Guidelines Sheet - Series on Verbum Dei Sources of Spirituality: 27-31 May, 2024

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The Sunday after the Trinity Sunday, we celebrate the Solemnity of the “Corpus Christi.” The words Corpus Christi mean “Body of Christ” and, for that reason, this liturgical feast is also known as the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ. We celebrate the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. As the Church teaches, the Eucharist is the “source and summit of Christian life” (Lumen Gentium,11; Catechism of Catholic Church, 1324).

In the Catholic Church we have the tradition of having processions through the streets after the celebration of the Eucharist. We desire to give public witness to the faith of the Christian people and to manifest our devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. But the celebration of Corpus Christi is impoverished if we limit ourselves to the adoration or to the procession of the Blessed Sacrament after the Mass. We need to understand the Eucharist in the context of Jesus’ life especially of his suffering and death and what this means to our lives.

In the Institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper (Mk 14:12-16,22-26), Jesus says: “Take it, this is my body” and “This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many”. In the Bible, “body” and “blood” signify and indicate the very life of the person, his very self. Therefore, the bread and wine at the Last Supper are no other than Jesus, He whose body will be broken by suffering and death on Calvary, and whose blood will be poured out in death for the salvation of all.
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The Holy Eucharist is also a source of spirituality in the Verbum Dei. “In the sacrifice and sacrament of the Eucharist, we are given the divine-human love of our God. And we renovate in a graphic and palpable way the real presence of the Trinity in us.” (Statutes VDMF,221) 

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MONDAY (MAY 27)
John 6:32-35

Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven.  For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.
Sir, they said, always give us this bread.
Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty”
(John 6:32-35)
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Pope Francis says: “The Feast of Corpus Christi is a time for Christians to remember that God will meet their basic needs to eat and to be filled with the joy and amazement of receiving loving nourishment from Jesus Christ.

In the Eucharist, everyone can experience this loving and concrete attention of the Lord. Those who receive the Body and Blood of Christ with faith not only eat, but are satisfied. To eat and to be satisfied: These are two basic necessities that are satisfied in the Eucharist.”
(Feast of Corpus Christi 2022).

Do I present to Him my hunger and thirst with sincerity and purity of heart? Is Jesus’ loving attention and words satisfying my basic needs for love?

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TUESDAY (MAY 28)
John 6: 53- 58

Jesus said to them, “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.  Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.  For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.  Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”
(Jn 6: 53- 58)

“The person of Christ, Sacrament of the Father, his flesh and blood made bread and wine, is the nutrition with which Jesus has wanted to help the divine life of all mankind, until the end of time.”
(Statutes VDMF, 222)

We are nourished spiritually every time we are fed by Jesus’ love. How do I prepare myself before going to the Eucharist? Do I appreciate the self-giving of Jesus in the Eucharist? Am I attentive to the proclamation of the Word of God, to His self-giving for all? Do I go out from the Eucharist with a concrete commitment for the day?

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WEDNESDAY (MAY 29)
John 4: 10; John 10:10​

If you only knew what God gives and who it is that is asking you for a drink, you would ask him, and he would give you life-giving water.”
(John 4:10)
 
“I have come in order that you might have life- life in its fullness.”
​(John 10:10)
 
Pope Francis says: “Sometimes there is the risk of confining the Eucharist to a vague, distant dimension, perhaps bright and perfumed with incense, but rather distant from the straits of everyday life. The Lord takes all our needs to heart, beginning with the most basic.

We certainly need to nourish ourselves, but we also need to be satisfied, to know that the nourishment is given to us out of love. In the Body and Blood of Christ, we find his presence, his life given for each of us. He not only gives us help to go forward, but he gives us himself — he makes himself our traveling companion, he enters into our affairs, he visits us when we are lonely, giving us back a sense of enthusiasm.

We are satisfied when the Lord gives meaning to our life, our obscurities, our doubts; he sees the meaning, and this meaning that the Lord gives satisfies us. Everyone is looking for the presence of the Lord, because in the warmth of his presence, our lives change.”
(Feast of Corpus Christi 2022)
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 In front of the Blessed Sacrament we can pray: “Lord, give me that daily bread to go forward. Lord, satisfy me with your presence! 

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THURSDAY (MAY 30)
Luke 9:10-17

The miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes.

Pope Francis says: “Jesus Christ’s self-giving presence is key to understanding the Eucharist. The Lord present in the Eucharist is calling us to be citizens of heaven, but at the same time he takes into account the journey we have to face here on earth. If I have hardly any breath in my sack, he knows and takes care of it himself.

The miracle of the loaves and fishes does not happen in a spectacular way, but almost secretly, the bread increases as it passes from hand to hand. And as the crowd eats, they realize that Jesus is taking care of everything.

“We can evaluate our Eucharistic Adoration when we take care of our neighbor like Jesus does. There is hunger for food around us, but also for companionship; there is hunger for consolation, friendship, good humor; there is hunger for attention, there is hunger to be evangelized. We find this in the Eucharistic Bread — the attention of Christ to our needs and the invitation to do the same toward those who are beside us. We need to eat and feed others.”
(Feast of Corpus Christi 2022)
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Underline the sentences that struck you more. In what way the prayer and reflection during this week are helping me to connect my love for the Trinity and my love for those around me?

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FRIDAY (MAY 31)

Today we´ll focus our reflection on the Statutes of the Verbum Dei. Through it we can grasp more why the Holy Eucharist is a source of spirituality for those who partake in the Verbum Dei's charism and mission.
 
“The Sacrament is the forge where, in intimate dialogue that transforms us, the genuine personality of the disciples of Christ is forged. It is the Sacrament of the real presence of Christ among us and in us, who unceasingly elaborates the essence and the bond of vital communion of all the Fraternity.”
(Statutes VDMF 227)
 
“We will make the effort so that our intimacy with Jesus and reciprocal hope with him may be long-lasting. We would be going only half way and our dialogue and love would be very mediocre and infantile if we limited ourselves to admiring the Sacrament and the greatness of the love of Jesus, and if we stayed contemplating and admiring. That would be far from the ideal for which Jesus aspires in us in his Eucharistic Sacrifice and in his permanency in the Tabernacles. More than worshipers and admirers, Jesus seeks decided imitators.”
(Statutes VDMF 224)
 
“Our attendance to the Eucharistic Sacrifice should not be as mere spectators. We receive the constant call to be participants in the same offering and consecration, to become the same Eucharistic Love that we receive.”
(Statutes VDMF 225)
 
“Along with the bread and wine, the disciples of Jesus can be consecrated. This can be achieved by uniting in the pure and perfect love of the Lord. Happy with Jesus and living like him, one can live through similar challenges and approach a similar destination. One can surrender one's flesh and blood in a similar way. With Christ, and following Him, our life will follow the steps of the Lamb to cure the sins of the world.”
​(Statutes VDMF 229)
 
As a Verbum Dei disciple, do I participate in the Eucharist with awareness that my identity and mission is forged by the Eucharistic love of Jesus? Do I really appreciate what Jesus is doing in me as His disciple? How can I describe the growth in my discipleship?

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PRAYER FOR THE CONGRESS
To be held in Loeches, Spain from August 30 – September 27, 2024

“Communion, Consecration and Participation in the Mission"

Father, you who create and sustain all things with your love, we ask you to make us artisans of communion, so that as we journey towards the Congress we may know how to welcome the diversity that characterises us as the Verbum Dei Missionary Family.
 
Jesus, human face of God, consecrate us to your Word so that the Congress may be prepared and carried out in profound fidelity to your voice, listening to each one of us and to the signs of the times.
 
Holy Spirit, you who open rivers in the desert, guide us in this time of discernment and decision, so that we may live, embody and offer our charism ever more fully, so that all the baptised may participate in the mission of Jesus entrusted to the Church.
 
Accompany us, Mary, with your loving motherly presence and intercession, so that this Congress may be a channel of hope in which God transforms us and makes all things new. Amen.