June 12, 2012 Tuesday: 10th Week in Ordinary Time

If we love the Blessed Sacrament, and if we delight to spend our time in adoration of this tremendous mystery of love, we cannot help finding out more and more about the charity of Christ. We cannot help gaining an intimate and personal knowledge of Jesus Who is hidden under the sacramental veils. But in proportion as we grow in our knowledge and love for Him, we will necessarily grow in the knowledge of His will for us. We will come to understand more and more how seriously He means us to take His "new commandment" that we love one another as He has loved us.

Indeed, if we fail to take this commandment seriously and if we find our devotional life concentrated upon a selfish desire for pious feelings that enclose us within ourselves and narrow our hearts, making us insensible to others or even contemptuous of them, we can be sure that our devotion is an illusion. We do not know Christ because we do not keep His word. For he only manifests Himself to those who do His will. And He wills to come to us in this Sacrament of His love not only in order to console us as individuals, but in order that we may give Him our hearts and let Him dwell in them, that through us He may love our brothers with our own love.

The Living Bread
Thomas Merton