles that make the person a faithful slave of sex. Without realising it, something that began innocently, tenderly, pleasantly, slowly wraps itself around the person until they become completely dependent — a person guided only by their instincts.
By handing themselves over to a life of pleasures, many can no longer turn back to God. It is important to stress that God always was, is and will be with arms wide open to everyone, long before we ever turned away from Him; and that the sin of dependence and slavery — to cigarettes, drugs, drink or sex — is no obstacle to God, but rather a barrier the person places before himself, refusing to return to God because it prevents him from feeling His love.
Were it not so, the father would not have prepared the richest banquet, the finest robe, the best sandals, nor given the best ring to the prodigal son — even knowing all that the son would do when he abandoned him — and waited anxiously for his return each day. But it was necessary for the prodigal son to come to himself and, longing for the love that only the FATHER could give him, having fallen to the point of the mire where the swine fed, to decide to return to the HOUSE OF THE FATHER!
Let us recall, very briefly, some biblical terms:
*fornication: to have sexual relations before marriage
*adultery: to have sexual relations outside marriage (for the married)
*masturbation: an impure and disordered act in search of arousal and pleasure alone (which the Church condemns, and which, when it impedes one from approaching Eucharistic communion, calls for confession)
*impure sins: sins related to sexuality, more precisely connected with the points above
See what Saint Paul recommends to the community of Ephesus, and today to us:
"But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not so much as be named among you, as becometh saints." (Ephesians 5:3)
In the case of dependence on sex — without even entering into sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancy, and consequently the hideous and horrendous sin of abortion (turning women and men into killers) — there is also a disorder called hyperactive sexual desire. The person is driven to an inexhaustible search and craving for sex and is never satisfied. There will always be a feeling of emptiness and guilt after the act. This breaks up marriages, destroys families and lives. If you are like this, or know someone who is, seek both psychological and spiritual help, for this is a most serious illness.
Like any other drug, the loss of control over one's sexual life is a mortal sin, for it wounds the dignity of the human person, turning him into a thing, an object, robbing him of self-control, balance, self-respect and the life of God.
Sex was made by God with the first purpose of procreation and the second of pleasure between spouses who have made a commitment before God and the community. The pleasure of the conjugal act is heightened and raised to its fullness when it is lived within the blessing of Christ and His life-giving, glorious presence.
What is the benefit of dependence on sex?
The meaning of the word sin is to miss the mark! That is, we sin because we miss the target we were aiming at. In our deepest selves, what we want is to be happy, to be loved and to feel fulfilled. Yet in handing ourselves over to drugs, cigarettes, drink and sex, far from being happy, loved and fulfilled, we end up revealing ourselves as defeated, weak, powerless, addicted and broken.
There is only one kind of dependence that is not harmful to the health of body, soul or spirit. It is the one we want to present to you in this post with all boldness, ardour and certainty: it is EUCHARISTIC DEPENDENCE! On the contrary, in it there are all the benefits of the whole world and of eternity.
What is Eucharistic dependence? A woman born in France in 1902, named Marthe Robin, developed an illness called encephalitis. At the age of twenty-six she understood her vocation and her Eucharistic dependence, and lived for fifty-three more years nourished solely by the EUCHARIST (the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ truly present under the consecrated species of bread and wine).
When she was asked whether she ate anything else, see what she answered:
"I no longer nourish myself with anything else. If they moisten my mouth, I cannot swallow. The host passes, and I do not know how. It produces an effect impossible to describe. It is not ordinary food; it is something altogether different. It is a new life that penetrates into my very bones. How can I explain it? I feel Jesus in my whole body... as though I had risen again. I have a longing to cry out to those who ask me whether I eat, and to tell them that I eat more than they do, because I am nourished by the Eucharist, the body and blood of Jesus. I have a longing to tell them that they block the action of this food in their own lives. They block its effects."
Other examples — the Italian Luisa Piccarreta (1865-1947), who lived sixty-four years nourished only by the Eucharist; the German Therese Neumann (1898-1962), who lived thirty-six years on the Eucharist alone; the German Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774-1824), who lived twelve years on the Eucharist and a little water; the Belgian Louise Lateau (1850-1883), who likewise lived twelve years on a little water and the Eucharist alone; the French Marie-Julie Jahenny (1850-1941), who lived five years on the Eucharist alone; the Dutch Saint Lidwina of Schiedam (1380-1433), who lived the last nineteen years of her life nourished only by the Eucharist; the Italian Venerable Domenica del Paradiso (1473-1553), who lived twenty years on the Eucharist alone; the Swiss Saint Nicholas of Flüe (1417-1487), who lived nineteen years on the Eucharist — and so many others — only serve to confirm the truth of Eucharistic dependence.
To be dependent on Jesus is to be free. It is the only dependence that sets us free. It is the only dependence that can satisfy us. It is the only dependence that gives us life in abundance. It is the only dependence that gives back the dignity that sin steals from us. It is the only dependence that preserves and protects us against sin. It is the only dependence that strengthens us and enriches us with immeasurable goods. It is the only dependence that can make us truly happy.
We discover the joy of being dependent on the Eucharistic Jesus when we come to know Him — when we discover who He is and how good it is to depend on Him. Perhaps, like many of the saints, we will not live by feeding exclusively on the Eucharist; but we can depend on this food of eternal life to guide and direct the whole of our living.
We want to invite you, at this very moment, to become Eucharistically dependent, and to spread this dependence wherever you go — to the people you know and to everyone around you. Let us pray:
"Holy and mighty God, before you in this moment I want to acknowledge all my sin. Because of this dependence I have dragged myself through the mire of sin, through the ruins of society, trying to fit in and to be happy... but the truth is that I have not managed, Lord! I have become hardened, I have lost control, I have become a cold person, as though without a heart, and I have wounded and hurt those around me (tell the Lord, in detail, what you have done).
I am tired of suffering at the hands of my addictions and of all that I have spent to feed them. Come, God, to the aid of my weakness, my incapacity, my powerlessness. You are all-powerful and can do all things. For you nothing is too difficult; therefore I ask now, in the name of Jesus Christ, come and set me free and put an end to all this slavery — of the world, of my flesh and of the devil. I do not want to be a slave any longer, Lord! I do not want to be this walking misery I have been.
O Jesus, you who paid the price of my sins in your own flesh, come and set me free now. Pour out upon me your redeeming blood and wash me from all this filth. I feel unclean, Lord! Pour out upon me the living water of the Holy Spirit, the only thing able to wash me in body and soul.
Through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, of Saint Michael the Archangel, of the angels and saints of God, I now call upon the anointing and the power of the Holy Spirit of God over my whole life. Come and wrap me now, from head to foot, in body, soul and spirit. Come and set me free from every prison. Come and renew me entirely. Come and bring me repentance, contrition for my sins, the return to the love of this God I have not felt for so long. I cry out because I believe, and because I believe, I want to see your manifestation of power in my life. Come, God! Come, Lord! Come and touch me! Come and transform me! Come and restore me!
Come, Spirit of life, and give me the life of God! Come and establish in my heart Eucharistic dependence — this insatiable thirst, this ceaseless desire, this inexhaustible longing to be united to Christ in communion. Draw me to the Holy Mass, to adoration, to the mystery of Christ Jesus in spiritual communion. Give me a heart of flesh, a meek and humble heart, a truly Christian heart. Fill me with your love, your peace, your joy, your grace, your presence and your gifts. More than anything you could give me, in this moment I want you, O God! I desire you more than all things. Alleluia!
I want to praise you and thank you for the many wonders you are doing, and will go on doing, in my life, because my heart will stay open to you, Lord. I adore you because you act as you will. Glory to the Lord for ever. Blessed and praised be you, Jesus, now and eternally. Thank you for your work in my life, Holy Spirit of God. I am yours. Amen. Alleluia!"
Only those who experience it can truly say how good it is to depend on Jesus. He is our friend and wants to be with us in every moment of our life. May we remain with Him, so as not to be drawn by the lure of dependences that can never satisfy the desire for life within us. He alone can truly satisfy our heart, nourishing us with His body and His blood, soul and divinity.
May God inspire us and draw us, ever more, to live this wonderful dependence!
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