Lent 8 ~ In Place of Priests

I want you to call priests to the experience of My friendship…to remain before My Eucharistic Face …adoration and reparation. Draw near to My Open Side in the Sacrament of My Love for them and in their place, and they will begin to follow you there.

Reach out to My priests, not so much by speaking to them, but rather by reaching out to Me for their sake.   ~   In Sinu Jesu

 

          I haven’t prayed much this week. Work has been heavy. I’m falling behind, the cold I’m nursing diminishes any hope of catching up on work. I’m too worn out to even feel frustrated.

          I wonder how Jesus feels. The church is shaking and groaning from its pain and here I am, locked in my world of endless work and a cold determined to stay.

          Nonetheless, today, He deepens this second Lent call to me: come to Me in place of priests, for My priests.

Speak to My priests by coming to me.

Reach out to them by coming to me.

          The cold has turned into a racking cough. More work has been added on. I cannot even remember to enter my inner cloister to pray.

          So, I do the only thing I can: Before I leave for work, I seal my heart to His Tabernacle. I leave it there and go to my day. I hope it is enough. I hope it compensates.

          Yet, I feel nothing at all. No rejection, but no deepening recollection, no heightened spiritual alertness either. Nothing to indicate my heart is where it should be. I try the prayers He has given me. They pass through my heart listlessly, like dry leaves going to their death.

          I think of the dream of the red blouse and dried flowers. In the dream, I am going up to the tabernacle, bearing winter blooms. My wan prayers, the heart I am trying to seal to His – they’re the winter blooms which I must fight myself and the world to continue to offer to my Lord.

          Because He wants me to draw near to His Open Side in the Sacrament of His Love for priests and in their place, so that they too will come to Him.