Eucharistic Vision

MEMORY OF SAINT JOHN BOSCO

31st JANUARY

J.M.J.

Dear Father Thomas:

I want to thank you all your hard work for the youth. Please, express my gratitude to all the community 'Praise to Mary' for its dedication to the youth.

The visit of the Pope to The Philippines next year will be of great help for your ministry. When the Holy Father when to Korea, he said to the youth that they'd encounter their identity in the Eucharist.

The Holy Sacrament is like a mirror. Looking at the Sacred Host, we see Christ's lasting love towards us. For this, Saint John Bosco attracted to the youth to the Blessed Sacrament and is the champion of the youth. He taught to the young Dominic Savio to love the Holy Sacrament, and Dominic also became a saint.

What the youth needs is to know that Jesus is the easiest person you can to be with. Without a doubt, he's the easiest person to please in the world. The great bishop Fulton Sheen went through a dry spiritual period in which praying became very difficult; he sat in the chapel without saying a word to Jesus. As the bishop thought his holy hours weren't pleasurable to Jesus, he felt dispirited.

Then the bishop remembered something. His small dog neither could speak. When the bishop sat in his armchair to read the newspaper, his dog sat on the floor near him making him company. With only being there, by his side, the dog was of a great consolation and made him feel very happy.

While the bishop was thinking about this, he received an inspiration from God. Bishop Sheen was of a great consolation and very pleasurable to God with only being with Him, before the Holy Sacrament, although like his dog, he wouldn't say anything to Jesus while remained at His side.

I love this story, Thomas, because, as you know, I have a dog as well. And as he is for me of a great consolation, I call him 'friend'. I love this story also because something very similar occurred to a priest friend of mine when I was a parish priest in San Miguel. My friend was making his holy hour in our perpetual adoration chapel. It was a terribly hot day and he was so tired and overwhelmed that he couldn't pray. With only staying in the chapel during his hour, represented a great effort. He was wondering whether his hour would had any value at all, when at that moment entered a white cat.

It was so hot that that he left the door opened. In the beginning my friend thought about how much he disliked cats. Later on he observed how the kitten went through every pew until reaching the back part where my friend was sitting. The kitten stopped, looked at my friend, laid its head on his shoe as it were a pillow, and fall asleep.

Mi friend was delighted. The kitten chose to rest its head on his shoe. later, my friend heard the following inspiration so clear as the Sunday bells: if those who hates cats was so pleased with one that chose to stay with him, how much more would Jesus be pleased with us, whom He infinitely love, when we chose to be with Him.

My friend, likewise the bishop Sheen, never again felt disheartened to feel that he couldn't pray.

The sole fact of being there, is a prayer of faith, it's to really believe that Jesus is there. It's a love prayer because one chose to be with those who love, with those who truthfully love.

Jesus remains day and night in the Holy sacrament for love to you, because for Him, you are the most important person in the whole world. Everything He asks is that you, my dear Thomas, save a daily hour for Him.

The most important point in every retreat or homily preached by the bishop Fulton Sheen, was to encourage every person to make an effort to make one daily holy hour. Before to die he was interviewed for TV. he was asked who had gave him his inspiration, his inspiration. A Pope, a cardinal, a bishop, a priest, or perhaps a nun?

He answered that no, who had inspired to make a daily holy hour was a little girl. When the Communist Party took over Chins, they entered a church, arrested the priest, and confined him in his own home turning it to his jail. Later they went to the church and destroyed the tabernacle, threw the Holy Hosts to the floor and left.

They did not see a child girl that was knelt in prayer. She was so small that they haven't noticed her. During the following night she returned in silence, moving stealthily, passed through the guard on duty at the priest home, before entering in the dark and cold church.

Once there, prayed on her knees her holy hour before receiving her God and Lord in the Holy Communion. At that time, the communion still was administered on the mouth and only was permitted to received just once a day.

This was the reason for the little girl returned every night, until all the Sacred Hosts were consumed. She, knelt, bended to the floor to receive Jesus in her tongue. All this was witnessed by the priest that watched her at the light of the moon from his window.

The priest knew exactly how many host remained in the chalice because he himself had count them and consecrated them. When the last host was consumed, in the thirty-sixth night, the girl was discovered by the guards at the moment when she was leaving, and caught her, and killed to blows.

The priest survived to tell the story. The bishop Sheen heard this story when he was a seminarian and promised to God to make a daily holy hour during every day of his priestly life, a promise that kept until dead, to the age of of eighty two years. At that time, he already had inspired countless bishops and priests to do the same. Few people know that it was a young person who inspired him.

I'm telling this story, Thomas, because idealism is a virtue of the young at heart. You have dedicated your priesthood to bring to the youth of the world to Christ. I'd like to add: to Christ in the Holy Sacrament.

This is what Frank Feain has successfully done in Australia, in the Saint Spiritus Community of Liberty. A young English man is trying to do the same in that country. This is what the Holy Father wants.

What follows was a dream and vision that had Saint John Bosco:

He saw the Church represented by a ship at the point of sinking. For every side, its enemies attacked it aiming to destroy it. But then, a Pope guided the Church between two columns. One column was the Holy Mother, and the other was the custody with the Holy Sacrament.

Peace was restored and the ship reached the harbor is a so splendid shape that there aren't words to describe it. Saint John Bosco thought it was heaven. The Holy Mother told her that it was the earth, renewed and transformed by her Son's Eucharistic Kingdom.

Fraternally yours in His Eucharistic Love,

Mgr. Pepe