Mother Mary Leads us to Our Eucharistic Lord – Eucharist 2024

Summary

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Jesus gave us His Mother as a perfect example of relationship with Him. We should strive to imitate Our Lady’s humble service and attentiveness to the needs of others. We should seek to be a vessel of grace to others as she was, and we should invite her with us to the Eucharist.

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Reflective Study Guide Questions

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“Mary said, ‘Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.’”

Lk. 1:38

1. Jesus has given us His Blessed Mother to help us grow closer to Him. We can imitate her example to grow in holiness. When we look at Mary’s example at the Visitation to her cousin Elizabeth, we can see Our Lady’s humility and her spirit of service. How can you work on imitating Mary’s humble service in your life?

2. Mary was very attentive to the needs of others. We can see this attentiveness during the Wedding at Cana when she brought the needs of the married couple to Jesus. How can you imitate Mary’s attentiveness to the needs of others?

3. Mary can teach us to be a vessel of grace as she is. We can pray that we become vessels of grace in the lives of those around us. Who might God be calling you to be a vessel of grace to in your daily life?

4. Our Lady is with us in the Eucharist. We can invite her with us each time we go to Mass or Adoration. How can you work on growing in your relationship with Mary and relying on her to grow closer to Jesus?

Text: Mother Mary Leads us to Our Eucharistic Lord

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Hello there, my name is Donna Marie Cooper, O’Boyle. You might know me through my shows on EWTN or perhaps some of my books. I’m a Catholic wife, a mother, a grandmother. And you know, maybe an interesting thing is I never planned to be an author or a speaker or a TV host.

Once upon a time, God put me still on a complete bedrest during a precarious pregnancy. I had a big, hemorrhage in my uterus, I had a heart condition, I had lost three babies already in miscarriage, and my doctor told me that my baby was dying, and my health was in jeopardy too. My life was in jeopardy, actually, too. Well, God, the Divine Physician who knows what He’s doing, knows what we need at every moment, gave me that time of being still to listen to His whispers, to my heart, and to, stir my heart to start writing, to help people get to heaven. So that’s kind of it in a nutshell, how that happened and the ministry unfolded, and I was very happy to embrace it. So let’s say a prayer, shall we?

Opening Prayer

In the name of the Father and of the Son of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Thank you dear Lord Jesus, for this time together for the great miracle of You in the Eucharist. Mother Mary, please guide us and help us. Holy Spirit, please enlighten us, Amen. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

I Want To Believe More

Well, again, I’m so, so happy that you’re here. We’re going to delve into the, the great mystery, the great loving mystery of Jesus, truly present in the Eucharist. And I want to bring in Mother Mary, share some holy gems from her. Share some wisdom from the saints, so here we go. Venerable Fulton Sheen had said that “The greatest love story ever told was contained in a tiny white host.” Pretty amazing, and it’s so true. I want to ask a question, it’s something we can ask ourselves now or we can think about it and ponder it as we go along in the retreat. But do we have faith the size of, well, a perfect answer would be mustard, seed, faith, size of a mustard seed. But what I’m getting at is, do we have faith the size of a second grader’s faith?

And the reason I ask is because when I was teaching on the Eucharist, one of my students was so excited to tell me something, but she couldn’t even sit in her chair. She came up to the front of the classroom, she pulled on me to whisper in my ear, and she said these words that were so profound, so innocent, so profound, and her passion was not lost on me. She said, “I believe, but I want to believe more.” Imagine that that little child wanted an increase in her faith, right? That’s what she wanted. She believed in Jesus and the Eucharist, but she wanted to believe more. And I share this because it’s so beautiful. I think we can learn from this little child that innocence, that desire to grow in our faith. You know, faith is that beautiful virtue, one of the virtues we were given at our baptism.

And it’s meant to grow, it’s meant to grow in our hearts. You know, God’s going to call us during our lifetime to step out in faith. We need to flex that muscle of faith, right? And ask for an increase in faith. And we can do that, we can do that every day. We can ask our Lord to increase our faith. So we can learn from this little child, the innocence and the purity of a child in along our faith journey. We can, we can try to we can pray to have that childlike faith that, childlike trust in God.

A Witness of Hope

And we can learn also from a more seasoned member of our church, St. John Paul II. Now, St. John Paul II had said, “The church draws her life from the Eucharist.” And he had so much to say and so much guidance for us. And I’ll just quote one, one statement. He said, “In the humble signs of bread and wine changed into His body and blood, Christ walks beside us as our strength and our food for the journey. And He enables us to become for everyone, witnesses of hope.” Wow, isn’t that what we are called to be in this world today, A witness of hope. Our world surely needs hope, and our Lord is counting on us to be that witness of hope, to receive Him in the Eucharist, to adore Him in the blessed sacrament, and to be that example, that radiant flame of, you know, that beacon of light, that Eucharistic presence in our world today. And we’ll get into that.

Now, the catechism tells us that Jesus is wholly, WHOLLY, wholly and entirely present to us in the Eucharist. And that’s paragraph Thirteen Seventy four. Yes, He is, but we have to be very clear and in our own faith, and also be clear when we’re talking to others, the Eucharist is not a mere symbol, and it’s not a remembrance, It’s not just a remembrance of the last Supper. No. Jesus is truly present to us in the Eucharist body, blood, soul, and divinity, that supreme gift that He has given to us. You know, He calls to us, He calls to us. So we listen to Him speaking to our hearts through the Eucharist.

You know, the night before His crucifixion, Jesus asked Peter, James and John to pray with Him in the garden while He prayed, you know, to stay awake while He prayed. He knew He would suffer greatly there, and He did. But when He checked on Peter and asked Him, couldn’t you stay awake just one hour, wow. Well, the apostles were tired after their leisurely Passover meal. They couldn’t keep their eyes open and they fell asleep. You know, something we could ask ourselves also is have we fallen asleep? Have we fallen asleep even just a little bit in the spiritual life. You know, have we been praying for an increase in faith? Have we, have we been, you know, flexing that muscle of, of faith? And we can do that. We can do that each and every day.

We Can Call On Mother Mary

Now, you know, we can ask Mother Mary, this is what I want to mention to you in a reflection today, because, I want to bring her in so she can help us in our adoration, in our devotion and our love for Jesus, because she can help us to stay awake along this pilgrimage through life. She’s always going to lead us to her son Jesus. So we can call on Mother Mary. We could also ask our guardian angel to help us to keep awake in many ways in the spiritual life, but also when we are there in adoration to stay awake. You know, our minds wander sometimes, right?

Well, our Lord calls to our hearts, you know, He humbles Himself in the form of bread, let’s just think about that. He humbles Himself in the form of bread to be available to us, right? To love us, to nourish us, to heal us, to heal our weary and wounded hearts. And we sure have a, I’m sure a lot of us have weary hearts at times in our lives, and He’s there to heal us. So He calls to us, He wants us to come to visit, to, to adore Him. And He gives us that most supreme gift of Himself. It’s really hard to understand, to fully understand.

Go To Him As A Child

You know, years ago when my oldest daughter was about three years old, we were coming out of mass on a Sunday, and she broke loose from my hand and she turned around and she ran like the wind right back into the church because she wanted Jesus. She wanted to receive Him in Holy Communion, but she was only three years old. So I had to catch up with her, and explain it to her. But you know, children are so precious, and we see this in scripture, Jesus calls to the children, right? But He also calls to us to have that childlike heart to go to Him as a child.

And interestingly, Jesus, talked to St. Faustina about this, and He told her that He wanted her to go to Him as a child, but not only that, that He would come to her as a child. The child, Jesus came to St. Faustina and He said, until you learn simplicity and humility, I’m going to appear to you as a little child. So this is something very important for us in our own spiritual life, to pray, to emulate the virtues of these saints, you know, and of course, mother Mary, so, so humble. And to also ask for that virtue of humility so that God could work in us and through us, and so that we can come closer to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. So these are things that we can do.

The Reality of the Eucharist

You know, we’re living in this interesting era of history, right. Kind of crazy, kind of scary, wow, so much happening in our world today. And Pew research, as you know, I’m sure revealed to us that only Thirty One Percent, and I hope that, percentage has gone up a bit by now, but still not enough. only Thirty One Percent of Catholics believe in the true presence of Jesus and the Eucharist. So we might wonder, where are our childlike hearts? What happened to our faith? And why aren’t we running to Jesus, wow. What wasn’t easy for the first followers of Jesus, right? Remember, they were devoted to Jesus. They loved Him so much, but they were utterly perplexed upon hearing His words to them. And He said, take this all of you and eat of it, for this is my body. Take this all of you and drink it. Drink from it, for this is the chalice of my blood. Of course, we see this in scripture. Many disciples fled due to fear and confusion, right? And Jesus clearly said, very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Wow.

And now, Like around a little more than years later, after Jesus uttered those words, we have the amazing treasure of Holy Mother Church just about at our fingertips, right? We can look things up online, even the catechism, and we have all of this rich treasury of teachings. But alas, we’re bombarded by a lopsided and darkened culture, which contradicts our Christianity for sure. And not only that tries to cancel it. So no wonder so many people are confused these days of the true presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, right? So we can do something about that.

First of all, pray for them. Pray for ourselves that we receive Jesus more worthily and, and just pray that we can be a beautiful Eucharistic presence in the world. And we will get into that as we get closer to Jesus and as we receive Him more spiritually, sacramentally and adore Him. You know, we can be that radiant, example to others in our world. today.

Reflection on Mother Mary

I want to reflect upon Mother Mary, and I’ll bring in some saints too. St. Louis de Montford, the great Marian Saint said that “Mary is the surest, shortest and most perfect way to approach Jesus.” I’m sure you’ve heard, heard him, heard these words before, but they’re important to ponder. You know, she’s the surest, shortest, the most perfect way. Why not go to Mary? Why not ask her to bring us to Jesus? Bring us closer to Jesus.

Now, St. Louis de Montfort also stated, “No heavenly gift is given to men, which does not pass through her virginal hands.” Pretty amazing. You know, she’s called the Mediatrix of grace. She is the Mediatrix of grace. You know, Jesus and Mary worked, alongside of each of one another. Jesus of course, being the son of God. Mary, His mother cooperated with the Holy Spirit and, and worked in the mission of Jesus, right? But she distributes graces. She’s the mediatrix of grace. She was given that role, and she continues to do that now.

Now, think about it, Mary and Jesus, so inseparable. If we ponder just for a moment even, you know, when Jesus resided in her womb, wow, they were totally inseparable and He was rocked by her. Every move nourished by her love and her body right at her breasts. He received his nourishment and tender devotion. And on her knee, He learned his first prayers and she prayed for Him. And her holy example, as He grew, helped to shape His mind, His body, His soul, you know, helped to shape His conscience. You know, as she, as she took care of Him, as He grew and during His public ministry.

Wow, a mother’s prayers are so powerful and the blessed mother’s prayers are very powerful. And so she aided Him. She aided Jesus and His mission to save mankind. But we know without a doubt that salvation comes through Jesus. Yet many of the saints have told us that we should get to know Mary so she can help us get closer to Jesus. You know, we think about, we can ponder for a moment since the precise moment of the annunciation, when Mary answered the angel Gabriel, she opened wide her heart to the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit, to enable the son of God to reside in her womb, the first tabernacle. Wow, so very beautiful.

And remember Mary always says, do whatever He tells you. I mean, we know she said it for sure to the wine stewards at the wedding, at Cana, you know, in reference to Jesus, to do whatever He tells you. So we know she desires that all mankind would do whatever He tells you, Mary is always going to lead us to Jesus. She’ll never point to herself, she’s so humble. In addition, we must remember that it was Jesus Himself who gave us the gift of His own mother. When did he do this? When He was hanging from the cross, dying for our salvation. Here is your mother, He said to St. John and Mary became the mother of the church. She’s our true mother, we should call upon her anytime, and she will always point to Jesus. Surely Jesus desires that we allow His mother to help us get to heaven, to help us get closer to Him.

Holy Gems To Learn From Mary

I want to share a couple or a few rather holy gems that we learned from Mary, right, in order to even get closer to Jesus, understand His true presence, we can get to know Mary a bit better. So I’ll present a few of these gems. The first one I’ll mention is that Mary had such a generous heart. She teaches us to have a generous heart like hers. And if we think about that second mystery, the second joyful mystery, you know, the visitation, when we meditate upon that mystery, wow, it’s such a beautiful, a beautiful story.

You know, a true story, of course, when Mary was, you know, when she went in haste to, to help her, her cousin, her elderly cousin, Elizabeth, when the angel had told her that she was expecting to, you know, after having been barren and, and she was in her older age. Now, what did Mary do? Of course we know in scripture she went in haste to help her cousin Elizabeth. But you know, Mary could have stayed behind, concerned about her own needs. I mean, after all, she might have been still trying to grasp the whole meaning of having the son of God in her own womb. Wow, she might have wondered what her husband, St. Joseph would think about this sudden miracle. But she went in haste with great love, great faith to help her generous heart, you know, made her go to help. She didn’t think about herself. And after that a hundred mile journey, wow.

I’m looking for the words I want to tell you, when she greeted Elizabeth, So when she greeted Elizabeth, the child lept in her womb and Elizabeth and we read in scripture, was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry. “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” And why has this happened to me that the mother of my Lord comes to me? Well, Mary wasn’t looking for any praise from Elizabeth. She chose to speak of her lowliness, right, we see this in scripture. So Mary teaches us to serve, she gives glory to God. And even though she’s the mother of God and the queen of heaven, she consistently sought the humble work, you know, to be of service to others. So she gives us that beautiful, beautiful example of humility.

You know, it’s important to note that the devil hates humility because he doesn’t know how to deal with humility. And so our humility by praying for that virtue and acting in humility that can thwart the evil one’s plans. So it’s very good to note this fact that we should be praying for that virtue. You know, God works in and through the humble soul. Think about Mother Mary, the mother of God who chose the lowly tasks and always cooperated, with the Holy Spirit. Now again, we learned pro profound humility from Mary.

Mary Helps Us To Reach Jesus

Now, another holy gem I want to mention is about being attentive and helpful while showing the way to Jesus. And of course, we see her generous heart again and how insightful she is. You know, her quick sizing up of a young, married, married couple’s dilemma at their wedding when they ran out of wine again, I mentioned before she said, do whatever He tells you. But she was quick to see the need and to point it to her son. You know, tell the wine stewards to listen to Him and do what He tells you to do.

The Yes That Changed The World

So another holy gem we learned from Mary that I want to share, is that she teaches us to give our yes to what a beautiful fiat she gave that changed the world forever. But she teaches us to do the same, to give our yes. You know, what did she say when she found out about heaven’s designs on her soul? She said, let it be with me, according to your word, these courageous word, words of Mary’s, change the world forever. As I mentioned, still, you know, we won’t do what Mary has done or we won’t accomplish anything like that. But we can, we can pray to emulate her virtues and we can learn from her how important our own yeses in little and big ways God can use our own yes, to transform our own hearts and also the hearts of others, the people He puts into our lives.

Teaching Us To Be A Vessel Of Grace

Another holy gem we learn from Mary is that she teaches us to be a vessel of grace. She is a vessel of grace. And we can pray to be that vessel of grace in our own lives to the people around us, our family members, our coworkers, our parishioners, our neighbors, a complete stranger. My books are filled with stories about amazing encounters and, beautiful things that happen. Miracles actually with God’s grace. We can’t get into all of that now. So we can ask Mary for the graces because She distributes the graces. We should ask for as many as we can receive. We should ask for the graces to be able to be that beautiful vessel of grace to the people in our lives. You know, adoring Jesus in the blessed sacrament is going to give us all the strength we need to do what we are supposed to do in our life and to put our foot, you know, one in front of the other, walking in faith, praying for an increase in faith.

She Is With Us

Well, finally, a holy gem we learned from Mary is that Mary is with us in the Eucharist. Now, I often say Invite Mary with you to adoration or to holy mass. Of course, she’s already there, but I think she would like that invitation because she perfects our prayers. She’s with us, she’s with us in the Eucharist. Now Cardinal Raymond, Leo Burke, I’m sure you know him. He tells us that Mary is with us. He said, and I’ll quote “At every Eucharist, Christ once again gives Mary to us as our mother, and gives us to her as her true sons and daughters, as he did when he died on the cross for us.” Wow.

It’s really amazing to think about Mary being with us at every Holy Communion we receive at every visit to Jesus in the blessed sacrament, she is with us. So let’s invite her in a special way to help us, to help perfect our prayers, to help keep us attentive, to help stay us awake, keep us awake. Rather, they say, Peter Julian Eymard, a lover of the blessed sacrament, had said “in Mary’s life, there you’ll find the model and the consolation of your own life.”

And St. John Paul II said, “May Mary who in the freedom of her fiat and her presence at the foot of the altar, excuse me, he said, in her presence at the foot of the cross, offered to the world, Jesus the liberator, help us to find Him in the sacrament of the altar.”

Mary helps us to find Jesus in the sacrament of the altar. So we need to call on her, don’t be afraid, thinking she’s some far off saint, she knows your heart. She wants your prayers and your conversation. So let’s call on her and ask her to help us to get closer to her son so we, we can unite our prayer with St. John Paul II’s prayer I just mentioned and ask Mary to help us. Now, gentle Mary also teaches us silence and prayer. So we can think about that when we visit Jesus.

We don’t have to have profound prayers and all these things we need to say so perfectly. We talk to Jesus from our heart, sometimes without words, sometimes with our tears. So don’t be afraid to ask Mary to be with you and to go to Jesus with a full heart, you know, pouring it out to Him and in wholehearted surrender to His holy will for your life because he knows exactly what you need and when you need it. He shows me that so many times, you know? So through receiving our Lord in the sacrament of his love, we can love lovingly seek his presence in the world today and within our neighbors and strangers and people we meet along the way. And pray and pray and pray. Right? And don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid to go to Jesus with everything and let’s, let’s say a little prayer.

Closing Prayer

In the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen. Thank you Jesus, for your love and your mercy for the unfathomable miracle of you. Thank you Mother Mary, for helping us and for guiding us and all of the holy angels and saints. Please be with us and guide us and pray for us. Amen. You know, I would also like to add a little prayer from St. Peter Julian Eymard He said a beautiful prayer.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen. Virgin immaculate, perfect lover of our Lord and the blessed sacrament we ask you to obtain for us the graces we need to become true adores of our Eucharistic God, grant us, we beg of you to know Him better, to love Him more, and to center our lives around the Eucharist. That is to make our whole life a constant prayer of adoration, thanksgiving, reparation, and petition to our Lord and the Blessed Sacrament. Amen. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Thank you so much for, for joining me. I hope you enjoyed our visit and I hope you’ll run to Jesus every time you can, every chance you have, and I’ll be praying for you. And please pray for me too. You know, we’re united in prayer. God bless you. God love you.

About Donna – Marie Cooper O’Boyle

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