Coram Sanctissimo
by Mother Mary Loyola
IV
The Son of Man
“I also have a heart as well as you.”
(Mark x. 38, 39.)
Our Lord does quite simply what some of us are too proud to do. He owns to the yearning felt by every human heart for the sympathy of its kind. He speaks plainly of His desire to share His joy and sorrows with His friends, and is at no pains to conceal His need of their support, His gratitude for their devotedness, His distress at their unfaithfulness and desertion. “Father, I will that where I am, they also whom Thou hast given Me may be with Me: that they may see My glory.”(John xvii) “You are they who have continued with Me in My temptations.”(Luke xxii) “My soul is sorrowful even unto death: stay you here, and watch with Me…Could you not watch one hour with Me?”(Matt xxvi) “The hour cometh…that you shall be scattered every man to his own, and shall leave Me alone.”(John xvi)
He comes to a weak woman for her compassion and her help. He asks her to spread abroad among His friends the words in which He unburdened His heart to her, and beg them to come and bear Him company in His life of solitude and neglect. To each one of us He says from the tabernacle: “Stay you here, and watch with Me…Could you not watch one hour with Me?” Or if not one hour, one quarter?
Stay with Me because I am going to offer My morning sacrifice, and men are too busy to assist at the oblation of Myself for them.
Stay with Me for a few moments at midday, when the glare of the world and its rush and its din are fiercest. Turn off the crowded pavement into the quiet church, “Come apart…and rest a little.”(Mark vi)
Stay with Me because it is towards evening and the day is now far spent. There will be no more visitors for Me today, none through the long hours of the night. Stay with Me because it is towards evening.
O Lover of men, so lonely, so forsaken, if Your object in staying with us day and night was to win our love, have You not failed? Has it been worth Your while to work miracle after miracle to produce Your Real Presence upon the altar? Have I made it worth Your while to be there for me? Jesus, dear Jesus, I bury my face in my hands; I know of no heart more ungrateful, more callous than my own. I have been miserably unmindful of Your Presence here for me. I have let self, pleasure, troubles even—anything and everything furnish an excuse for keeping away from You and neglecting You in that sacramental life which is lived here for me.
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