The Mystery of Assimilation
Human love reaches its peak in "consummation" to "consume" the other. This points us directly to the Eucharistic Lord, who allows us to consume Him. Thus God satisfies the highest point of human love
"Mutual indwelling, the second effect of love, literally means that in love one inheres or exists in the other. The passion of love is not satisfied with mere possession but even seeks to assimilate the other into itself. There is hardly a woman in the world who has ever held a babe who did not say: "This child is so sweet. I would like to eat it." ("The baby is so cute, I could just eat him up!") Hidden in these words is the mystery of assimilation, which reaches its peak in Holy Communion, where the God Incarnate satisfies our desire for complete inherence with His divinity and humanity, under the form and appearance of Bread.
If one did not imply inherence, there would be no psychological explanation for the fact that the harm and injury done to our friends can be felt as done to us. This love in the supernatural order becomes an inherence that is identical with fixation. Sanctity is fixation in the love of God. Married love is fixation in human love for the love of God. "He who dwells in love dwells in God, and God in him" -I John 4:I7.
- Excerpt from the book "Three To Get Married" by Venerable Fulton Sheen
Human verbiage unveils divine mysteries. A woman says to her baby, "You are so cute, I just want to eat you up." We can find in this phrasing, the mystery of assimilation, which directs us to the Lord hidden under the appearance of Bread in Holy Communion, ready for us to consume, and be consumed by Him.
Human love reaches its peak in "consummation" to "consume" the other. This points us directly to the Eucharistic Lord, who allows us to consume Him. Thus God satisfies the highest point of human love, the need to consume and be consumed.
Therefore, we can conclude that The Eucharist, is truly the greatest gift God has to give us, the gift of Himself. To consume The Eucharist is to consume Love Incarnate. Union with God, “Transforming Union” is the highest degree of prayer, the 9th Level of prayer, which is to be "transformed into The Beloved (God) and The Beloved transformed into the lover." A real consummation of love.
The higher union with God that each spouse has, the closer union they have with each other and with God together, and two spouses can begin to love each other with the love of God when being "transformed into The Beloved."
"This indwelling of the thing or person loved is a fact in an intellectual as well as an effective way. The astronomer loves the stars, and he has the stars in his head, not in their material being but in a manner peculiar to his spiritual intellect. But if the universe were not in his head, he could not love the universe. Here the thing loved is in the lover. In affection, the lover inheres in the beloved, and the beloved in the lover." - Excerpt from the book "Three To Get Married" by Venerable Fulton Sheen
The mystery of assimilation finds its fullness in The Blessed Virgin Mary. The Holy Spirit overshadowed Her, and She conceived God. In essence, love begot love. When Christ instituted The Eucharist on Holy Thursday, think of how His Mother received Him in The Blessed Sacrament. Recall a mother’s love for her child, and the phrasing she uses to describe the depth of love for him or her. Now consider the gift The Eucharist would be to The Mother of God. For Christ, Her Son always remained in the flesh with His Mother, in and through the Eucharist. Do we comprehend the love of God? He knows we cannot live without Him, therefore He instituted a sacrament to remain in the flesh with us, until the very end of time.
The Annunciation
Love gives meaning to life. "God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him" - 1 John 4:16. God is love, therefore to consume God is to consume love, and to consume love is to be transformed into love.
"Jesus said to them: "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, you have no life in you." - John 6:53
Life without love is empty, hence life without The Eucharist is empty and void of life, since it is love which gives way to life. Everything good flows from the Eucharist, and the deepest longings of the human heart can be satiated in communion with God. Understanding the “mystery of assimilation” will help you to have a closer relationship with Christ. Realize that you were made for communion with God, and that sin is infidelity to your union with Him. We often run back to lesser loves unfaithfully, and all the while The Ultimate Love remains in steadfast faithfulness waiting for us. The peak of earthly human love, points and directs us to the Ultimate Love, which is Jesus Christ in The Eucharist. Everything in life has to be correctly ordered, with God being the center. Taking The Creator out of the equation is a recipe for disaster, since you can only do that which you are doing because you have been created by God. You can only love, because God first loved you. It’s wise to humble yourself, and realize that you didn’t create yourself, therefore you have no right to not love He who created you. The Saints would often exclaim “Blessed be You, O God for having created me.” To not love God implies that you do not love yourself, because you yourself, are created in God’s image and likeness and you were created out of God’s infinite love for you.
The Last Supper, The Institution of The Eucharist
"It is God you are looking for. Your unhappiness is not due to your want of a fortune, or high position, or fame, or sufficient vitamins; it is due not to a want of something outside you, but to a want of something inside you. You cannot satisfy a soul with husks! If the sun could speak, it would say that it was happy when shining; if a pencil could speak, it would say that it was happy when writing - for these were the purposes for which they were made. No wonder everything short of God disappoints you." - Venerable Fulton Sheen
We are the ones that block the effect the sacrament of Communion has to offer, within our souls. In order to receive something, you need to be an open and clean vessel. An unclean vessel filled with a lot of things, cannot receive anything into it. God comes to dwell in the pure vessel, one that is open to receiving Him. Such as how God commands that one must be pure to enter into the marriage bed, it is the same notion going into Communion with Him. Remember that earthly marriage is a reflection of the marriage between God and the human soul, and a prelude to the wedding feast of Heaven. Purity of soul is needed, and sin must be eradicated, to be unified with God. This is why we have the sacrament of confession in the Catholic Church. I invite you to reflect on what you may be doing that is hindering you from experiencing the sweetness that is The Eucharist. The ascent of the spiritual life is essentially ridding yourself of everything, until you find yourself like Adam and Eve, in the garden of Eden before the fall, needing nothing but God. The power of God is made manifest in a clean vessel. The mystery of assimilation is revealed in the lover.
We need God in the flesh, and He knows that. Behold and love The Eucharist!
"And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." - Matthew 28:20
Serviam.
January 12th is the Feast Day of Saint Marguerite Bourgeoys
“It seems to me that we do not pay enough attention to prayer, for unless it arises from the heart which ought to be its center, it is no more than a fruitless dream. Prayer ought to carry over into our thoughts, our words and our actions.” - Saint Marguerite Bourgeoys