Divine Appeal Reflection - 181
Today, consider in Divine Appeal 181: "Respond to My Love. I lead, bless and strengthen you. Seek to console Me. Do not be afraid to lose yourself. Follow Me along this painful path. I am Love and union is Love... My Divine..."
“Respond to My Love” reveals a mystery more demanding than merely knowing that Jesus loves us: Love is standing before the soul and waiting for an answer. The initiative is entirely His; the response becomes ours. Before we prayed, He loved; before we understood grace, He was drawing us; before we could offer anything, He had already offered Himself (cf. 1 Jn 4:19; Rom 5:8). “I lead, bless and strengthen you” discloses a hidden geography of grace: Jesus does not merely accompany a soul after it has chosen Him; He mysteriously prepares the road, supplies strength for the next step and sometimes permits the soul to discover its poverty precisely so that it may learn dependence. The young Samuel did not recognise the divine voice immediately; he needed Eli to teach him how to listen (cf. 1 Sam 3:1–10). The disciples at Emmaus(cf. Lk 24:13–32) walked beside Christ while remaining unable to recognise Him until grace opened their hearts to see what their eyes could not perceive . Something similar can happen within ordinary existence: Christ may approach disguised beneath what the soul would rather escape—an interruption that ruins the schedule, a person whose presence irritates us, a duty that feels beneath our dignity, a delay that exposes our impatience, or a suffering that reveals an attachment hidden even from ourselves. A doctor may discover that the difficult patient is asking for compassion rather than efficiency; a mother may encounter Christ anew in the child whose needs have completely altered her imagined future; a priest may meet the suffering Christ in the penitent who returns yet again after falling . Grace does not always arrive in forms that please the ego. Sometimes grace arrives through circumstances we would never have chosen, gently dismantling our attachment to control so that God can lead the heart beyond its own designs into a deeper communion with Him . What appears to disrupt our plans may become the very path through which Christ enlarges the soul. The mystical response is therefore deeper than emotional consolation: it is consent. “Jesus, if You have allowed me to meet You here, teach me how to love You here.” This is the beginning of mystical obedience—recognising that even an unwanted moment can become sacred when surrendered to Christ (cf. Rom 8:28; CCC 2716–2717).
“Seek to console Me” enters an even more mysterious chamber of Eucharistic spirituality. The infinite Christ does not need consolation as a deficient creature needs comfort; yet, in the economy of His Incarnation and Eucharistic self-giving, He permits His Heart to be encountered as rejected, forgotten and wounded by the sins of humanity. The soul is invited into the astonishing vocation of standing where love is refused. Simeon saw beforehand that Mary's union with Christ would pass through a sword (cf. Lk 2:34–35). At Calvary, the beloved disciple remained near the Cross when many others had disappeared (cf. Jn 19:25–27). The women who followed Jesus from Galilee continued their fidelity when the visible triumph of His mission had collapsed into apparent defeat (cf. Lk 23:49, 55–56). Their apostolate was no longer accomplishing outward things; it was simply remaining with Love when Love appeared defeated. This is the hidden meaning of consolation. A soul may console Jesus by quietly repairing something it damaged without waiting to be discovered, by giving up the last word in an argument, by praying for the person who received the promotion it secretly desired, by returning money accidentally overpaid when nobody would have noticed, by sitting with a grieving stranger at a funeral when others have already left, by choosing not to expose a colleague's mistake for personal advantage, or by blessing in prayer the person whose rejection still hurts . A teacher may spend personal time preparing a struggling student whom nobody expects to succeed; a nurse may preserve the dignity of an unconscious patient who cannot thank her; a father may surrender his evening plans to accompany a frightened child; a young person may delete a cruel message before sending it; a religious may accept an unwanted assignment without allowing resentment to enter prayer . These hidden sacrifices become little sanctuaries of consolation because they allow Christ's love to triumph precisely where self-love would have demanded its rights. A night-shift security guard may whisper a prayer each time he passes a chapel door. A prisoner may offer his inability to change his circumstances as an intercession for souls. Such acts appear microscopic before the world. Mystically, they can become acts of companionship with the rejected Christ. The Catechism's teaching on Eucharistic adoration and reparation opens precisely this horizon: Christ remains truly present and invites the Church to linger before Him in worship (cf. CCC 1378–1381). Consolation is therefore not sentimentality. It is the courage to say, by one's presence, “Jesus, where You are forgotten, I will remember You.”
“Do not be afraid to lose yourself” strikes at the secret idol hidden even inside religious life: the desire to remain in possession of oneself while appearing to belong to God. We can surrender money and still protect our pride; surrender time and still demand recognition; serve others and still secretly require gratitude; pray and still insist that God follow our preferred timetable. Yet Jesus speaks of a deeper death—the death of the inner proprietor. The widow of Zarephath released the little she believed remained between herself and starvation (cf. 1 Kgs 17:8–16). The unnamed boy in the Gospel surrendered his small meal, not knowing that Jesus would make his poverty sufficient for a multitude (cf. Jn 6:8–13). Ananias,(cf. Acts 9:10–19) a comparatively hidden disciple, accepted the frightening mission of approaching Saul, the persecutor, because obedience had become greater than personal calculation . These scenes reveal a mystical law: God often asks for the very thing through which we define our security. A parish treasurer may be asked to admit an accounting mistake that could damage his reputation. A religious superior may receive an unjust accusation and discover that the greater sacrifice is not defending herself immediately. A father may surrender the dream of the career he planned for his son. A successful professional may refuse an opportunity obtained through another person's exploitation. A talented choir member may rejoice when another singer receives the solo. A husband may stop collecting evidence of his wife's past mistakes. A woman abandoned by her spouse may surrender the desire to make everyone hear her side of the story and instead entrust her vindication to God. These are hidden deaths. Yet they create interior space. St. John of the Cross understood that the soul cannot become completely receptive to God while clinging possessively to created things. The Catechism(cf. CCC 1430, 2015) likewise places self-denial within the path of discipleship, not as contempt for the person but as liberation for authentic freedom . To lose oneself in Christ is therefore not to become insignificant. It is to lose the false self that must control, possess, explain and be applauded, so that the true self—created for communion with God—can finally breathe.
“Follow Me along this painful path” reveals that Love does not merely ask for surrender; it sometimes asks the soul to remain faithful precisely where fidelity hurts. Christianity becomes most mysterious when obedience and suffering meet. Christ's Cross is not a celebration of pain for its own sake; it is the revelation that love can remain faithful when every natural reason for continuing seems exhausted (cf. Phil 2:6–8; Heb 12:2–3). The three young men entering the furnace did not know beforehand how God would deliver them; they knew only whom they would not abandon (cf. Dan 3:16–25). Eleazar's fidelity in old age shows that some sacrifices become more precious precisely because the person has fewer earthly years left to enjoy the consequences (cf. 2 Macc 6:18–31). St. Gemma Galgani's hidden union with Christ in suffering and St. Elizabeth of the Trinity's interior recollection reveal a mystery easily overlooked: some of the greatest offerings before God are made precisely when nothing impressive appears to be happening. The father caring for a child who cannot understand his sacrifice, the religious sister serving without gratitude, the priest hearing confessions while carrying his own hidden battle, the farmer enduring a failed harvest without allowing bitterness to poison his home, the elderly woman confined to her room yet uniting her weakness to the Eucharistic Sacrifice, or the young man quietly fighting impurity and beginning again after every fall—these lives may remain invisible to the world, yet they can become profoundly Eucharistic (cf. Rom 12:1; Col 3:3). Heaven measures differently from human applause. What appears wasted may become worship when surrendered in faith, hope, and charity (cf. CCC 1505; 1521–1522). The Eucharistic Christ reveals this paradox most perfectly: hidden beneath humble appearances, silent before the world, apparently inactive, yet offering Himself completely and conquering through love (cf. Jn 6:51; CCC 1374). The decisive question therefore emerges when discipleship becomes costly: Can I still call Christ good when obedience asks me to surrender something I cannot recover? Here faith passes beyond admiration into sacrifice, and love becomes real precisely because it remains when there is no visible reward .
“I am Love and union is Love” finally unveils the destination: God does not want merely religious people; He wants communion. Union with Christ is not the disappearance of human personality but its transfiguration into charity. The soul becomes increasingly capable of loving with a love that originates beyond itself (cf. Jn 15:4–5; Gal 2:20). Jonathan's friendship with David offers an unusual biblical image of love that does not possess but gives space for another's good (cf. 1 Sam 18:1–4; 20:13–17). Barnabas shows another mystery: he could recognise God's grace operating in someone whom others distrusted and then spend himself strengthening that person (cf. Acts 11:22–26). The obscure servant girl who directed Naaman toward healing demonstrates how a seemingly powerless person can become the hidden doorway through which another encounters God's mercy (cf. 2 Kgs 5:1–4). This is the apostolic consequence of union: the soul becomes a place through which Jesus can reach someone else. A receptionist can speak one sentence that prevents a desperate person from surrendering to despair. A teacher can deliberately remember the name of the child whom everyone else has reduced to a problem (cf. Isa 43:1; 1 Thess 5:14). A doctor can slow down before a frightened patient, allowing dignity to precede diagnosis (cf. Lk 10:33–37). A husband can recognise exhaustion beneath his wife's silence and respond with tenderness rather than demand . A priest can kneel beside a penitent expecting condemnation and become an instrument of the Father's mercy . A young woman can refuse to circulate a humiliating photograph, quietly defending the dignity of someone who may never know she protected them . In such hidden choices, Christ's charity becomes tangible. A contemplative can spend decades hidden from public recognition while carrying missionaries, sinners and dying souls before the Eucharistic Heart. This is where “union is Love” becomes revolutionary: what enters us from Christ must eventually pass through us toward another soul. The Eucharist is therefore not merely communion received at an altar; it is a school of becoming bread broken for others (cf. CCC 1324, 1391–1397). Jesus leads us toward a love that no longer asks, “What will this cost me?” but, “Where is love asking me to remain?” Then the soul becomes a hidden tabernacle—not because it possesses Christ as property, but because Christ possesses its freedom, its wounds, its relationships, its suffering and its ordinary hours. The final response to Divine Love is thus astonishingly simple and immeasurably costly: to let Jesus love through us until our life itself becomes His answer to a wounded world.
Prayer
Our Adorable Jesus, teach us to answer Your Love with our whole being. When You lead us through pain, keep us faithful. When You are forgotten, let us console You. Free us from ourselves, unite us completely to Your Heart, and make every hidden sacrifice a living offering for souls. Amen.
Sr. Anna Ali of the Most Holy Eucharist, intercede for us.
