• Is. 53:7:  Yet, he did not open his mouth.

• Ps. 123:  I lifted up my eyes to the hills.

• Mt. 5: 38-44:  Love your enemies.

• Lk. 22:19, 20:  Take and eat; take and drink.

• Jn. 3:30:  He must increase and I must decrease.

• Jn. 10: 10-11:  That they may have life and have it in abundance.

• Jn. 19:25-27:  Near the Cross of Jesus stood his mother.

• 1 Cor.9:19-23:  I have become all things to all.

• 1 Pet. 2: 19-25:  When he was abused he did not return abuse.

The most complete sacramental expression of the departure of Christ through the mystery of the Cross and Resurrection is the Eucharist. In every celebration of the Eucharist his coming, his salvific presence, is sacramentally realized: in the Sacrifice and in Communion. It is accomplished by the power of the Holy Spirit, as part of his own mission. Through the Eucharist the Holy Spirit accomplishes that strengthening of the inner man spoken of in the Letter to the Ephesians. Through the Eucharist, individuals and communities, by the action of the Paraclete-Counsellor, learn to discover the divine sense of human life, as spoken of by the Council: that sense whereby Jesus Christ fully reveals man to man himself, suggesting a certain likeness between the union of the divine persons, and the union of God's children in truth and charity. This union is expressed and made real especially through the Eucharist, in which man shares in the sacrifice of Christ which this celebration actualises, and he also learns to find himself ... through a ... gift of himself, through communion with God and with others, his brothers and sisters. (Pope John Paul II, Dominum et Vivificantem , Encyclical Letter On the Holy Spirit in the Life of the Church and the World, 1986,62)

Practical Suggestions: Being All to All

Can we not make this year of the Eucharist an occasion for diocesan and parish communities to commit themselves in a particular way to responding with fraternal solicitude to one of the many forms of poverty present in the world? I think for example of the tragedy of hunger which plagues hundreds of millions of human beings, the diseases which afflict developing countries, the loneliness of the elderly, the hardships faced by the unemployed, the struggles of immigrants. These are evils which are present - albeit to a different degree - even in areas of immense wealth. We cannot delude ourselves: by our mutual love and in particular, by our concern for those in need we will be recognized as true followers of Christ (cf. Jn. 13:35; Mt. 25: 31-46). This will be the criterion by which the authenticity of our Eucharistic celebrations is judged (Mane Nobiscum Domine, 28).

So it seems to me that a man who is disinterested who has no will of his own, but leaves God to decide as he pleases. He simply keeps his will on the alert, ready for anything: to wait is neither to do, nor to act. It is merely holding oneself in readiness for something to happen. Such alertness of soul, remember, it is clearly voluntary, yet it is not an action. It is simply, readiness to take what comes (Treatise on the Love of God, Book IX, Chapter 15).

I have said everything to you in these two words: Refuse Nothing, Desire Nothing. I have nothing else to add. Do you see this infant Jesus in the crib? He suffers from all the inclemencies of the weather, from cold and everything else His Father allows to happen to Him. He does not refuse the little comforts His Mother lavishes upon Him. It is not written anywhere that He ever stretched out his hands to reach out to his mother’s breast, but left all that to her care and solicitude. And so we have also to desire nothing and refuse nothing, and accept all that God sends us (Spiritual Conferences, Vol. 2, p. 177).

I entreat you, if you are strong, you make yourself weak, so as to identify yourself with the weak and the infirm; if you are weak, I say to you: strive to adjust yourself to the strong. The great Apostle Saint Paul said that I have become all things to all that I might gain all. Who is weak and I am not weak also? With the strong, I am strong. Who among my brothers is made to stumble with whom I am not made to stumble? When I am with the weak I willingly take upon myself the task of seeing to their comfort so as to give them the confidence to do the same to others. If I find myself by the side of the sick while I am with them, I am entirely like a nurse, tender and loving towards the child who is ill stroking its head to make it sleep. But when I am with the strong, I have to be like a giant to give them courage (Gal. 2:11) (Spiritual Conferences, Vol. 2, p. 95).

He showed incredible patience, meekness and obedience on his deathbed, he never made any complaint and obediently did as he was told. He took medicine from a spoon even though he had a great difficulty in swallowing. When he was asked if he consented to cauterisation he said: 'Let the doctor do what he wants to the patient.' He was then cauterised twice, once at the back of the neck, secondly on his head, and the glowing iron was pressed in so deeply that it is said to have injured the bone of the skull, but he never said a word except that the first time he just whispered: 'Jesus, Maria.'

A plaster of cantharides was applied to his head, and when it was taken off, the top layer of skin is said to have come away with it; his body was blistered and sore where they had chafed and rubbed him, and he was made to suffer the most incredible torments during these last hours of his life. But what was so wonderful was the calm patience with which he endured it all, never doing or saying anything to betray his perfect inner and outer tranquillity and peace which he kept intact to his last dying breath (Testimony, p. 154).