Fr. Hewko, "We Are the Hosts Jesus Wants to Change into Himself" 5/21/26

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:02]many.

[00:00:28]Amen.

[00:00:31]Sunday, >> Sunday.

[00:00:39]Amen.

[00:00:51]We continue the spiritual conference on the indwelling of the holy trinity in the soul. God within us. This is the beautiful book of father Rahul Plu Jesuit priest from the uh 1800s.

[00:01:14]Chapter one, he talks about the templum day that the soul becomes a temple of God by God dwelling in the soul.

[00:01:25]Remember in the Old Testament Solomon built the huge temple and God manifested his presence in there by the cloud that filled the temple.

[00:01:36]So God fills the temple of the soul and body by his presence, by his divine indwelling.

[00:01:45]Father Plu, nothing is more frequently and more instant insistently repeated in the epistles than this, that we ought to regard ourselves as tabernacles, as real churches or houses of God. Quumos sumos that we are a house vest temple day. You are a temple of God.

[00:02:07]In support of his teaching, St. Paul relied on the explicit doctrine of our Lord himself. If any man love me, said the master, and he means, if any man is faithful to his commandments, and is in a state not of mortal sin, but of grace, my father and I will love him.

[00:02:28]And we will abide in him and make him our dwelling place, our habitation, and our abode. St. John 14:23.

[00:02:43]So to love our Lord properly of as as you know well we have to keep his commandments.

[00:02:51]Who will abide in him? Who we in the plural? The father, the word and the holy ghost. God the father, God the son, God the holy ghost who are all one. We will abide not in any general sense in the soul, but in a special manner and out of love, so that he will be not merely God's creature, the thing which he has made, but his friend.

[00:03:19]Animals, trees, plants, they're all creatures God made, but they're not really friends of God.

[00:03:25]But we're meant to be his friends.

[00:03:29]We will abide in him, says our Lord. We will abide in him. What a favorite it would be merely to come in passing for a fleeting visit.

[00:03:40]But we capital W will do more. We will come and we will stay. Mano mani >> monsurus >> mansurus to to dwell to stay to live at. We get the word mansion from there. So man in May in ego in vobis stay in me live in me and I will live in you. But we will do more we will stay. We will come to abide to dwell to inhabit in order that the divine life within the soul may be more and more perfectly fulfilled.

[00:04:25]And then the verse quoted from scripture. We will come and we will stay.

[00:04:31]We will take up our abode and as far as we are concerned it will be permanent.

[00:04:39]So a permanent home in the soul.

[00:04:43]Our abode within the soul will be without end.

[00:04:47]man alone by committing sin can put an end to it and cause us capital U cause us to depart.

[00:05:02]So you see how much God leaves that on our free will. If if we want God and fight temptation and sin to keep him, he'll help us keep the state of grace and stay within us. But if we don't want him and we love some pleasure, some thing, some vanity, some power, some material thing above him, well, we'll make some excuse. And that's what immortal sin is. When the soul turns from the infinite good to a particular passing temporal good, then indeed we shall go. If the soul chooses to a creature above God, we will go because we can no longer stay. Until that happens, however, our presence, our life within the soul is a fact, a reality. Man has God's word for it that this is so.

[00:05:57]So God's word is enough. That's why we walk by faith because we don't feel God's presence in our soul. We don't see it. We don't physically sense it.

[00:06:08]But and we can't say St. Thomas. We can't even be certain if we're in the state of grace.

[00:06:14]But you can have clear signs which are a soul has confessed all mortal sins.

[00:06:21]They're sorry for them all. They enjoy the presence of God. They have a certain delight in the things of God. That's a sign of the state of grace. And also St. And Louis de Malfur says the devotion to Mary. That's another great one.

[00:06:41]We are reminded here of the beautiful and insignificant words of St. Paul in which he points out to the first Christians that as long as they are in the state of grace they they are and will remain participators in the divine nature. St. Peter book 2:4 divin consortes nur participators of the divine nature.

[00:07:03]participators consortes con with sortes to have a part of divine nature of the divine nature. Let us try to realize what this really means.

[00:07:20]We have often meditated on the manger of Bethlehem.

[00:07:24]Let us try to imagine for a moment that it suddenly becomes a living thing. In the cradle lies Jesus, God made man. We too are so many cradles and within us hides not the sacred humanity but the divinity of Christ.

[00:07:42]According to the symbolism of the three Christmas masses, the first commemorates the birth of the word in eternity.

[00:08:03]That's the intro for the midnight mass on Christmas which takes you right into the heart of the trinity. The Lord said to do the that you are my Lix do the Lord said to me do Filio you are my son. This day I I have begotten thee.

[00:08:29]genu it's a is the day of eternity I have begotten thee the father saying to the son I have begotten thee because the son is generated from the father but without a beginning of time so it's an eternal generation and there never was a time when the son was not at all he always was with the father and same with the holy ghost a mystery way above us but those are the So the first mass of Christmas is God the generation in eternity. The second mass of Christmas a boy a child is given to us that is the birth in time of the savior in Bethlehem.

[00:09:22]And then the third mass of Christmas, the Luke's eterna is the intro.

[00:09:29]The third mass is the spiritual birth of God in the soul of each one of us by sanctifying grace. So those are the three births of Christ from eternity in Bethlehem in the soul.

[00:09:45]So remember that at Christmas the three masses we have often meditated on the Holy Eucharist. Let us imagine for a moment that the saborium suddenly springs to life. The saborium contains Jesus God made man. By grace each one of us becomes a living saborium containing not our Lord's humanity but greater far his divinity.

[00:10:17]So there's a photograph of St. Terresa of Luz filling the saborium with the hosts and that's where she came up with the words, "We are the hosts that Jesus wants to turn into himself."

[00:10:35]In 1914, some Belgian nuns flying for their lives before the advance of the German armies took refuge in Holland, bearing with them the saborium, which the mother superior had stopped to remove from the tabernacle.

[00:10:52]What deep joy must have filled the heart of that good nun at the thought of such a signal favor that she should be permitted to carry with her God himself.

[00:11:04]But did she reflect that every day of her life by sanctifying grace she bore him? Not indeed in the same manner but in the most literal sense of the word.

[00:11:16]Among the mentions and dispatches which we read read of during the war. One of the most striking was that of a basque from named Uore Goyena.

[00:11:30]quote, "Excellent soldier, on June 16th, 1916, during the burning of such and such a place, he prevented the parish priest from going to fetch the blessed sacrament among the flames."

[00:11:47]Going in himself, in spite of the burning debris which fell on every side, and getting through a window, brought it to the priest, it capital I.

[00:12:00]If this soldier was a practicing Catholic and since he was a Basque, we may be sure of it. The Basque is a region of Spain uh which is are very Catholic and they're known for their fighting spirit.

[00:12:13]With what pride this soldier must have carried for those few minutes the living God.

[00:12:21]And we too, how proud we ought to feel if we only stopped to think that at every moment of our lives, as long as we are in the state of grace, we are Godbearers.

[00:12:32]We bear him everywhere that we go. Not only on us like the good nun in that excellent soldier or like Pope Alexander who always bore the blessed sacrament in a golden case hung around his neck. But within but he is within our souls where he dwells not in the flesh. This is a privilege we receive after communion for as long as the sacred elements remain within us but he is in us spiritually by sanctifying grace as long as we desire his presence and are faithful to him.

[00:13:10]We are tabernacles. So we are temples of God. Saboreium chalicees we are tabernacles the saints lived in this thought as each year comes round we recite in the brieviary the beautiful lessons for the feast of St. Lucy.

[00:13:32]And the the governor asks her, "Is the Holy Ghost in thee?"

[00:13:39]She asks she answers, "Yes.

[00:13:43]Those who live chastely and piously are the temple of the Holy Ghost."

[00:13:52]That's St. Lucy.

[00:13:56]That's sermon on the ascension.

[00:14:02]Doesn't say who though.

[00:14:04]No, it's St. Ignatius of Antioch who tells this story.

[00:14:09]We know too the reply of St. Ignatius of Antioch when the emperor Trajan insulted him because he was a Christian and therefore worthy of contempt.

[00:14:19]Let no man treat with contempt Ignatius the Godbearer.

[00:14:25]The Godbearer?

[00:14:28]Why do you give yourself such a name?

[00:14:31]The governor asked.

[00:14:33]Because it is true I bear God within me.

[00:14:37]When occasions arises, our Lord takes it upon himself to remind certain privileged souls of the wonders of his presence in our souls.

[00:14:47]My beloved daughter, my temple and my delight. He called St. Angela.

[00:14:52]My beloved daughter, my temple, my delight.

[00:14:56]St. Gertude, the saint especially devoted to the mystery of the divine indwelling, the prayer of whose feast begins in the collect of her mass. Oh God, who is prepared for thyself in the heart of Gertude, a delicious abode, hear the voice of our Lord more than once in these words.

[00:15:16]I have chosen thee that I might dwell in thee and find in thee my delight.

[00:15:25]The knowledge which the divine master wished to impart to these saints was not like that which we may all enjoy by faith but rather knowledge gained by experience and in a mystical manner such as it is not our intention to dwell upon in this present volume. Having borne the different this difference in mind, however, we may still take the words he addresses to his saints to our own hearts. God can truly call each and every one of us his temple. To each and all of us, then he may say, "Indeed and in truth, I have chosen thee that I might dwell in thee and find in thee my delight."

[00:16:07]For those of us who really have the gift of faith, this is no secret.

[00:16:13]You will remember perhaps how Leonidi Leonides, the father of origin, used to bend over the child's cradle and kiss him on the chest because he told those who stood by, "I adore God present in the heart of this little baptized Christian."

[00:16:33]Later origin himself writing on sanctifying grace in the divine life it bestows on us will use these very words in habitat habitat my soul is a dwelling place of whom of God of Christ and the Holy Ghost.

[00:17:02]My soul is a dwelling place of whom? Of God, of Christ, and the Holy Ghost.

[00:17:22]St. Catherine said to her disciples, "For a reason as mysterious as it is significant, it happens that he who desires to lead an honest and regular life is almost always in bad odor with his old companions, in whose eyes it is more contemptable to be converted than to commit a forgery."

[00:17:51]So people who leave bad friends, the bad friends would rather see them sinning with them than converted and ch a change of life. When Victor Hugo Hu go wrote those words, he sus he did he suspect that he was expressing one of the most fundamental and touching of the dogmas of the Catholic Church.

[00:18:18]I will remind you now of another story similar to that of Leon Leonides and even more beautiful perhaps. There was a pious woman after many years of childlessness gave birth to a daughter.

[00:18:29]The child is put in her arms that she may embrace it. No, she says, I won't wait until she has been baptized.

[00:18:37]How many mothers have been ardent have such ardent faith as this?

[00:18:45]So remember in Catholic countries it was very common once the baby's born within a day or two they're baptized certainly within a week.

[00:18:55]I've known babies baptized in the same day we're baptized they were born and then baptized the same day. The m the healthy mother you know they were fine.

[00:19:12]Archbishop Leeb, I think it's his parents, they wouldn't she wouldn't kiss the child until it was baptized, until it was a temple of the Holy Ghost.

[00:19:20]She'd hug him and hold him and cuddle him, but she won't kiss them until they were baptized.

[00:19:26]If I have the right mother correctly, the mother of Archbishop Leb or St. Teresa.

[00:19:36]No less edifying is the story told of the Breton poet Bautrell B O T R E L who was summoned as a witness in a court of law and seen no crucifix in the courtroom refused to take the oath by raising his hand but laid it on his breast saying God at all events is here.

[00:20:00]A certain French officer who was sentenced to punishment in the fortress of Leil for refusing to act against his conscience in connection with the persecution of the religious orders in France used to console himself for not being able to visit our Lord in the blessed sacrament with the thought that at least nothing could prevent him from visiting God present by grace within his own soul.

[00:20:23]to make a good act of adoration. He writes, I enter within myself, or rather I adore God present within me. For are we not tabernacles.

[00:20:35]So these are truths of the faith which many Catholics just forget, don't even pay attention to, live their whole life not even facing them. But we need to be attentive to this and encourage others especially in these days when they don't have the blessed sacrament.

[00:20:57]Our Lord can be in their soul and dwells there.

[00:21:01]I'll finish this paragraph. What a profound and striking thought this is with those who are willing to accept what it means. In a letter written by Dr. Perier, president of the Avion branch of the Jannesses Catholic, the Young Catholics. We read, "For my part, it seems to me that the whole Christian life hangs on fidelity to this maxim, which is to live every moment of our lives with Jesus Christ and to feel him, God, the friend, the confidant, the master, always present by our side and within us."

[00:21:39]and within us.

[00:21:43]What strength that thought brings once we grasp its significance to to be able to say to ourselves every moment of our lives, I am not alone. I am too. He and I. He and I.

[00:21:59]Let us take to ourselves then these words of mansior dost.

[00:22:03]Let your soul be a tabernacle before which you often prostrate yourself on account of the divine guest who dwells within it.

[00:22:14]Let your soul be a tabernacle.

[00:22:19]So St. Katherine of Sienna always would enter into the her soul and pray and adore God there.

[00:22:34]and the spiritual presence by sanctifying grace. So it's a truth of the faith.

[00:22:39]So let's pray to the Holy Ghost to open our eyes to this reality. And if we were live in this reality, we would never want to offend God. Whether we're alone in our thoughts where nobody sees but God sees or in public or anywhere, we always keep that presence of God.

[00:22:59]This is a saborium.

[00:23:01]And when when we're in the state of grace, it's shiny and God dwells inside like the consecrated host in the saborium.

[00:23:12]But this is dead. It's an object of metal to be gilded.

[00:23:18]But the soul is living. So it really is a temple of the blessed trinity. And why does God do this? It kind of shows his love already, his immense infinite love, cuz he doesn't wait till we get to heaven, but he wants to live in us now.

[00:23:35]It's like he can't wait. So he he embraces us now to live in us now. If only we would let him.

[00:23:47]We'll go straight to rosary.