Prelate talks about St. Josemaria's love for the Eucharist

During the recent Holy Week gathering in Rome, a young girl from Brazil who was about to make her First Holy Communion asked the Prelate about St. Josemaria's devotion to the Blessed Eucharist

Father, I'm Andreia and I'm from Brazil.

First I'd like to thank you for your visit to our country in 2010.

We're expecting you in Rio de Janeiro for the World Youth Day 2013!

I met the Work through a friend at University in 2010.

I'd been baptized but didn't practise the faith.

I'm going to make my First Holy Communion here in Rome.

I'll pray for all your intentions when I have Jesus with me for the first time.

Father, this year is the centenary of St Josemaria's First Holy Communion.

You lived so close to him,

Could you tell us something about his devotion to the Holy Eucharist?

How can we increase our own devotion to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament?

I'm so happy you're making your First Holy Communion.

Think...

I don't know how old you are and I'm not going to ask...

But think that our Lord has been waiting for you since your Baptism,

for you to receive him and take him into your life,

and offer him refuge in your soul and body,

just as our Lady did.

Thank our Lord very much for the confidence he has in you.

Love him very much. Repay him...

We can't repay him for the love he has for us,

but we can, by using that Love of his

to have more strength and respond fully

with the love he himself has placed in our hearts.

Yes, St Josemaria was deeply devoted to the Holy Eucharist.

I can tell you that I served his Mass very often.

You could really notice how his attitude changed,

his dialogue with our Lord changed, after the words of Consecration,

when he was holding God in his hands.

And he wanted to treat him with loving care

not only at that moment but for all of his life.

So as he raised the Sacred Host or the Chalice, he said to our Lord:

"Dominus meus et Deus meus", My Lord and my God.

That's not just an aspiration for us to say,

He has to be our God and our Lord at every moment,

in all situations, in everything we do.

Then he would add: "Adauge nobis fidem, spem, caritatem!"

in the conviction that in that piece of bread

that is no longer bread, but the Body and Blood,

the Soul and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ,

he is there waiting for us.

And so, when he went into an oratory,

he would make a deep, devout, loving genuflexion,

knowing that his adoration of Christ ought to last

throughout the whole day, at every moment.

St Josemaria really loved

the Gospel scene with the disciples at Emmaus.

When those men have lost heart,

thinking that Christ has failed,

and he appears to them along the way.

And when do they discover it's Christ? When he breaks the bread.

And they tell each other,

"Weren't our hearts burning with love when he was talking to us?"

Ask our Lord to make you burn with love when he wants,

and also to make you burn with love

when you find devotion a little harder.