The Eucharistic Lent

During the Year of the Eucharist, suggested by H.E. Mons. Claudio Gatti in 2003 and proclaimed on June 10, 2004 by the Holy Father, also the Lent has a deeply eucharistic meaning. On February 9, Ash Wednesday, during the homily our Bishop explained us the eucharistic meaning of Lent.

The most solemn days of Lent are the Holy Thursday, Holy Friday and Easter, strongly linked to the Eucharist. On Holy Thursday we remember the institution of Priesthood and of the Eucharist, on Holy Friday Jesus' passion and death and on Easter his resurrection; each holy Mass is the actualisation of these great realities: Christ's passion, death and resurrection.

Each day of Lent has to be lived to prepare oneself to live with more love and responsibility the Easter Triduum. During Lent, there has to be a more and more growing impulse that manifests itself through the faith and love with regard to the Eucharist. All our deeds have to aim at Jesus the Eucharist. Fast, sacrifices, acts of mortification, alms serve to purify us to receive the Eucharist with a clearer and purer heart.

In this period everyone has to live with more engagement the great commandment Jesus gave us: "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you" (John 15,12); so we can enjoy more God's Love that manifests itself in the Eucharistic Mystery, "God is love and if you have no love, my dear children, you have nothing, because love is donation, love is sacrifice, love is to help your neighbour, love is to feel that the brother is with us because he is in a state of grace, because God is with him. Do you think that loving is quite difficult? Those who do not know how to love are insensible, have no conscience, have nothing, those who know how to love feel the joy and the desire to be near the brother" (Letter of God, 2nd November 2002).

We have to seek and intensify the dialogue with Jesus the Eucharist. All our thoughts and invocations we address to our "Sweet Master" get immediately to his heart and by repeating continually these deeds, progressively we will be able to have a habitual and constant relationship that will accompany us in the daily life. "During your working hours, while you are accomplishing some activity or another, say a prayer, it is enough to say: "Jesus, I love you". It doesn't take much of your time and, at the same time, you can continue your work activity. If you have failed for a little, just say: "God, please forgive me" and your journey continues further and everything becomes much easier" (Letter of God, 19th September 2004).

Day after day we will feel inside our heart a stronger and stronger spur, wish, longing towards the Eucharist, so when we pass by a church we will spontaneously say even a simple "hi" full of love towards Jesus, really present with his Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity inside the tabernacle. The Bishop and Marisa had this experience in the summer of a few years ago, when they stopped for a while by a closed church to talk to Jesus during a walk in the evening. Then the Mother of the Eucharist told her children that her Son Jesus had rejoiced much for what they had done. "When you feel disheartened and you feel down, do not let yourselves go, come to this thaumaturgical place, or approach the tabernacle, call upon Jesus and say: "Jesus, help me, today is a very sad day". This applies to everybody, it applies to the Bishop, to the visionary, to all of you and to your dear ones. Come on, my little children" (Letter of God, 24th May 2004).

In the latest months the Mother of Heaven is asking for the conversion of her children, beginning from the top of the Church. We can affirm that conversion means feeling a stronger and stronger attraction and love towards the Eucharist. Until the man doesn't get to feel an intense, vehement, continuous, habitual love towards the Eucharist, he is not yet converted. So "Convert yourselves and believe the Gospel" means changing mentality, opening heart and mind to the Gospel, Word of Christ, who teaches how to love and the highest and most beautiful love is the eucharistic one.

The Church, from the top to the most little member, revives if there is an authentic conversion, that is an ever-growing intense and strong eucharistic love. The strong liturgical moment we are living, the Lent, is an occasion to receive the Eucharist with more faith, conscience and love. John Paul II said: "The Church revives through the blood of its children" and our Bishop added: "The Church revives through the Body and Blood of Jesus the Eucharist; Christ's sacrifice and immolation have an infinite value, His Blood has an infinite value. Nevertheless the Lord can ask the great suffering even to some souls He chooses, as in these days He is asking it to our sister Marisa who suffered the Passion more than once in the same day; so we will give also our blood for the renaissance of the Church, but the human blood without the presence of the Divine Blood is sterile and unfruitful: the Church revives through the Eucharist and the Eucharist makes the Church".