Wednesday in the Fourth Week of Easter

We pray Wednesday of the fourth week of Easter, offering our day to Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary and uniting it to the Mass throughout the world. We then hear Saint Hilary of Poitiers on how Christ abides in us through the Eucharist and close with petitions, devotions, and a final blessing. 

• opening invocation, doxology, and Morning Offering for family, friends, and the Holy Father 
• Saint Hilary on the Word made flesh and why the Incarnation changes what union with God means 
• the Eucharist as real communion where Christ lives in us and we live in him 
• scriptural grounding for sacramental unity, not only unity of will 
• closing collect asking to be filled with God’s promises 
• entrustment through Mary, plus Sacred Heart of Jesus and Our Lady of Guadalupe prayers 

If you found this time of prayer and reflection fruitful and would like more opportunities to grow in your faith, consider joining the Cristeros and purchasing our publications now available on Amazon.com. The Cristeros app is available on the Apple app and Google Play Store. More information on the Cristeros can be found at theCristeros.org. 

Transcript

Opening Prayer And Offering

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Wednesday, in the fourth week of Easter. In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. O God, come to my assistance. O Lord, make haste to help me. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. O Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I offer you my prayers, works, joys, and sufferings of this day, in union with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass throughout the world, for the remission of my sins, for the intentions of my family and friends, and in particular for the intentions of the Holy Father. Amen. From the Treatise on the Trinity by Saint Hilary of Poitiers. If the Word has truly been made flesh, and we in very truth receive the Word made flesh as food from the Lord, are we not bound to believe that He abides in us naturally? Born as a man, he assumed the nature of our flesh, so that now it is inseparable from Himself, and conjoined the nature of His own flesh to the nature of the eternal Godhead, in the sacrament by which his flesh is communicated to us. Accordingly, we are all one, because the Father is in Christ and Christ in us. He himself is in us through the flesh and we in him. And because we are united with him, our own being is in God. He himself testifies that we are in him through the sacrament of the flesh and blood bestowed upon us. In a short time, the world will no longer see me, but you will see me, because I live and you will live. On that day you will understand that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. If he wanted to indicate a mere unity of will, why did he set forth a kind of gradation and sequence in the completion of that unity? It can only be that, since he was in the Father through the nature of deity, and we, on the contrary, in him through his birth in the body, he wishes us to believe that he is in us through the mystery of the sacraments. From this we can learn the perfect unity through a mediator. For we abide in him, and he abides in the Father, and while abiding in the Father, he abides in us as well, so that we attain unity with the Father. For while Christ is in the Father naturally, according to his birth, we too are in Christ naturally, since he abides in us naturally. He himself has told us how natural this unity is. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me and I live in him. No one can be in Christ unless Christ is in him, because the only flesh which he has taken to himself is the flesh of those who have taken his. He had earlier revealed to us the sacrament of this perfect unity. As I, who am sent by the living Father, myself draw life from the Father, so whoever eats me will draw life from me. He lives because of the Father, and as he lives because of the Father, so we live because of his flesh. Every comparison is chosen to shape our understanding, so that we may grasp the subject concerned by help of the analogy set before us. To summarize, this is what gives us life: that we have Christ dwelling within our carnal selves through the flesh, and we shall live because of him in the same manner as he lives because of the Father. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood, he lives in me, and I in him, says the Lord. There is no great nation which has gods as near to it as our God is to us. He lives in me, and I in him, says the Lord. O God, life of the faithful, glory of the humble, blessedness of the just, listen kindly to the prayers of those who call on you, that they who thirst for what you generously promise may always have their fill of your plenty. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God forever and ever. Amen. Let us praise the Lord and give him thanks. All that I have and all that I am, I give to your hands, Jesus, through the heart of Mary, your blessed mother, amen. Sacred heart of Jesus, have mercy on us. Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. If you found this time of prayer and reflection fruitful and would like more opportunities to grow in your faith, consider joining the Cristeros and purchasing our publications now available on Amazon.com. The Cristeros app is available on the Apple app and Google Play Store. More information on the Cristeros can be found at theCristeros.org.