Episode Transcript  

One

Light and Life

Why did Jesus come to Earth? He came to bring us light and life. Jesus came to bring us the “Light,” that is the Truth. He even said to Pilate, “This is why I was sent into the world, to bear witness to the truth.” The truth about who God is, what He has done for us, and what He wants of us. And Jesus instituted a Church, a Magisterial Church, with a teaching authority and an infallible mechanism for bearing witness to the same truth Christ preached.

But Jesus also came to bring us “Life,” and He says that clearly too. In John 10:10, He states, “I came that they might have life, and have it in abundance.” And this life that Christ came to bring us is a share in God’s own divine life. We call this sanctifying grace, a share in the life of God Himself. And by sharing in His divine life, we become divine with Him; we truly become sons and daughters of God, not just in name but in reality. Peter said as much when He said we would become partakers of the divine nature. Jesus instituted the Church and the sacraments to be the way He would pour his divine life into our souls.  

Two

A Fountain of Living Water 

In John 7, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me! Let them come and drink! From my heart will flow a river of living water.”

The Sacred Heart of Jesus is the Fountain. The Living Water is God’s own divine life, poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit to make us divine by participation, adopted sons and daughters of God. On the Cross, the Sacred Heart of Jesus was pierced, and water and blood flowed out: The water signifies Baptism. The blood signifies the Eucharist, the beginning and culmination of all seven sacraments. From this one fountain, the Heart of Jesus, flows a river of divine life, the wellspring of the Church’s sacraments. From it stream seven rivers: Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, Confession, Anointing, Holy Orders, and Matrimony.

This river of divine life flows from the Heart of Jesus into our own hearts, enabling us to share in His divinity and become true children of God. One simple prayer at every Mass captures this mystery: when the priest pours a drop of water into the wine, he prays, “By the mingling of this water and wine, may we come to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity.”

We share in Christ’s divinity through the river of living water flowing from His Heart in the Seven Sacraments.

Three

Assimilating the Grace of the Sacraments

The Catechism teaches in CCC 1128, “From the moment that a sacrament is celebrated in accordance with the intention of the Church, the power of Christ and his Spirit acts in and through it.”

When the priest consecrates the Eucharist as the Church intends, the bread and wine always become the Body and Blood of Jesus. In every Eucharist, there is an infinite outpouring of grace. That grace is more than enough to make us saints. So why aren’t we saints? CCC 1128 continues, “Nevertheless, the fruits of the sacraments also depend on the disposition of the one who receives them.”

Jesus gives Himself completely to us in the Eucharist. But we must be open to receive His gift and cooperate with His grace. We may receive the Eucharist often, yet somehow, we are not fully assimilating the grace we are given. What is missing?

Four

Prayer Opens the Soul to Drink the Living Water

The Eucharist is the Sacred Heart of Jesus, from which flows the Fountain of Living Water. Jesus invites us to come and drink from this fountain of divine life. Yet it is possible to come to the fountain and not drink. Why? Because we fail to practice daily meditation.

Pope Benedict XVI said, “Prayer is the self-opening of the human spirit to God.” (Jesus of Nazareth, Vol. 2, p. 233) Through prayer, we open our souls to receive and drink deeply of the Living Water, God’s grace poured out through the sacraments. This point cannot be overstated: To receive the sacraments without a life of prayer is like coming to a well and not drinking. Meditation opens the soul to truly drink the Living Water that flows from the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Eucharist.

Five

Reliable Source of Life

Christ instituted His Church, and entrusted Her with His Sacraments, so that we would have the Divine Fountain, the Heart of Jesus, and the seven rivers, the seven sacraments, so that we might have a reliable place to access His Grace, His divine life. Tragically, there are still so many people on earth who are outside the Catholic Church and do not have recourse to her sacraments.

That doesn’t mean God can’t reach them and impart His divine life to them in a mysterious, unknown way. The Catechism teaches that God has bound salvation to the sacrament of Baptism, but He Himself is not bound by His sacraments. God is bigger than His instruments. After all, as Jesus said to Nicodemus, the Spirit blows where it wills.

But Christ gave us a sure way to be filled with his divine life, and that is through the seven sacraments. So we should do all we can by prayer and sacrifice and by friendship and good conversation to help our loved ones and friends desire and want to become Catholic and drink from the Heart of Jesus. 

Are you doing everything you can to help your loved ones and friends to thirst for the Living Water? 

Suggested Resolutions:

Choose one resolution for today to help you grow closer to God, or create your own. Here are some ideas to inspire you. 

• Go to one extra Mass this week, and if you already frequent daily Mass, try to go to Mass every single day.

• Add a morning meditation to your day so that you can open your soul to drink of the Living Water.

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