He is enjoying his time with me

Oh Divine House Guest, who has come into my soul, may You find rest for Yourself.

May You find refreshment for Yourself. May You find silence for yourself. May You take

delight in Your stay here.

I have often wondered and contemplated how to prepare myself to receive

Jesus, truly present Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Eucharist. For Jesus is the

King of Kings, and the Lord of Lords. He is our creator AND our savior. He is God

Himself, the Second Person of the Triune God! And in this moment of communion, He is

quite literally uniting His Divinity with my humanity, and my humanity with His Divinity.

How could I possibly prepare myself for my Lord? What about after receiving my Lord?

Do I just go off about the rest of my day and forget about Him?

In the book, The Story of a Soul, which depicts the life of St. Therese of Lisieux,

St. Therese says that to prepare herself for that moment of communion, she imagines

her soul as a piece of land. She then asks the Blessed Virgin Mary to cleanse the land

and to set up a huge tent filled with her jewelry on the land. Finally, she invites all the

saints to come and sing praises to God, awaiting His coming to dwell in the tent! This

sounded quite unbelievable to me and quite an expressive way to prepare for our King! I was satisfied.

Then our dear friends, the Uttaro’s come along…they introduced me to the

Divine House Guest Devotion. It’s almost as if it builds upon this imagery. In a time

where everyone is soaked in distractions, it can be a challenge to have time for silence.

A time for prayer. A time to engage our imagination. Our imagination is a gift from

Almighty God! How beautiful it is to close my eyes and imagine my soul as a house. I

first think of the House of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Her House is likened to the most

Immaculate magnificent castle and church in the world, and my house is like a

peasant’s house, with very tiny little rooms and barely a place to sit down and make

meals. However, I ask our Blessed Mother to come help me prepare this small dirty

house (with mud, dirt, dust, etc. all over the house), and to cleanse it and make it

Immaculate in preparation for the coming of the King! I ask Her to decorate this house

with Her beautiful Roses! I ask our Mother to prepare Her Son’s favorite meal in

preparation for His coming to dwell in this house. How amazing it is to have this Mother prepare Her Son’s spot, the throne, at the dinner table! And to prepare His room in this house! How awesome it is for Jesus, who is weary and tired, to lay eyes on His Mother as He approaches this house. For Him to smell His favorite meal and flowers while He is only a short distance away. And the embrace that Jesus gives His Mother upon seeing Her here, and the embrace he gives me. He enters this house, which no longer resembles my own, but is totally cleansed and purified by our Virgin Mother. This house now totally belongs to our Blessed Mother. She has made it her own, small it may be, but her own! We then spend the evening talking about our various activities of the day, and then finally the King goes to His room to rest.

I now open my eyes. I have found my answer! This answer is in the inner depths

of the heart, where only the Lord and His beloved speak to each other, as David sings

about in depth in the Book of Psalms. The Lord, who I have just received into my soul,

is with me throughout every moment of the day! Sometimes we [Jesus, Mary and I] are

talking actively with each other, as loved ones talk at a dinner table. Sometimes, we sit

on the couch together, and just sing songs together! Sometimes, He goes to rest in His

bed, and my soul is resting in Him. Sometimes I am just in His line of sight just dwelling

on Him in silence. I find myself enjoying the Lord’s presence with me always, at home at

work and as I go about my day. And He is enjoying His time with me.

Oftentimes when we hear words like “meditation,” “contemplation,” or “prayer”,

we don’t really make connections with them. They seem mundane and boring. However, bringing the gift of our imagination to prayer, truly opens a new dimension to our day to day lives. Our imagination helps us to prepare for this communion with the Triune God! Jesus commands us to pray always; He says to us that the Kingdom of Heaven is within us; and His beloved David speaks often of his heart to heart with the Lord, and so this is the “secret” of our lives. This imaginative and meditative dimension to prayer helps us to be even more fervent in our relationship with the Divine House Guest and keeps the flame of the Holy Spirit ablaze within us, to sustain us on our journey towards to the Kingdom of Heaven.

God bless you, the Uttaro’s, and may the Almighty and merciful Lord, through the

intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, shower you with the graces to spread your

beautiful devotion to many souls, and then some more!

Reflection by Matt F.