The Honor of Giving Blood

The Honor of Giving Blood is Christ’s gift to all he commissions to distribute and are given the task.

The leftover Wine transformed is the Blood that is poured down the Sacrarium

The Bread goes on display in the Monstrance

The flea hangs out on the dented Tabernacle 

And now We remember how you loved us to your death,
and still we celebrate, for you are with us here;
and we believe that we will see you when you come in your glory, Lord.
We remember, we celebrate, we believe.

by Celebrating The Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ

Corpus Christi

Wine and Bread

The dinner feast was sure fine
Your first miracle, water to wine.
Your disciples saw and were amazed
As on the choicest wine they gazed.

Did they think they’d seen it all
That day at the wedding ball?
But in the end, before you died,
Night before you were crucified,

There was wine to drink from human toil
From grapes that grew from Earth’s soil
And with this wine You showed your love
It became your very Blood.

Like the bread that on the mount you did share
A few loaves fed five thousand there.
At your Last Supper with broken bread,
This is what you indeed said:

“This is my Body true
Given up for love of you.”
So it is the wine and wheat,
Which we drink and which we eat

During the Mass at Transubstantiation
They became a new creation.
No longer just food from plants grown in our sod.
They become the very Body and the Blood of God.

When it was evening, the disciples approached him and said, “This is a deserted place and it is already late; dismiss the crowds so that they can go to the villages and buy food for themselves.” (Jesus) said to them, “There is no need for them to go away; give them some food yourselves.” But they said to him, “Five loaves and two fish are all we have here.” Then he said, “Bring them here to me, “and he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, he said the blessing, broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, who in turn gave them to the crowds. They all ate and were satisfied, and they picked up the fragments left over – twelve wicker baskets full. Those who ate were about five thousand men, not counting women and children. Mt 14:15-21

We Need a New Monstrance

This Monstrance is so pretty,
But its designer was not so witty.
The Body of Christ is centered there
For us to come and kneel near.

But where is the wood splintering hard
On which they crucified our God?
He did not die on lovely gilded gold,
On a cross that a catalog sold.

Where is the Blood, the sweat, the dirt
Reminding us how much He hurt.
Can’t we hang Him on wood of a splintery tree
To remind us of Calvary?

Write INRI at the top
And this is still not where I stop.
For the base not gold but mud,
Mingled with sweat and Blood.

If a Monstrance is a Crucifix, as I have been told,
Why ought it be plated with that shining gold?

So he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, ‘Go into the city and you will meet a man carrying a pitcher of water. Follow him,
and say to the owner of the house which he enters, “The Master says: Where is the room for me to eat the Passover with my disciples?”
He will show you a large upper room furnished with couches, all prepared. Make the preparations for us there.’
The disciples set out and went to the city and found everything as he had told them, and prepared the Passover.
Mark 14:13-16

Also listen to his homily on the feast of Corpus Christi

Sacrarium

What a sad sink this must be,
Yet one so honored and holy.
Because when no one else is here to take another holy drink
Jesus’ Blood gets poured down this very sink.

I’m sure it would rather the people drink instead
For they are most in need of the Blood of Christ, who was risen from the dead.
He told us to drink His blood and we’d live forever.
When did He promise this to a sink? I think probably never.

Yet if I could not be a person I’d love to be this sink
Because it’s the only other one who gets His blood to drink
Except the Earth so honored too.
Does the ground appreciate His Precious Blood so true?

And could there be more holy ground
In all the world ever found
Than the ground just here below
Where the pipes send their flow?

For to the Earth it makes its way
Where it will forever stay.
It is indeed quite sad so
To watch His Precious Blood just go.

Because it cannot be difficult, no not so hard
To see we need His Blood more than sink or sod!

Then he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.’He did the same with the cup after supper, and said, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood poured out for you.
Luke 22: 19-20

Blood

Dying baby receives blood
Grateful for ten strangers love
Healthy I grew and came to say
It is finally my turn to give blood away.

I try to donate but they say “NO!”
I can never give blood they tell me so.
So sad was I when I hung up the phone
Just lay down to cry alone.

Then I turned my thoughts to prayer
Knowing that my God would care
For there is blood more precious than mine,
True gift from our Brother Divine.

Now I hand out His holy cup at Mass.
Such an honor to give Blood at last!

Jesus replied to them: In all truth I tell you, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
Anyone who does eat my flesh and drink my blood has eternal life, and I shall raise that person up on the last day.
For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me and I live in that person.
John 6: 53- 56

Click here to read another Eucharistic Poem named Flea 

Click here to read another Eucharistic Poem named Tabernacle

Corpus Christi occurs this year on June 6

The Anniversary of D-Day

In 1944  the Commencement of Operation Overlord, took place. This was  the Allied invasion of Normandy during WWII. With the execution of Operation Neptune—commonly referred to as D-Day—the largest seaborne invasion in history took place. Nearly 160,000 Allied troops cross the English Channel with about 5,000 landing and assault craft, 289 escort vessels, and 277 minesweepers participating. By the end of the day, the Allies have landed on four invasion beaches and were pushing inland to take back Europe from the Nazis.

Fr. Ignatius Maternowski, of Holyoke, Massachusetts, stands as the first Polish-American priest to give his life in service to our country in World War II, and as the only US chaplain to die on D-Day in the Normandy invasion. He was posthumously awarded a “Purple Heart” by the US government. His name is commemorated on memorials in Holyoke, MA; Athol Springs, NY; Arlington National Cemetery, VA; London, England, and Normandy, France.

In the early morning hours of D-Day, Fr. Ignatius parachuted with a large number of troops into occupied territory, the hamlet of Guetteville in the town of Picauville. An American glider had crashed nearby. There were many casualties. Immediately Fr. Ignatius began ministering to the wounded paratroopers and glider victims. Realizing that a suitable aid station would be needed, Fr. Ignatius calculated a risky strategy: attempting negotiations with his German counterpart, in the peaceful hope of combining their wounded together in one common hospital. Walking between enemy lines unarmed, with helmet hanging from his belt, and wearing his chaplain’s insignia and a Red Cross arm­band, he bravely went to meet with the head Nazi medic. As he returned through the no-man zone to the American side, he was shot in the back by an enemy sniper – becoming the only US chaplain to be killed on D-Day. He was 32 years of age, in the 5th year of his priesthood.

His dead body lay visible on the road for three days, because the enemy refused to allow it to be moved. On the 9th of June, US soldiers from the 90th Infantry Division recovered it, and removed it for burial near Utah Beach. In 1948, his remains were returned to Holyoke for a solemn Mass in Mater Dolorosa Church, and interment in the Franciscan Friars’ plot at Mater Dolorosa Cemetery in South Hadley, MA.
 Fr. Ignatius Maternowski, OFM Conv. | Our Lady of the Angels Province, USA (olaprovince.org)