The Bread of Life

Holy Spirit, you are the Father of our spiritual life. Our souls look up to you with confidence. Give them the celestial food in abundance.

Wisdom, that we may always remain on the right path;

Understanding, the light of which will guide us and make us humble;

Counsel, that will prompt us to heed your inspirations;

Fortitude, that will give us courage in the face of obstacles and sacrifices;

Knowledge, the torch of which enkindles holy enthusiasm;

Piety, the mother of invincible energy and unwavering perseverance amid all immolations to the point of heroism, to the point of martyrdom;

Fear, through which we avoid even the shadow of sin, for fear of losing the ineffable treasure of divine friendship.

O good and gentle Spirit, give to our souls the gifts we seek, through Jesus Christ, Our Lord. Amen

Thank you, Lord, for all the graces with which you constantly bless me and which shed light for me like sunlight. By them you lead me along the path of truth.

Thank you for having created me, for having called me from nothingness into existence, for having impressed upon my soul your divine imprint and for having done all of this solely out of love.

Thank you, dear God, for the holy Baptism which brought me into your divine family, an incredible gift that transformed my soul.

I thank you, Lord, for holy confession, that inexhaustible source of mercy, that source of inconceivable graces, making souls stained by sin white again.

Thank you, Jesus, for Holy Communion by which you give yourself to me. Sweet Jesus, enkindle my love for you and transform me into yourself. Divinize me so that my deeds may be pleasing to you. May this be accomplished through the power of Holy Communion which I wish to receive as often as possible. Oh, how greatly I desire to be wholly transformed into you, O Lord!

O eternal God, a prisoner of my heart, when I possess you, I am in possession of the whole of heaven. With the angels, I hymn your holiness and I want to live solely for your glory.

O God, so great and unbelievable, who have deigned to humble yourself to such a degree, I humbly praise you and I beseech you to save me.

Almighty God, always merciful, your mercy is never exhausted. Although my wretchedness is as immense as the sea, I have an absolute confidence in your divine mercy.

Be merciful to me, Lord, listening only to the love of your Sacred Heart. Heed my sighs and my prayers, as well as the tears of my contrite heart.

O eternal Trinity, God endlessly good, your mercy is never calculated. I trust in your boundless mercy and I proclaim your goodness.

Through Holy Communion, my heart is a living tabernacle in which is preserved the living Host. I never have to look very far for you because you are dwelling in me. It is in the depths of my very own being that I can meet you, O holy and merciful God.

Thank you, most merciful Heart of Jesus, living source of all graces, my only shelter, my only refuge; in you is to be found all my hope.

Thank you, very compassionate Eucharistic Heart of my God, unfathomable source of love from which pours forth the life of souls, as well as the source of all goodness.

Thank you, most holy and wounded Heart of Jesus, from which radiate the rays of your divine mercy. From it I can draw upon life with complete confidence.

Thank you, O God of goodness, for your inconceivable love. Filled with love and mercy, you look down upon me as a good mother would bend over me, in order to give me all the graces I need day after day.

Thank you, God of Mercy, Lamb of God. You who have offered your life for me and who give yourself to me in the Holy Host, be thanked for ever and ever.

I adore you, Holy Eucharist, with a deep faith, a lively hope and an ardent love. I adore you from the very depths of my soul, even if I am a nothing and a sinner.

I adore you, hidden God, and I love you with all my heart. You are concealed from my sight through the veils of mystery, but not from my heart. Thus, I adore you and love you with the holy angels and all the saints in heaven.

I adore you, Lamb of God who take away the sins of my soul and whom I receive in my heart every day. By this unique means, you help me progress along the road to heaven.

O my God, grant that all that is in me may venerate you, my Creator and Master. I wish to glorify your unfathomable mercy with every beat of my heart.

Jesus said: “O you that cry because separation [from your mother] is painful for you and seems complete, consider what Jesus is saying to you. And you will see that this separation is not complete and that the pain diminishes.

My apostle [Saint Paul] utters inspired words to which a meaning connected exclusively with those living on earth is usually attributed. But it has a broader and deeper meaning which I shall reveal for all of you, children who weep, for all of you in pain who suffer over the death of a loved one.

Did not the ones who died feed on my Blood and on the Flesh which became bread for men? And if they fed on it, does not the power of the Blood and the Flesh of your Savior remain in them even beyond death?

And what can human death do as compared to the superhuman spirit? Does the little death perhaps have the power to separate part of my members from Me, who lives eternally, just because they died on earth? And do you not live in Me, constituting that part of my Mystical Body which lives on earth?

Aren’t these incontrovertible truths? Yes, they are. Know, know, O all of you that weep over the pain of a recent loss, that the one you weep for is not dead, but lives in Me.

Know that the very same Bread which fed your souls while you were together on earth maintains life and communion between your spirits living here below and the departed living in me.

The little death can do no harm to the immortal spirits. The great death is the one to be feared, the one that really takes a relative of yours, a spouse, or a friend away from you eternally.

The great death – that is, the damnation of the soul – which really separates from Me cells of my Mystical Body that have fallen prey to the gangrenes of Satan.

But for those who have died in my Name and have nourished in themselves the life of the spirit with the Eucharistic Food, which does not perish and which always preserves one from eternal death, no, for them there is nothing to weep over, but reason to rejoice, for they have emerged from the danger of death to enter into Life.

Consider all of you, consider, that it is quite hard for someone who has fed on Me to be a brother of Judas, like the one for whom my Bread was not Life, but Death.

According to their capacity for spiritual assimilation, my Bread – that is, Myself made into food to give men the strength to conquer Heaven and the currency to enter it – will give them a more or less prompt entry into the Kingdom of glory, but in ninety-nine percent of cases it always gives the salvation of the soul.

Do not weep, then, parents left without children, spouses left without your consorts, orphans left without parents. Do not weep. As I did to the mother in the Gospel, I, who never lie, say to you, “Do not weep.”

Believe in Me: I will give you back the being that you love, and I will give that being back to you in a kingdom where the sad death of earth has no access and where the horrible death of the spirit is no longer possible.

Do not weep. Upon all of you, may this hope which is faith descend, and my blessing.”

(Taken from The Notebooks by Maria Valtorta)

Eternal Father, we offer you all the virtues, all the acts, all the affections of the Heart of your beloved Jesus, present in the most Blessed Sacrament. Accept them for us, and through His merits, grant us the graces Jesus requests for us.

Through the Body and Blood of Jesus, we also wish to thank you for all the mercy shown us and atone for all we owe you because of our sins.

Finally, through His merits, we hope to receive from you all the graces needed to persevere in doing good and, above all, the supreme gift of your pure love for all eternity. Amen.

Sacred Heart of Jesus, hasten your reign over the world. Consciences are being perverted more and more, and your absence is progressively being felt in all walks of life.