Diseases With No Physician or Medicine

Divine Appeal Reflection - 185

Today, consider in Divine Appeal 185: "There are very many diseases as an admonishment...Time is approaching and there will come many diseases which will be allowed by My Eternal Father. There will be no physician or medicine to cure them. If souls listen to Me and respond to My Call of Mercy then it will be their salvation and peace."

The words “There are very many diseases as an admonishment” lead us into a mystery that must be approached with both reverence and theological sobriety. The Gospel does not permit us to look at another person's illness and declare that a particular sin caused it; Jesus Himself rejected that simplistic conclusion when speaking about the man born blind (cf. Jn 9:1–3) and about those who died in tragic circumstances (cf. Lk 13:1–5). Yet Scripture(cf. Rom 8:20–23) does reveal that humanity lives within a creation wounded by sin, mortality, and disorder, and that suffering can become an awakening to realities the comfortable heart easily forgets . An admonishment is not necessarily a sentence; it can be an alarm. A fever can tell the body that something requires attention; similarly, the fragility of human existence can expose the illusion that we possess tomorrow. The remarkable king Hezekiah discovered this when illness suddenly brought the brevity of life before him (cf. 2 Kgs 20:1–6). The prophet Elisha's servant Gehazi provides an entirely different picture: outward health can coexist with an inward disease of greed that gradually possesses the person (cf. 2 Kgs 5:20–27). Simon the Pharisee also reveals an invisible disorder when he can sit near Jesus while remaining unable to recognize the greatness of mercy (cf. Lk 7:36–50). There are diseases of the body that medicine can diagnose and diseases of the soul that truth must expose. Envy can grow into hatred, pornography can distort the imagination, resentment can harden the heart, greed can weaken compassion, and religious pride can resist repentance (cf. Mt 5:27–28; Mk 7:20–23; 1 Tim 6:9–10; Lk 18:9–14). Scripture(cf. Ps 139:23–24; Prov 4:23) calls us to examine what is hidden within . The Catechism(cf. CCC 1500–1510) recognizes human vulnerability to illness while affirming medical care, prayer, and the possibility of uniting suffering with Christ . Thus the Appeal calls not to fear, but to honest examination: What within me is quietly becoming unhealthy before God? What habit is weakening my love? What wound is becoming resentment? Prayer brings these hidden places into God's light, where truth can lead to repentance and healing .

The phrase “Time is approaching” becomes especially powerful when understood not as a timetable for predicting particular catastrophes, but as an unveiling of the urgency of conversion. Every human life is moving toward an encounter with God, and nobody knows the precise hour in which earthly opportunities will close (cf. Mt 24:42–44; Heb 9:27). The five foolish virgins discovered too late that preparedness cannot be transferred from one person to another (cf. Mt 25:1–13). The rich man in Jesus' parable had carefully arranged his earthly future but had not prepared his soul for eternity (cf. Lk 12:16–21). There is therefore a terrifying spiritual possibility: a person can spend years preparing for retirement while never preparing for eternity. A surgeon can schedule every medical examination yet postpone Confession indefinitely. A student can plan an entire career while allowing the vocation of holiness to remain undefined. A couple can insure their property, educate their children, and accumulate savings while allowing resentment to become permanent within the home. A priest can prepare homilies, budgets, meetings, and parish programmes while neglecting the silent friendship with Christ from which his priesthood receives its meaning. The unusual biblical figure of Baruch, Jeremiah's scribe, shows how God can interrupt a person's ordinary plans with a call to reassess what he is seeking amid a collapsing world (cf. Jer 45:1–5). St. Joseph Pignatelli's life of patient fidelity during the suppression of the Jesuits shows that holiness may require remaining faithful when the structures one trusted suddenly disappear. The Gospel's urgency is not “be afraid of what is coming”; it is “do not postpone what grace is asking of you today.” The Catechism calls conversion a continual task because the baptized remain in need of ongoing purification (cf. CCC 1427–1429). Every sunrise is therefore another opportunity to return before the soul is forced by circumstances to ask why it waited.

The words “If souls listen to Me and respond to My Call of Mercy” reveal the extraordinary tenderness hidden within the warning. Jesus does not merely tell humanity that danger exists; He announces that mercy is already moving toward the danger. Notice the sequence: listen → respond → salvation → peace. Listening is more than hearing religious language. It means allowing Christ's word to penetrate the place where the soul has constructed its defences. Naaman initially resisted the simplicity of the prophet's instruction because he expected something more spectacular, yet his healing began when pride surrendered to obedience (cf. 2 Kgs 5:9–14). The disciples on the road to Emmaus had knowledge of Scripture but needed Christ to open their understanding from within their disappointment (cf. Lk 24:25–32). The Ethiopian official was already reading Isaiah but needed Philip to help him recognize the One toward whom the Scripture pointed (cf. Acts 8:26–39). A soul may possess religious information and still remain deaf to the particular grace God is offering today. Responding to mercy can therefore become remarkably concrete: making a long-delayed Confession, breaking a relationship that repeatedly leads into serious sin, asking a child for forgiveness, returning money obtained dishonestly, seeking professional help for destructive dependence, reconciling before resentment becomes a family inheritance, returning to Sunday Eucharist after years away, or accepting the sacrifice demanded by one's vocation (cf. Mt 5:23–24; Lk 19:8–9; Heb 10:24–25). St. Mary Magdalene of Pazzi’s writings reveal the seriousness with which she understood God’s transforming love, while St. Mark Ji Tianxiang’s perseverance amid prolonged weakness and his eventual martyrdom show how grace can remain at work even amid a difficult spiritual struggle (cf. 2 Cor 12:9–10). The Catechism(cf. CCC 1422–1424) teaches that Penance is the sacrament of conversion and reconciliation through which the sinner returns to communion with God and the Church . Mercy does not ask whether our wounds are impressive enough to deserve healing; it asks whether we will finally open them to the Divine Physician.

The statement that there may come a time when “there will be no physician or medicine to cure them” requires particular discernment. Catholic faith does not oppose medicine, physicians, scientific research, vaccination, hospital care, or responsible public-health measures. Jesus Himself used medical imagery positively(cf. Lk 5:31) and praised the physician's role in relation to the sick . The Church has consistently regarded healthcare as a work of mercy and encourages appropriate medical treatment (cf. CCC 1509). The deeper spiritual force of the Appeal therefore lies beyond a prediction about medical science. There is a boundary before which every physician eventually stands: medicine can sometimes restore a body, but it cannot abolish mortality. A doctor may remove a tumour but cannot remove humanity's final encounter with death. A psychiatrist may help heal psychological suffering but cannot replace the forgiveness of sins. A surgeon can repair a heart but cannot teach it whom to love. Medical care can strengthen the body, but Christian healing reaches deeper, asking where life finds its ultimate meaning and to whom it is finally entrusted (cf. Ps 16:5–11; Rom 14:7–9). King Asa’s experience offers an important distinction:(cf. 2 Chr 16:12–13; Jer 17:5–8) the problem was not that he sought physicians, but that his dependence on them was not accompanied by a return of his heart to God . Faith therefore does not reject medicine; rather, it places human skill beneath divine providence, recognizing that every form of healing remains within God’s greater purpose . The Anointing of the Sick reveals this mystery even more deeply: Christ comes to the suffering person with strengthening grace, forgiveness, and spiritual consolation, uniting the person’s suffering with His own Passion and preparing the soul for eternal life . Healing may restore the body, but Christ desires to restore the whole person to communion with God. Thus healing may come through treatment, through unexpected recovery, through grace to endure prolonged illness, or through peaceful preparation for eternity . The Christian therefore seeks healing of the body while entrusting the whole person to Christ, the Divine Physician whose saving work reaches beyond the limits of earthly life.

And then comes the astonishing promise: “it will be their salvation and peace.” This is the destination toward which the entire Appeal moves. Our Adorable Jesus does not merely desire humanity to endure sickness, hardship, or uncertainty; He desires souls to return to communion with Him, where true salvation and peace are found (cf. Jn 17:3; 1 Tim 2:3–4; CCC 161–162). Christian peace is therefore far deeper than the removal of difficulties. A person may still face illness, unemployment, persecution, bereavement, family conflict, or an uncertain future and yet possess an interior peace rooted in Christ . Like the disciples in the storm,(cf. Mk 4:37–41) the soul may remain surrounded by frightening circumstances while learning to entrust itself to the Lord who is present within the boat . Peace is not necessarily the disappearance of the storm; it is discovering that Christ remains Lord. Consider Eleazar,(cf. 2 Macc 6:18–31) the elderly scribe in the Maccabean persecution, who refused to preserve his life through apostasy because he understood that a person's fidelity could become an instruction for generations after him . Consider the widow of Zarephath, (cf. 1 Kgs 17:8–16)who faced famine yet learned to entrust the last of her resources to God's providence . Consider Paul, whose bodily weakness became a place where divine grace was experienced as sufficient rather than as an excuse for despair (cf. 2 Cor 12:7–10). The Christian does not ask only, “Will God remove this?” but also, “What can God make of this if I surrender it to Him?”  A physician can silently entrust each patient to Christ. A person who has received a frightening diagnosis can use suffering to reconcile with an estranged sibling. A healthy person can stop postponing gratitude. A parish can become a place where the sick are not hidden away but surrounded by prayer and practical care. The Catechism teaches that Christian hope sustains the heart amid trials and directs it toward eternal blessedness (cf. CCC 1817–1821). Thus the deepest response to this Appeal is neither panic nor speculation about future diseases. It is immediate conversion. Pray while you can pray. Reconcile while you can reconcile. Confess while you can confess. Love while you can love. Receive the Eucharist with awakened faith. Visit the sick. Forgive the offender. Abandon the sin that has become habitual. Entrust tomorrow to Providence. The greatest disease may be believing that there will always be another opportunity to return. Mercy is calling now. And the soul that responds discovers that even when earthly healing has limits, Christ's mercy has no horizon.

Prayer 

Our Adorable Jesus, uncover every hidden sickness within us and heal what only Your mercy can reach. Teach us not to fear suffering but to use every moment for conversion, reconciliation, prayer, and love. When human remedies fail, keep our hearts peaceful, trusting Your Cross, Resurrection, mercy, and eternal healing. Amen.

Sr. Anna Ali of the Most Holy Eucharist, intercede for us.

Pray More and Love One Another

Divine Appeal Reflection - 185

Today, consider in Divine Appeal 185: "Make people pray more and love one another. My Heart is filled with pain. I ask many to help souls to return to Me."

“Make people pray more and love one another.” There is a hidden order in these words that reaches into the very structure of Christian existence. Our Adorable Jesus places prayer before love because the heart cannot continually give what it has not first received from God. Prayer opens the soul to grace, teaches it to remain in Christ, and allows divine love to become the source of human charity . The branch bears fruit only by remaining united to the vine;(cf. Jn 15:1–5; Gal 5:22–23) likewise, the Christian gradually becomes capable of patient, sacrificial love by remaining rooted in Christ .  Prayer brings them back to the Source. We do not merely pray because we need God; we pray so that God's love may increasingly become the love with which we meet others. Yet He places love immediately beside prayer because prayer that truly encounters God eventually becomes responsible for another human being. The soul enters prayer alone but should not emerge alone. It returns carrying names, wounds, families, enemies, forgotten people, priests, sinners, the dying, the unborn, and souls whose existence it may never know. Moses discovered this mystery when Israel's sin became something he carried before God rather than merely something he condemned (cf. Ex 32:30–32). Job prayed for his friends after enduring their misunderstanding, and his own restoration became mysteriously connected with intercession for those who had wounded him (cf. Job 42:7–10). This is a profound form of spiritual maturity: the heart ceases asking only, “Lord, what will You do for me?” and begins asking, “Lord, whom are You asking me to carry?” The Catechism teaches that intercession is a prayer of petition that conforms us to Christ's own prayer for humanity (cf. CCC 2634–2636). A mother praying over a sleeping child, a priest kneeling before an empty tabernacle, a farmer praying before beginning his work, a student praying for a troubled classmate, or an elderly person offering a Rosary for unknown sinners may therefore become hidden bearers of souls. Prayer is where God secretly teaches one heart to become spacious enough for many hearts.

Then comes the command that exposes whether prayer has truly enlarged us: “love one another.” Jesus does not say merely to admire one another, agree with one another, or remain pleasant toward one another. He asks for the difficult charity by which one person's salvation becomes important to another person even when affection is absent. Consider the obscure figure of Abigail (cf. 1 Sam 25:23–35). She recognized that David's wounded honour was about to become violence and intervened before blood was shed . Her love was not passive kindness; it entered another person's anger and prevented destruction. Consider also Jonathan, who loved David enough to surrender his own prospects of kingship rather than allow jealousy to govern him (cf. 1 Sam 18:1–4; 20:30–34). Love becomes most supernatural when it protects another person's good at a cost to our own preference. A supervisor can protect an employee from unjust blame. A priest can refuse to ridicule a penitent's repeated weakness. A wife can interrupt a cycle of retaliation by becoming silent long enough to pray before answering. A young person can refuse to participate in humiliating someone on social media. A sibling can visit the relative whom everyone else has abandoned. St. Isaac the Syrian's vision of mercy reaches toward this astonishing interior freedom: another person's weakness is no longer an opportunity for superiority but a summons to compassion. The Catechism(cf. CCC 1827) calls charity the bond of perfection because it orders the entire Christian life toward communion with God and neighbour . The person who tests your capacity to love may be revealing the precise place where your prayer still needs conversion.

The words “I ask many to help souls to return to Me” reveal another hidden dimension: Christ does not merely ask us to bring people into religious activity; He asks us to help them return to Him. Return implies that something has been lost: innocence, trust, prayer, sacramental life, vocation, truth, hope, or the sense of God's presence. The prodigal son’s return begins with an interior awakening: before he can repair what has been broken, he must first dare to believe that the Father’s house remains open to him (cf. Lk 15:17–24; Rom 2:4). Many souls stay away from Confession not because they consider sin insignificant, but because shame has persuaded them that they are no longer worthy of mercy . Some young people withdraw from prayer not because they reject God, but because prolonged suffering and unanswered questions have obscured His nearness . Some priests experience deep exhaustion not because their love for Christ has disappeared, but because even those who carry others need moments of renewal, fraternity, rest, and prayer . A Christian may therefore participate in another person’s return simply by making the possibility of return visible. A patient listener, a sincere invitation to Confession, a Rosary offered for someone who has stopped praying, or a gentle word after a painful failure can become a small doorway through which grace is recognized again . Philip approached Nathanael not by forcing him into an argument, but by leading him toward an encounter with Jesus (cf. Jn 1:43–51). Likewise, Andrew brought Simon into Christ’s presence (cf. Jn 1:40–42), and the Samaritan woman (cf. Jn 4:28–30, 39–42) became a witness through whom others were drawn toward Jesus. Sometimes evangelization begins by becoming living evidence that God’s mercy is still waiting at the door . The Samaritan woman(cf. Jn 4:7–30, 39–42) returned to her town carrying testimony after Christ had reached the hidden wound beneath her public life . The Gerasene man(cf. Mk 5:1–20) who had been isolated among the tombs became a witness among his own people after encountering Christ . St. Mary Magdalene de’ Pazzi’s intense concern for the conversion and renewal of souls reveals how contemplative love can become deeply missionary without becoming noisy. A heart immersed in God cannot remain indifferent to those who are far from Him. The Catechism(cf. CCC 863–865) teaches that every Christian participates in Christ’s mission according to his or her vocation and circumstances . Thus a parent, nurse, farmer, student, religious, mechanic, lawyer, catechist, prisoner, contemplative, or priest can become a keeper of the door through which another soul quietly returns to Christ—sometimes through a word, sometimes through patient presence, sometimes through hidden sacrifice, and sometimes through a prayer known only to God.

But Jesus' command to love one another reaches its highest intensity when love becomes a form of spiritual warfare against the fragmentation caused by sin. The devil divides; Christ gathers. Sin isolates; charity restores communion. Bitterness creates invisible prisons in which two people can remain physically close while spiritually separated. Prayer begins breaking those walls because it brings the other person into the presence of God before bringing the person into our argument. The two disciples travelling to Emmaus were walking away from the community in disappointment, but Christ entered their conversation and gradually restored their understanding (cf. Lk 24:13–35). Onesimus' story reveals the Gospel entering a relationship marked by social inequality and transforming the possibility of domination into Christian brotherhood (cf. Philem 10–16). The four men who carried the paralytic teach another astonishing form of love: when the suffering person cannot reach Jesus by himself, other people can carry him (cf. Mk 2:1–5). Sometimes loving someone means carrying them in prayer until they can walk toward Christ for themselves. This has extraordinary practical consequences. Offer up prayers for the alcoholic who declines assistance. Offer up prayers for the family member who has left the church.  Pray for the priest whose weaknesses scandalize you. Pray for the child who has stopped speaking. Pray for the colleague who envies you. Then ask what concrete act of charity corresponds to that prayer. Perhaps a phone call. Perhaps an apology. Perhaps financial assistance. Perhaps patient silence. Perhaps truthful correction. Perhaps simply refusing to speak maliciously about the person. St. Vincent de Paul and St. Louise de Marillac demonstrated that charity must eventually acquire hands and feet. A prayer that asks God to help someone while refusing every opportunity to help that person ourselves has not yet reached its full apostolic maturity.

The deepest word in the Appeal may therefore be “one another.” Jesus does not envision isolated saints competing for individual holiness. He envisions a humanity in which grace circulates from heart to heart through prayer and charity, like blood through one living body . Your holiness can become another person's shelter; another person's fidelity can become your strength. A hidden nun may pray for a missionary. A missionary may baptize a child. That child may one day become a priest; that priest may hear the confession of a stranger who returns to God and reconciles with his family; that family may raise a child who later becomes a physician serving the poor. One hidden act of prayer can therefore become the beginning of a chain of grace whose final fruits may remain unknown to us until eternity . Heaven alone may know the complete genealogy of a single prayer. This is the mystical dimension of the communion of saints (cf. CCC 946–962). St. Thérèse of Lisieux discovered an apostolic universality hidden within a life apparently confined to Carmel. St. Josephine Bakhita transformed suffering received into a life of forgiveness and witness. St. André Bessette became an instrument of consolation through apparently humble service. Their lives expose our earthly obsession with measurable influence. Jesus may be asking you to do something whose fruit you will never see. Perhaps the most important prayer you will ever pray will be offered when you are tired and nobody knows you prayed. Perhaps the person you patiently love today will carry that memory for decades and return to Christ because of it. Perhaps your forgiveness will prevent bitterness from entering another generation. Pray more until another person's salvation becomes part of your daily concern. Love one another until another person's wound becomes impossible for you to ignore. Then prayer will cease being an escape from humanity, and love will cease being merely human affection. The two will become one movement of Christ's own Heart: ascending toward the Father in prayer and descending toward wounded humanity in mercy. And perhaps this is precisely what Our Adorable Jesus desires when He asks us to make people pray more and love one another: that the earth may quietly begin to resemble heaven—not through extraordinary achievements, but through one praying heart, one forgiven wound, one hidden sacrifice, and one act of love at a time. As prayer draws the soul toward God, charity makes His presence tangible among His children .

Prayer

Our Adorable Jesus, teach us to pray until we carry souls before You, and to love until their wounds become our concern. Expand our hearts beyond preference, resentment, and convenience. Make our ordinary prayers and hidden charities channels of Your grace, reconciling divided hearts and gently leading wandering souls back home. Amen.

Sr. Anna Ali of the Most Holy Eucharist, intercede for us.

Divine Appeal 185

ON THE EUCHARIST:A DIVINE APPEAL

(Revelation to Sr Anna Ali of the Most Holy Eucharist)

VOLUME 1

“If souls listen to Me and respond to My Call of Mercy, then it will be their salvation and peace. Make people pray more and love one another. I ask many to help souls to return to Me.” 

“Listen, My daughter. My will and desire is that mankind be converted through prayer, through the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

In the world and My Church there are distractions of all kinds. This is a grave moment. Time is short for saving souls. There are very many diseases as an admonishment. Pray a great deal to atone and appease the wrath of My Eternal Father.

I beg you not to allow My Word to die. If you do not do what I tell you then you will be captured by satan, the Red Lucifer, who is very conscious of this serious moment. These are times of overwhelming violence. Time is approaching and there will come many diseases which will be allowed by My Eternal Father. There will be no physician or medicine to cure them. If souls listen to Me and respond to My Call of Mercy then it will be their salvation and peace. Make people pray more and love one another. My Heart is filled with pain. I ask many to help souls to return to Me.

Lucifer has taken possession of many souls and he tells them that My Eternal Father does not exist. What more could I have suffered for mankind.

...speak to souls, many are eternally lost. Many do not see the torment and pain of perdition. I call them all. My Mercy is immense, their repentance is sufficient. I ask for prayers.”

“I give My blessing.”

Copyright © 2015 The Late Bishop Cornelius K. Arap Korir | Catholic Diocese of Eldoret, Kenya. All rights reserved. Reproduced by adivineappeal.com from "On the Eucharist: A Divine Appeal" (Vol. 1).

Jesus in the Tabernacle, Looking and Loving

Divine Appeal Reflection - 184

Today, consider in Divine Appeal 184:  "Many come before My Tabernacle, while in front of Me and I looking and loving them, they turn their mind and attention away."

“Many come before My Tabernacle” begins with a mystery that human language can scarcely contain: the soul enters a place in which the King is already waiting for it. We often think adoration begins the moment we kneel before the tabernacle, yet the mystery is deeper: Christ’s Presence did not begin when we entered the chapel; our awareness of the Presence began (cf. Mt 28:20; Jn 6:35–40). Our Adorable Jesus is not waiting to become present; He is waiting because He is already there, loving, offering, and inviting the soul into communion . We do not enter the Presence to make Him present; we enter so that His Presence may become more deeply present within us. He does not begin looking when we begin praying; He has already been looking. He does not begin loving when we become recollected; He is loving before our attention becomes capable of receiving that love (cf. Jn 6:37–40; 1 Jn 4:9–10). This reverses the ordinary understanding of prayer. We think adoration means looking at Jesus, yet the deeper mystery is that we first enter the gaze of One who eternally sees us. Hagar encountered the God who saw her in the desert when nobody else appeared to care about her existence (cf. Gen 16:7–14). Nathanael (cf. Jn 1:47–49) discovered that Jesus had seen him before their physical meeting, revealing a divine knowledge that precedes human recognition . The tabernacle therefore becomes a school of being seen. The ashamed sinner, the exhausted mother, the priest carrying hidden wounds, the religious experiencing dryness, the young person confused about vocation, the elderly person who feels forgotten—all arrive beneath a gaze that knows everything and withdraws nothing of love. The most profound act of Eucharistic adoration may therefore begin before words: allowing Jesus to look at the person we spend our entire life trying to hide. We may conceal our weakness from family, disguise failure before friends, hide fears from colleagues, and even refuse to acknowledge our sins within ourselves; yet before the tabernacle, we stand before the One from whom nothing within us is hidden (cf. Ps 139:1–4; Heb 4:13). Our Adorable Jesus already knows what we struggle to reveal, yet His knowing is not rejection; it is the beginning of mercy . Yet His knowledge does not become rejection. It becomes love. This is the first mystical wound of the Appeal: He sees us completely, and He remains.

Then comes the painful contrast: “while in front of Me… they turn their mind and attention away.” There is something deeper here than ordinary distraction. The human person possesses a remarkable capacity to escape from the One who is closest. Adam hid from God after sin, not because God had disappeared but because shame had altered Adam's ability to remain beneath the divine gaze (cf. Gen 3:8–10). Cain similarly withdrew into a self-enclosed world after his brother's murder (cf. Gen 4:8–16). The soul before the tabernacle can reproduce this ancient movement in miniature. The body remains, but the interior person flees. The mind may flee into memories, calculations, imagined conversations, resentments, anxieties, ambitions, or rehearsed fears because remaining quietly before Jesus can disturb the fragile securities around which we have built our inner world (cf. Ps 139:23–24; Mt 6:21). Sometimes distraction is therefore more than simple difficulty concentrating; it can reveal a heart reluctant to remain exposed before divine Love . We may escape into thoughts because Christ’s Presence gently reaches places within us that we have learned to avoid. Yet precisely there, Our Adorable Jesus waits—not to condemn the wounded soul, but to receive what it has been afraid to surrender (cf. Heb 4:15–16; 1 Jn 4:18). A man kneels before Jesus after betraying his wife but spends the entire Holy Hour planning how to justify himself. A religious receives a correction and spends adoration mentally proving that the superior was wrong. A businesswoman brings a financial anxiety before the Eucharist but refuses to surrender control of the outcome. A young person asks Jesus for freedom from an attachment while secretly protecting the attachment in imagination. A parish leader kneels before the Blessed Sacrament while internally rehearsing how to defeat another parishioner. These are not simply failures of concentration. They reveal the places where attention is protecting an attachment from the gaze of Christ. St. Teresa of Ávila's teaching on recollection is profound here: prayer gathers the scattered powers of the person back toward the divine Friend. The Catechism(cf. CCC 2709–2711) presents this interior recollection as fundamental to contemplative prayer, where the heart gathers itself before God and lovingly turns toward Him . Therefore, when the mind drifts away, we need not become impatient with ourselves. We can quietly turn inward and ask: What drew my heart away, and what fear, longing, wound, memory, or attachment was seeking my attention? . The distraction itself can become an invitation to deeper self-knowledge and a gentler return to Christ . The wandering mind can become a quiet map revealing what still occupies the interior life . Then every return to Jesus becomes more than the recovery of concentration; it becomes a little surrender, a renewed choosing of His Presence over whatever has captured the heart (cf. Jn 15:4; Phil 3:13–14).

“I am looking and loving them” contains perhaps the most astonishing sentence in the Appeal. Jesus does not say merely that He sees them; He joins seeing and loving. Divine vision is not cold observation. He sees everything and loves without abandoning truth. This is precisely what humanity struggles to do. We often see people's failures and withdraw affection; Jesus sees the entire wound and continues to love while calling the person toward conversion (cf. Jn 8:1–11). The gaze of Christ upon Peter after his denial was not merely accusation; it pierced him into repentance without destroying him (cf. Lk 22:61–62). The gaze of Jesus upon the rich young man(cf. Mk 10:17–22) contained love even though the man ultimately walked away from the invitation to surrender his possessions . This gives Eucharistic adoration a profound reparative dimension: the soul comes before the One whose love is repeatedly refused, and chooses to remain where others have chosen to leave. At this point adoration becomes companionship. The world may ignore Him; the soul remembers Him. The world may hurry past; the soul remains. The world may use His Name carelessly; the soul speaks it with reverence. The world may receive His gifts while forgetting the Giver; the soul returns thanks. A hospital cleaner may spend five minutes before the tabernacle before beginning a night shift and offer the coming hours for dying patients. A truck driver may stop at a small roadside church, kneel briefly, and entrust to Jesus the strangers he will meet. A mother may adore while holding the knowledge that her child has abandoned the faith. A priest may remain before the Eucharist after hearing accusations against himself, refusing to let wounded pride dictate his next pastoral decision. St. Margaret Mary Alacoque's Eucharistic spirituality of reparation illuminates this mystery of remaining near Love that is not adequately loved. Yet the deeper mystery is not that we console Our Adorable Jesus because His divine Love lacks power, but because He freely desires the loving response of the creature (cf. Jn 15:9–13; Rev 3:20). When love is refused, the adoring soul offers a free response where indifference has closed the heart: one act of adoration, one hour of loving presence, becomes a quiet human “yes” answering the divine Love that has been neglected (cf. Mt 26:40–41; Jn 4:23–24). In this way, the soul before the tabernacle becomes a small but real response of love to Love.

There is another mystical paradox hidden here: Jesus remains perfectly present even when the soul is imperfectly attentive. The Eucharistic presence does not fluctuate according to our emotions. The consecrated Host does not contain “more Jesus” when we are recollected and “less Jesus” when we are distracted. Christ remains wholly present by the sacramental reality of His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity (cf. CCC 1374). This is spiritually devastating to the ego because it destroys our tendency to make experience the measure of reality. A person may feel nothing and yet be before infinite Love. A person may experience profound consolation and yet be spiritually resisting conversion. The prophet Elijah discovered God not in the spectacular manifestations he expected but in the mysterious stillness that followed them (cf. 1 Kgs 19:9–13). The disciples(cf. Mk 4:35–41) on the stormy sea believed themselves abandoned while Jesus was physically present with them, even though they interpreted His silence as absence . Likewise, the soul may say, “Jesus seems far away,” while the deeper truth is that Jesus has not moved even one step. This becomes crucial for the sick, the elderly, the depressed in spirit, the exhausted parent, the religious in dryness and anyone who cannot sustain prolonged concentration. An elderly woman whose memory permits only brief moments of attention may repeatedly turn toward the tabernacle and whisper the Name of Jesus. A dying patient may be unable to formulate a prayer but can offer a single conscious movement of love. A person with a restless mind may spend an hour returning to Christ a hundred times. Heaven does not measure prayer merely by the length of our concentration, but by the love with which we return whenever distraction, weakness, or dryness carries the mind elsewhere (cf. Mt 6:6; Lk 18:1). St. John of the Cross reveals through his teaching on spiritual dryness that the disappearance of sensible consolation does not signify the departure of God; often, the soul is being invited to love Him more purely, beyond feelings and spiritual sweetness . The distracted soul that lovingly returns to Christ may be offering Him something more precious than it realizes: the freedom to begin again. The soul may actually be learning a purer faith: to adore not because adoration feels beautiful, but because Jesus is worthy of adoration even when the soul feels nothing (cf. CCC 2729–2731). This is one of the deepest forms of Eucharistic fidelity.

The final mystery is perhaps the most demanding: what Jesus asks to receive from us before the tabernacle is ultimately not our attention alone, but our entire attention transformed into love. The mind is the doorway through which the heart gathers itself; attention is therefore capable of becoming an offering. When we deliberately return from resentment to Jesus, we offer Him our memory. When we stop planning revenge, we offer Him our imagination. When we surrender anxiety, we offer Him our future. When we refuse impurity, we offer Him our desires. When we forgive, we offer Him our wounds. When we choose silence instead of immediately reaching for the phone, we surrender our attention to Christ and allow our time to become an offering (cf. Ps 46:10; Mk 1:35). When we kneel before the tabernacle after a serious fall and refuse to hide from His mercy, even our shame can become the beginning of repentance and return . Nothing sincerely surrendered to Our Adorable Jesus is wasted—not even the time we give Him, nor the shame we bring before His merciful Presence. This is why Eucharistic adoration can become a hidden school of self-emptying. Jesus is not merely asking, “Will you look at Me?” He is gradually asking, “Will you allow Me to possess the places to which your attention continually escapes?” The Samaritan woman discovered that Jesus could enter the hidden history she preferred not to expose (cf. Jn 4:16–19). Peter discovered that Christ could enter the wound of his denial and transform it into pastoral love (cf. Jn 21:15–17). Mary Magdalene(cf. Jn 20:11–18) discovered that the place of her deepest grief could become the place of resurrection encounter . Thus the tabernacle becomes more than a destination; it becomes an interior furnace. We enter carrying scattered thoughts and gradually learn recollection; we enter carrying wounds and learn trust; we enter carrying sins and learn mercy; we enter carrying other souls and learn intercession; we enter carrying ourselves and learn surrender. St. Gertrude the Great's Eucharistic devotion, St. Clare of Assisi's profound Eucharistic contemplation and St. Peter Julian Eymard's spirituality of Eucharistic self-giving each point toward this transformation of presence into offering. The final question of the Appeal is therefore terrifyingly intimate: While Jesus is looking at me with uninterrupted love, where exactly am I looking? And if I discover that I have wandered, the answer is not despair. It is simply to turn again. To look again. To remain again. To let His gaze find us again. For perhaps the greatest Eucharistic miracle within us is not that we never become distracted, but that after every wandering, grace teaches us how to return to the One who never stopped looking at us.

Prayer 

Our Adorable Jesus, You remain before us, looking and loving when our minds wander. Gather our scattered hearts back to You. Teach us to adore You in silence, consolation and dryness. May every return to Your Eucharistic Presence become an act of love, reparation and surrender to Your Sacred Heart. Amen.

Sr. Anna Ali of the Most Holy Eucharist, intercede for us.

Divine Appeal 184

ON THE EUCHARIST:A DIVINE APPEAL

(Revelation to Sr Anna Ali of the Most Holy Eucharist)

VOLUME 1

“Contemplate My Love from My Divine Mercy in the sacrament of My Love, behold what I represent...”

“My daughter, contemplate My Love from My Divine Mercy in the Sacrament of My Love; behold what I represent, I am very present in every Consecrated Host.

By replication of My Presence in each particle all over the world I dwell and abide sacramentally. This is the very and universal Presence of My Divine Love.

To the souls consecrated to Me, I am a stranger. Many come before My Tabernacle, while in front of Me and I looking and loving them, they turn their mind and attention away. Many possess the devil willingly within them. They come before My mystery, receive Me, then cast Me at the feet of the devil to whom they have consecrated themselves.

Day and night I continue bearing these sacrileges with tears of blood. My Love is greater than their sins. I love mankind more than they offend Me. With love I call them back bearing abuses, insults and blasphemies. If only they listen and respond to My calling! My desire is to save them. I love mankind so much and that is why I did not hesitate to lay down My Life for them. I was dead and now I live forever. The everlasting ages are mine.

I only receive insults. I have nowhere comfortable for Me in the souls I love so much. I have nothing more precious like the souls of mankind. Many souls are running to perdition and they are eternally lost. I do not wish anyone to perish. The world is full of perils. I come to exhort sinners.

As I am exposed, I will pour the treasures of My Infinite Mercy into human souls.”

“I give My blessing.”

12.00 a.m., 14th July 1988

Copyright © 2015 The Late Bishop Cornelius K. Arap Korir | Catholic Diocese of Eldoret, Kenya. All rights reserved. Reproduced by adivineappeal.com from "On the Eucharist: A Divine Appeal" (Vol. 1).