ELISHEBA HOUSE
  • Home
  • BOOKS
    • Consecration
    • Rosary >
      • Reviews/Endorsements
  • Retreats
  • Blog
    • SUBSCRIBE
  • About Us
    • Ivonne J. Hernandez
    • Rick Hernandez
    • Laura Catherine Worhacz
  • Contact Us
Picture

ELISHEBA BLOG

Laura, Ivonne, and Rick
​write about their lives in the Eucharist.
SUBSCRIBE

The Gift of Self

1/14/2023

Comments

 
By: Rick Hernandez
Picture

I have always loved the Christian life’s focus on newness. We are called to become a new creation through our Lord Jesus Christ. As the splendor of a new dawn presents the beginning of a new day, our spiritual day is also meant to start with the contemplation of Christ’s life present in us. We witness the splendor of His presence here among us and in us. Christ’s Word rings in our ears and minds and is meant to guide our thoughts and actions so that we may become little Christs in our small communities and among those who need to know Christ. We help others know Christ by being like Christ. At Mass, we pray that we may become what we eat. During Communion, we are changed. In that most intimate moment, we are made whole and new, no longer just us.  For a few moments, we live our prayer that we may become one with Christ.
 
As beautifully encompassing and fulfilling as the Mass is, how do we live this prayer beyond the Eucharistic banquet? To do this properly, Saint Peter Julian Eymard encourages us to offer God what he called the “Gift of Self” or the “Gift of our Personality.” We give up what we are, our desires, hang-ups, thoughts, and our very selves so that we may become one with Christ, that He may live in us, and that His Holy Will be done in us and through us.

“Just as in the mystery of the Incarnation, the sacred humanity of our Lord was deprived of its own personality so that it no longer sought itself as an end, no longer had any interests of its own, no longer acted for its own sake, for it had another person substituted to its own, that is, the Person of the Son of God, who sought only the interest of the Father and had his eyes fixed on him at all times and in all things, so must I be without any desires or interests of my own, and have none but those of Jesus Christ who abides in me to live therein for his Father and gives himself to me in communion to do just that...” (Saint Peter Julian Eymard on the Gift of Personality)
​
​The perfect selflessness of Christ was the gift of His own personality to our Father, the Most High.  For most of us, it may be easy to see how to be selfless in situations we consider extreme, like during the Crucifixion, but how can we find it in ordinary, day-to-day life? There seems to be a misconception of what it means to be selfless. I believe it is seen as something that you turn on or off. Do you become selfless by denying your own needs?  No. Do you become selfless by denying your dreams and motivations? No.
 
So, being selfless as Christ is selfless is what exactly? It is turning our lives, needs and dreams, motivations, and charism, who we are, into a gift to others. It is to keep an open mind and a willing heart, to gift our fellow brothers and sisters with our very selves. When we are able to make that mental switch, committing our lives to be a gift to God and others, then we become genuinely selfless. This is part of the gift of self, the gift of personality. If we are willing and able to allow Christ to live in us and take over, then we will discover that Christ will say to us:

 “[I] shall fill your soul with my desires and with my life, which will consume and reduce to nothing whatever is personal in you, so much so that it will be I instead of you that shall live and desire everything in you. Thus you will be entirely invested with me: my heart will beat within you, my soul will act through your soul, and your heart will be the receptacle and the pulsation of my heart. I shall be the person of your personality, and your self-hood will be the life of my person in you.” (Saint Peter Julian Eymard on Christ’s life in us, through the Gift of Personality)
​
Many Saints have spoken about relinquishing desires, wants, and expectations so that we may become empty vessels, vessels that may be filled to the brim by the Grace of God. A saintly life means we are vessels, vessels of God’s Grace. Just as water is transported to combat thirst, we, vessels of grace, transport God’s gifts to those we interact with, fighting faithlessness, hopelessness, and the lack of love. Do we actively think about our role as vessels of God’s grace? Do we take our participation in the Eucharistic banquet as a call to distribute that which we receive from God’s goodness? Grace is God’s gift for us, but what do we do with our gifts?  If we gift ourselves to God, then we are His instruments.  We are called to be pliable in His hands so that we may allow Him to do His sacred work in the world through us. That is living a saintly life.
 
This does not mean that we are all called to go out to the nations and preach and minister as the apostles. It does mean that we all have an essential part in God’s mission of Mercy and Love that is ours, and we must allow His Will to mold us and guide us to our daily mission in life through the power of the Holy Spirit. 
 
We are called to be like Christ. Let us take every new day and choose to be a new creation in Him. Let us allow ourselves to be His hands in this world so that we may help our loved ones to know and love Christ through His Real Presence in our lives. May we be much less like us and much more like Christ.
 
Let us pray: Lord Jesus, allow us to grow in humility and accept your will for us. Help to make of ourselves a gift to You, that You may reside in us, live presently in us, and minister to the world through us. May we always be Your new creation. Amen.
 
Picture

Rick Hernandez

Rick Hernandez is a commonsense Catholic, Lay Associate of the Blessed Sacrament and a Director for Elisheba House. He lives in Trinity, Florida, with his wife Ivonne and their children. He also writes for the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament's Daily Eucharistic Reflections and for Catholicmom.com.

Comments

Do This in Memory of Me: Make Wishes Come True

1/7/2023

Comments

 
By: Laura Catherine Worhacz 
Picture

“I will come to bring you my Eucharistic wishes.” (Saint Peter Julian Eymard, Letter to MME Josephine Gourd, January 7, 1868)
​
Dearest Eucharistic Family,
 
Happy and blessed New Year 2023! We begin the year in our Catholic Church mourning the loss of our brother, friend, mentor, and most significant title, Father, Pope Benedict XVI. He has left a mark of faith in our hearts, in our souls, and in our Holy Mother Church.
 
I was blessed to bring Holy Communion to the homebound after daily Mass this past week, to a dear sister in Christ. After praying and consuming the Sacred Host, she was weeping, mourning the loss of Pope Benedict XVI. I joined her in the tears and in the memories of our beloved Pope. Our conversation escalated into sharing all of the gifts of his life, the teachings, homilies, and encyclicals. More than mourning, we celebrated the blessing of a life well lived by reminiscing about our beloved Pope Benedict XVI.
 
“God is LOVE,”… so he began his pontificate. 

​“God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 Jn 4:16). …We have come to believe in God’s love: in these words the Christian can express the fundamental decision of his life. Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.” (Pope Benedict XVI, God is LOVE)

​In this quote from Pope Benedict XVI, we find the Eucharistic wishes of Saint Peter Julian, a new horizon on our lives, a way to live in Heaven now through the grace of the Blessed Sacrament.
 
My fondest thoughts of our great theologian, Pope Benedict XVI, stream forth from his gentle yet firm spirit. Pope Benedict’s great work in giving us our Catechism grants us a place to go for truth and blessings, security in God’s love. A way to find faith by stirring the truth of God’s love in hearts, a family treasure.

​“It is part of love’s growth towards higher levels and inward purification that it now seeks to become definitive, and it does so in a twofold sense: both in the sense of exclusivity (this particular person alone) and in the sense of being “for ever”. Love embraces the whole of existence in each of its dimensions, including the dimension of time.” (Pope Benedict XVI, God is LOVE)

​In the Eucharistic wish, in its blessings, we can live in the higher dimension of life now. Jesus is with us, born of Mary and in a stable, with a Father hovering over Him in love.  
 
Love is a divine action; it shines forth from expressions of gifts…presence of love…gifts of self.

​“Only God knows the value and strength of his intercession, of his sacrifices offered for the good of the Church.” (Pope Francis regarding Pope Benedict XVI)

The NEW YEAR, 2023, calls us to evaluate our lives, our love, our faith, and our offering to our Lord.
 
Perhaps starting with the words of our Holy Father, Pope Francis will strengthen us to carry out our daily duties, assured that God is with us. God sees us and knows the value of our offering everything to him.
 
In the depths of our existence, we are affixed to Jesus from the Altar and His Incarnate Life in us. We carry this presence of GOD’S LOVE into our world through Holy Communion.
 
We are God’s tabernacle.
 
God is LOVE, and we are his disciples. Baptized in His mission to watch over the ones in the stable, bless them, love them and carry them home.
 
Pope Benedict’s smile will be with us forever. We will be nearest to him in the Eucharist. He will continue to speak to us there, teaching us the way of humility and how to bring Eucharistic wishes to others.

““If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen” (1 Jn 4:20). But this text hardly excludes the love of God as something impossible. On the contrary, the whole context of the passage quoted from the First Letter of John shows that such love is explicitly demanded. The unbreakable bond between love of God and love of neighbor is emphasized. One is so closely connected to the other that to say that we love God becomes a lie if we are closed to our neighbor or hate him altogether. Saint John’s words should rather be interpreted to mean that love of neighbor is a path that leads to the encounter with God, and that closing our eyes to our neighbor also blinds us to God.” (Pope Benedict XVI, God is LOVE)
​
In his last words upon earth, let us cry out with our beloved Pope Benedict XVI, “GOD, I LOVE YOU!”
​
Picture

Laura Catherine Worhacz

Laura Catherine Worhacz is a Lay Associate of the Blessed Sacrament and author of Consecration to Jesus Through Our Lady of The Blessed Sacrament. She is also the Director of Mothers of The Blessed Sacrament. She lives in Trinity, FL with her husband and their two daughters.

Comments

A Moment in Time

12/31/2022

Comments

 
By: Ivonne J. Hernandez
Picture

I am often amused by the differences between the English and Spanish versions of certain phrases. This amusement often turns into deeper insight as hidden clues initially lost in translation, reveal themselves to me. One of these is New Year’s Eve. It is directly translated as Víspera de Año Nuevo, but growing up, it was always referred to as Año Viejo, meaning “Old Year.” The difference between these two titles is the focus of a moment in time. The same thing happens with Christmas Eve, which I still refer to as Nochebuena, which literally means “Good Night.” One focuses on what is ahead, while the other one focuses on what is being left behind. Yet they both reveal the impossibility of grasping a moment in time.
“Auld Lang Syne” is a Scottish song often played on New Year’s Eve, right at the stroke of midnight, a moment that holds both the old year and the new between twelve bell strikes. The song begins with a rhetorical question:

“Should old acquaintance be forgot, And never brought to mind?...for auld lang syne… for old long since.”

For old long since… this is the literal translation of the phrase “auld lang syne,” but it can generally mean “times long past,” “times long ago,” or “old times.” It is precisely in a moment that seems to be outside of time that hearts wonder how to deal with this thing called time. 

“The Christian faith can never be separated from the soil of sacred events, from the choice made by God, who wanted to speak to us, to become man, to die and rise again, in a particular place and at a particular time.” (Pope Benedict XVI)

“All in God’s time.” This is a phrase I hear myself say as a call to surrender. It is a reminder that God has a plan, and it is often not in line with my schedule. Whether it is a spouse’s illness, a needy neighbor, or a crying baby in the middle of the night, Jesus shows up and interrupts our time. 

“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman…” (Galatians 4:4)

Emmanuel means “God is with us,” not “God was with us” or “God will be with us.” He IS the great I AM. Always present, always being, always creating His life within us. In a letter to Mrs. Mathilde Giraud-Jordan on May 19, 1868, St. Peter Julian Eymard writes:

“Live from day to day, dear daughter, and you will accomplish your duties much better, accomplish the sacrifices of the journey better by telling yourself: “It will be over tonight.” Besides, there is a great law of holiness which is ever true, ever good and ever powerful in works: the law of the Holy will of God upon us. We find our special grace of sanctification in this present and personal divine will, and this special grace is attached to every hour, every action. When the time for action has passed, this grace has also passed.”

I have discovered through prayer that “God is with us” often means “God waits with us.” Sometimes, when Jesus brings to mind an area of my heart that needs healing, my response is that I’m not ready to deal with that yet. What does He do? He is patient and kind (Cf. 1 Corinthians 13:4). He doesn’t push me; He doesn’t shame me; He does not sigh and show impatience with me. Looking at me, He loves me (Cf. Mark 10:21). He remains with me. He gives me time. And it is precisely in that moment that He begins to heal me. It is in the gift of that space and time that I experience true freedom. I grow in trust as my fears lose their grip and the lies disappear. Knowing that God is willing to wait for me, to wait with me, that He will never leave me, I remember that He has always been with me.
​
Whether it is at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve, the stroke of midnight on Christmas Eve, or just at a moment in time, hidden within every strike of the bell is a call to remember, to see within the veil… a call to enter into the mystery of God’s time.

“This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” (1 Corinthians 11:25).

​God is with us… the time is now… let Him enter our hearts… let Him wait with us as we wait for each other, for we are all together, held in God’s time.
Picture

Ivonne J. Hernandez

Ivonne is a Lay Associate of the Blessed Sacrament, President of Elisheba House, and author of The Rosary: Eucharistic Meditations. She lives in Trinity, Florida, with her husband, Rick, and their children.

Comments
<<Previous
Forward>>

    SUBSCRIBE

    Categories

    All
    Consecration
    Ivonne's Posts
    Laura's Posts
    Rick's Posts
    Rosary


    FOLLOW US ON ​SOCIAL MEDIA:
    Picture

    Authors

    We are Ivonne J. Hernandez, Rick Hernandez and Laura Worhacz, Lay Associates of the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament, and brothers and sisters in Christ.


    SUBSCRIBE

    Picture

      Contact Us

    Submit

    RSS Feed

 Copyright © 2023 Elisheba House Inc.
  • Home
  • BOOKS
    • Consecration
    • Rosary >
      • Reviews/Endorsements
  • Retreats
  • Blog
    • SUBSCRIBE
  • About Us
    • Ivonne J. Hernandez
    • Rick Hernandez
    • Laura Catherine Worhacz
  • Contact Us