Quotes from Saints and Church Leaders on the Most Blessed Sacrament
“I no longer take pleasure in perishable food or in the delights
of this world. I want only God’s bread, which is the Flesh of Jesus
Christ, formed of the seed of David, and for drink I crave His Blood
which is love that cannot perish.”
- St. Ignatius of Antioch
“My sweetest Joy is to be in the presence of Jesus in the holy
Sacrament. I beg that when obliged to withdraw in body, I may leave my
heart before the holy Sacrament. How I would miss Our Lord if He were to
be away from me by His presence in the Blessed Sacrament!”
- St. Katharine Drexel
“O Jesus! on this day, you have fulfilled all my desires. From now
on, near the Eucharist, I shall be able To sacrifice myself in silence,
to wait for Heaven in peace. Keeping myself open to the rays of the
Divine Host, In this furnace of love, I shall be consumed, And like a
seraphim, Lord, I shall love You.”
- St. Thérèse of Lisieux
“O Mary, Mother of Jesus Christ, and our dear Mother! O all ye holy
angels, who, by your adoration in our churches, make up for the little
love which your God and our Saviour receives from men, obtain for us the
grace to comprehend a little the love of Jesus Christ in the Most Holy
Sacrament.”
- St. Margaret Mary Alacoque
“United with the angels and saints of the heavenly Church, let us
adore the most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist. Prostrate, we adore this
great mystery that contains God’s new and definitive covenant with
humankind in Christ.”
- Blessed John Paul II
“Let weak and frail man come here suppliantly to adore the Sacrament
of Christ, not to discuss high things, or wish to penetrate
difficulties, but to bow down to secret things in humble veneration, and
to abandon God’s mysteries to God, for Truth deceives no man—Almighty
God can do all things. Amen.”
- St. Paul of the Cross
“O King of glory, though you hide your beauty, yet the eye of my soul
rends the veil. I see the angelic choirs giving you honor without
cease.”
- St. Mary Faustina Kowalska
“When she [Mother Frances Cabrini] went to the chapel … her whole
attitude … revealed that she was completely immersed in the Divine
Presence. One day, during the Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, a
sister brought her a telegram. Observing that Mother made no response,
the sister put the telegram on the prie-dieu. Then, perceiving that
Mother still did not move, the sister looked into her face. She saw
there a seraphic expression, the eyes openly fixed upon the Sacred
Heart; but Mother was not able to see nor hear anything that was going
on around her.”
- Mother Saverio De Maria, MSC, Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini
“From the Eucharist comes strength to live the Christian life and zeal to share that life with others.”
- Blessed John Paul II
“I understand that, each time we contemplate with desire and devotion
the Host in which is hidden Christ’s Eucharistic Body, we increase our
merits in heaven and secure special joys to be ours later in the
beatific vision of God.”
- St. Gertrude
“The Eucharist bathes the tormented soul in light and love. Then the
soul appreciates these words, ‘Come all you who are sick, I will restore
your health.’”
- St. Bernadette Soubirous
“As a man must be born before he can begin to lead his physical life,
so he must be born to lead a Divine Life. That birth occurs in the
Sacrament of Baptism. To survive, he must be nourished by Divine Life;
that is done in the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist.”
- Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen
“Go with Him, as His inseparable companion, to the wedding feast of
Cana, and drink of the wine of His blessing. Let you have ever before
you the Face of the Lord, and look upon His beauty, and let your earnest
gaze turn nowhere away from His most sweet countenance. Go before Him
into a desert place and see the wonder of His works, where He multiplied
in His own Holy Hands the bread that sufficed the great multitude. Go,
my brother, go forward, and with all the love of your soul follow Christ
wherever He may go… And lovingly behold Him as taking bread into His
hands, He blesses it, and breaks it, as the outward form of His own
Immaculate Body; and the chalice which He blessed as the outward form of
His Precious Blood, and gave to His Disciples; and be you also a
partaker of His sacraments.”
- St. Ephrem of Syria
“You consider Zacheus happy because Our Lord vouchsafed to enter his
house and eat with him; you deem St. John happy because he rested on the
breast of our Saviour at the Last Supper; and, above all, you regard
St. Joseph and the Blessed Virgin Mary so very happy because they
nourished and supported Our Dear Lord. But are you not as happy as they?
Are you not even happier? You do not hold Our Lord in your arms as
Simeon did, but you receive Him into your heart in Holy Communion; you
do not rest on the bosom of St. John, but the Saviour rests in your
heart after Holy Communion; you do not nurse and support Our Lord like
St. Joseph and the Blessed Virgin, but you have a still greater
happiness, for the Saviour Himself nourishes you and gives Himself to
you as your food. O Love! O Love! O who can understand the love of God
for men!”
- The Blessed Eucharist, Fr. Michael Muller, C.S.S.R.
“Nothing is nearer to Our heart than that devotion to the Holy Eucharist grow from day to day throughout the world,”
- Pope Benedict XV
“You must propagate veneration of the Most Blessed Sacrament with all
your might, for the devotion to the Holy Eucharist is the queen of all
devotions.”
- Pope Benedict XV
“The Eucharist is the consummation of the whole spiritual life,”
- St. Thomas Aquinas
“Our Lord came to the aid of each great tribulation with a special
devotion. The present and future tribulations of the Church and of
nations are greater than at any other period, and this persecution is
more dangerous than those of previous times. Hence, the devotion which
God sends to the succor of His Church and of the nations at the present
time is the devotion to the Most Holy Eucharist. It is the highest of
all devotions.”
- Pope Leo XIII
“Yes, I am happy, perfectly happy; and do you wish to know where I
find true happiness? At the feet of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament,”
- Augustine Maria of the Blessed Sacrament, Herman Cohen
“We must visit Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament a hundred thousand times a day.”
- St. Francis de Sales
“What happiness do we not feel in the presence of God, when we find
ourselves alone at his feet, before the holy tabernacle! … ‘Come, my
soul, redouble your ardor! You are here alone to adore your God! His
look rests on you alone!’ Ah! if we only had the angels’ eyes! Seeing
our Lord Jesus Christ here, on that altar, and looking at us, how we
should love him! We should want to stay always at his feet; it would be a
foretaste of heaven; everything else would become insipid to us.”
- St. John Vianney
“The Eucharist had so powerful an attraction for the Blessed Virgin
that she could not live away from it. She lived in it and by it. She
passed her days and her nights at the feet of her divine Son…. Her love
for her hidden God shone in her countenance and communicated its ardour
to all about her.”
- St. Peter Julian Eymard
“I have a burning thirst to be honored by men in the Blessed
Sacrament, and I find hardly anyone who strives, according to My desire,
to allay this thirst by making Me some return of love.”
- Words of Jesus to St. Margaret Mary
“I am not in an audience with our Holy Father, not am I in the
presence of a saint from heaven, nor with some distinguished
personality. Before me, dear Jesus, You are present under the frail
appearance of the host. With the eyes of faith I believe that You are
present as my God, my Lord, my Redeemer, the Creator of heaven and
earth, my all. I believe, dear Jesus, that You are truly present, body
and blood, soul and divinity, in the most Blessed Sacrament.”
- Reflections and Prayers for Visits with our Eucharistic Lord, John J. Cardinal Carberry
“Ah! What can I desire on earth, what hope for in Heaven but Thee, my
Jesus! Thou art the God of my heart, and the inheritance I desire for
eternity. O infinite God, God thrice blessed, Thou before whom the very
angels are not sufficiently pure, what is man in Thy presence? Should he
even dare to enter Thy temple, or address his prayers to Thee? It is
true, my God; and yet, though I am a thousand times unworthy to enter
into Thy temple, it pleases Thee to enter into Thy temple, it please
Thee to enter into my heart; it please Thee to unite Thy soul to my
soul, to incorporate Thy Flesh with my flesh, to mingle Thy Blood with
my blood, and to press, in the sweet embrace of a brother and a friend,
Thy Heart, so holy, to my heart …”
- St. Francis de Sales
“Let every knee bend before Thee, O greatness of my God, so supremely
humbled in the Sacred Host. May every heart love Thee, every spirit
adore Thee and every will be subject to Thee!”
- St. Margaret Mary Alacoque
“I desire but this one grace, and long to be consumed like a burning
candle in His holy Presence every moment of the life that remains to me.
For that I would be willing, I think, to suffer all the pains
imaginable till judgment day, if only I should not have to leave His
sacred presence. My only motive would be to be consumed in honoring Him
and to acknowledge that burning love He shows us in this wonderful
Sacrament. Here His love holds Him captive till the end of time. It is
of this one can truly say, ‘Love triumphs, love enjoys, Love finds in
God its joys.’”
- St. Margaret Mary
“Mostly [St.] Bernadette’s thoughts were fixed beyond this earth.
‘During her long nights,’ reported Canon Perreau, ‘she used to say the
Rosary.’ At other times she placed herself as it were in adoration
before the Tabernacle. On her curtains had been fastened the picture of a
monstrance. ‘I am happy in my sleepless hours,’ she confided to Mother
Audidier, ‘uniting myself with our Lord. One glance at this picture
gives me the longing and strength to immolate myself, when I am feeling
my loneliness and my pains.’”
- Saint Bernadette Soubirous, Francis Trochu
“The time you spend with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is the best
time that you will spend on earth. Each moment that you spend with Jesus
will deepen your union with Him and make your soul everlastingly more
glorious and beautiful in heaven, and will help bring about an
everlasting peace on earth.”
- Mother Teresa of Calcutta
“The greatest love story of all time is contained in a tiny white Host.”
- Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen
“The holy hour in our modern rat race is necessary for authentic
prayer. Our world is one of speed in which intensity of movement is a
substitute for lack of purpose; where noise is invoked to drown out the
whisperings of conscience; where talk, talk, talk gives the impression
that we are doing something when really we are not; where activity kills
self-knowledge won by contemplation…
There seems to be so little in common between our involvement with
the news of the world and the Stranger in whose Presence we find
ourselves. The hour means giving up a golf game or a cocktail party, or a
nap…
Sometimes it is hard, especially during vacation when we have nothing
to do. I remember once having two hours between trains in Paris. I went
to the Church of Saint Roch to make my holy hour. There are not ten
days a year I can sleep in the daytime This was one. I was so tired, I
sat down at 2:00p.m.–too tired to kneel–and went to sleep. I slept
perfectly until 3:00p.m. I said to the Good Lord: “Did I make a holy
hour?” The answer came back: “Yes! That’s the way the Apostles made
their first one.” The best time to make a holy hour is in the morning,
early, before the day sets traps for us. By being faithful to it, and
letting nothing interfere with it, we use it as the sign and symbol of
our victimhood. We are not called to great penances, and many would
interfere with our duty, but the hour is our daily sacrifice in union
with Christ.”
- Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen
“Know also that you will probably gain more by praying fifteen
minutes before the Blessed Sacrament than by all the other spiritual
exercises of the day. True, Our Lord hears our prayers anywhere, for He
has made the promise, ‘Ask, and you shall receive,’ but He has revealed
to His servants that those who visit Him in the Blessed Sacrament will
obtain a more abundant measure of grace.”
- St. Alphonsus Liguori
“The Sacrament [of the Holy Eucharist] is the Gift of gifts, and the
Grace of graces. When the almighty and eternal God comes to us with all
the perfection of His thrice holy humanity and His divinity, He surely
does not come empty-handed …”
- Bl. Angela of Foligno
“The Eucharist is source and pledge of blessedness and glory, not for
the soul alone, but for the body also…. In the frail and perishable
body that divine Host, which is the immortal body of Christ, implants a
principle of resurrection, a seed of immortality, which one day must
germinate,”
- Pope Leo XIII
“If souls but understood the Treasure they possess in the Divine
Eucharist, it would be necessary to encircle the tabernacles with the
strongest ramparts for, in the delirium of a devouring and holy hunger,
they would press forward themselves to feed on the Bread of Angels. The
Churches would overflow with adorers consumed with love for the Divine
prisoner no less by night than by day.”
- Bl. Dina Belanger
“At Nazareth Joseph’s days were filled with work which necessarily
took him away at times from his Infant God. During these hours Mary
replaced him, but when evening brought him home again, he would pass the
entire night in adoration, never tiring, only too happy for the chance
to contemplate the hidden riches of Jesus’ divinity. For he pierced the
rough garments the Child wore, until his faith touched the Sacred Heart.
In profound adoration he united himself to the special grace of each
one of the events in the life of Jesus. He adored our Lord in His hidden
life and in His Passion and Death; he adored in advance the Eucharistic
Christ in His tabernacles: there was nothing that our Lord could hide
from Saint Joseph. Among the graces which Jesus gave to His
foster-father (and He flooded him with the graces attached to every one
of His mysteries) is that special to an adorer of the Blessed Sacrament.
That is the one we must ask of St. Joseph. Have confidence, strong
confidence in him. Take him as the patron and the model of your life of
adoration.”
- St. Peter Julian Eymard
“So immense are its spiritual benefits that Pope St. Pius X hailed
perpetual adoration as the devotion which surpasses all others. And Paul
VI had it mainly in mind when he echoed the hope generated by Vatican
II that a new era of Eucharistic piety would pervade the whole Church.
“As we would expect, an outstanding spiritual growth and impetus tend to
spring from perpetual adoration. It brings heaven’s choice blessings in
the first place on those generous souls that keep their hour-long tryst
with the Lord. But, being such a powerhouse of grace, the devotion
extends its influence far beyond the individual adorers, touching their
homes and families and reaching out to the parish community and beyond.”
- Fr. Richard Foley, S. J.
“When later he [St. Joseph] carried the Child in his arms, acts of loving faith welled up constantly in his heart. It was a worship that pleased our Lord more than that which he receives in heaven. Picture to yourself Saint Joseph, adoring the little Child in his arms as his God. He tells of his readiness to die for Christ, of all his plans to promote Christ’s glory, and to win more souls to his love. No lover builds more scintillating plans for his loved one than a saint.”
- St. Peter Julian Eymard
“This is the wonderful truth, my dear friends: the Word, which became
flesh two thousand years ago, is present today in the Eucharist,”
- Pope John Paul II
“O Mary, Mother of Jesus Christ, and our dear Mother! O all ye holy
angels, who, by your adoration in our churches, make up for the little
love which your God and our Saviour receives from men, obtain for us the
grace to comprehend a little the love of Jesus Christ in the Most Holy
Sacrament.”
- St. Margaret Mary
“When there are two roads which will bring me to some place, I take
the one with more churches so as to be nearer the Blessed Sacrament.
When I see a place where my Jesus is, I could not be happier, and I say,
‘You are here, my God and my All.’”
- Venerable J. J. Olier
“Heaven for me is hidden in a little Host Where Jesus, my Spouse, is
veiled for love. I go to that Divine Furnace to draw out life, And there
my Sweet Saviour listens to me night and day.”
- Heaven For Me, St. Therese of Lisieux
“The Eucharist is connected with the Passion. If Jesus had not
established the Eucharist we would have forgotten the crucifixion. It
would have faded into the past and we would have forgotten that Jesus
loved us. There is a saying that to be far away from the eyes is to be
far away from the heart. To make sure that we do not forget, Jesus gave
us the Eucharist as a memorial of his love … When you look at the
Crucifix, you understand how much Jesus loved you then, when you look at
the Sacred Host you understand how much Jesus loves you now.”
- Blessed Teresa of Calcutta
“To withdraw from creatures and repose with Jesus in the Tabernacle
is my delight; there I can hide myself and seek rest. There I find a
life which I cannot describe, a joy which I cannot make others
comprehend, a peace such as is found only under the hospitable roof of
our best Friend.”
- St. Ignatius
“Our hours of adoration will be special hours of reparation for sins,
and intercession for the needs of the whole world, exposing the
sin-sick and suffering humanity to the healing, sustaining and
transforming rays of Jesus, radiating from the Eucharist.”
- Mother Teresa of Calcutta
“Trust all things to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and to Mary Help of Christians and you will see what miracles are.”
- St. John Bosco
“We adore Thee most holy Lord Jesus Christ, here in all Thy Churches,
which are in the whole world, because by Thy holy cross, Thou hast
redeemed the world.”
- St. Francis of Assisi
“This practice of adoration is based on strong and solid reasons. For the Eucharist is at once a sacrifice and a sacrament; but it differs from the other sacraments in that it not only produces grace, but contains in a permanent manner the Author of Grace Himself. When, therefore, the Church bids us to adore Christ hidden behind the Eucharistic veils and to pray to Him for spiritual and temporal favors, of which we ever stand in need, she manifests faith in her divine Spouse who is present beneath these veils, she professes her gratitude to Him, and she enjoys the intimacy of His friendship”
- Pope Pius XII
“O Jesus of the Eucharist! O consecrated Host! O envied Monstrance! O
blessed Ciborium, beloved of my heart! The Tabernacle is my Treasure,
and, far or near, my eyes never lose sight of it, for it contains the
God of Love.”
- Concepcion Cabrera de Armida
“It is most heartening to learn that young men and women, in their
late teens and twenties, are increasingly attracted to meditative prayer
in the Presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. May all the faithful
find in the Eucharist their source of strength and courage to imitate
our Lady, totally open to his will in their daily lives. It is my hope
that this devotion to Jesus in the Eucharist will spread to more and
more parishes and dioceses across our nation.”
- John Cardinal O’Connor
“Every morning, even in the bitterest winter, she stood before the
chapel door until it opened at four and remained there until after the
last Mass. Out from her Caughnawaga cabin at dawn and straight-way to
chapel to adore the Blessed Sacrament, hear every Mass; back again
during the day to hear instruction, and at night for a last prayer or
Benediction.”
- From the Catholic Network’s biography of Bl. Kateri Tekakwitha
“You come to me and unite Yourself intimately to me under the form of
nourishment. Your Blood now runs in mine, Your Soul, Incarnate God,
compenetrates mine, giving courage and support. What miracles! Who would
have ever imagined such!”
- St. Maximilian Kolbe
“Put your sins in the chalice for the precious blood to wash away. One drop is capable of washing away the sins of the world.”
- Blessed Teresa of Calcutta
“The daily adoration or visit to the Blessed Sacrament is the practice which is the fountainhead of all devotional works”
- Pope St. Pius X
“A thousand years of enjoying human glory is not worth even an hour
spent sweetly communing with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.”
- St. Padre Pio
“Do you want the Lord to give you many graces? Visit Him often. Do
you want Him to give you few graces? Visit Him rarely. Do you want the
devil to attack you? Visit Jesus rarely in the Blessed Sacrament. Do you
want him to flee from you? Visit Jesus often. Do you want to conquer
the devil? Take refuge often at the feet of Jesus. Do you want to be
conquered by the devil? Forget about visiting Jesus. My dear ones, the
visit to the Blessed Sacrament is an extremely necessary way to conquer
the devil. Therefore, go often to visit Jesus and the devil will not
come out victorious against you.”
- St. John Bosco
“Certainly amongst all devotions, after that of receiving the
sacraments, that of adoring Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament holds first
place, is most pleasing to God, and most useful to ourselves. Do not
then, O devout soul, refuse to begin this devotion; and forsaking the
conversation of men, dwell each day, from this time forward, for at
least half or quarter of an hour, in some church, in the presence of
Jesus Christ under the sacramental species. Taste and see how sweet is
the Lord.”
- St. Alphonsus Liguori
“The sovereigns of the earth do not always grant audience readily; on the contrary, the King of Heaven, hidden under the eucharistic veils, is ready to receive anyone…”
- St. Alphonsus Liguori
“The Eucharist, behold the Christian’s treasure, his delight on
earth. Since Jesus is in the Eucharist for him personally, his whole
life ought to be drawn to it like a magnet to its center.”
- St. Peter Julian Eymard
“When I stand up to talk, people listen to me; they will follow what I
have to say. Is it any power of mine? Of course not. St. Paul says,
‘What have you that you have not received and you who have received, why
do you glory as if you had not?’ But the secret of my power is that I
have never in fifty-five years missed spending an hour in the presence
of our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. That’s where the power comes from.
That’s where sermons are born. That’s where every good thought is
conceived.”
- Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen
“Jesus, my God, I adore You, here present in the Blessed Sacrament of
the altar, where You wait day and night to be our comfort while we
await Your unveiled presence in heaven.”
- John J. Cardinal Carberry
“Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration with exposition needs a great push.
People ask me: ‘What will convert America and save the world?’ My answer
is prayer. What we need is for every parish to come before Jesus in the
Blessed Sacrament in holy hours of prayer.”
- Blessed Teresa of Calcutta
“I encourage Christians regularly to visit Christ present in the
Blessed Sacrament, for we are all called to abide in the presence of
God.”
- Blessed John Paul II
“When the Sisters are exhausted, up to their eyes in work; when all
seems to go awry, they spend an hour in prayer before the Blessed
Sacrament. This practice has never failed to bear fruit: they experience
peace and strength.”
- Blessed Teresa of Calcutta
“I am quite sure that if we could but once approach the Most Holy
Sacrament with great faith and love, it would suffice to make us rich.
How much more so if we approach it often!”
- St. Teresa of Avila
“The faith I have when I am in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament
is so strong that I find it impossible to express what I feel….When the
time comes to leave I must force myself to overcome the inclination to
prolong my stay with Jesus.”
- St. Anthony Mary Claret
- St. Anthony Mary Claret
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