Divine Appeal Reflection - 8
Today, consider in Divine Appeal 8: "This time I was asleep. I felt distracted by a touch of a hand. Then immediately I woke up. From outside a very red and sharp ray of light was pointing into my eyes. The light was too strong and it blinded me. At once I heard a voice: 'My daughter, I have to talk to you.'"
There are moments when eternity tears open the veil of our ordinary hours, when the hidden God pierces the slumber of human hearts with sudden brilliance. These are not accidents of circumstance but the rhythm of salvation itself. Jacob, wearied by exile and laying his head upon a stone, awoke to behold a ladder bridging heaven and earth, angels ascending and descending upon the promise of God’s fidelity (cf. Gen 28:12–13). Joseph, husband of Mary, rose from restless sleep at the command of an angel, carrying within his obedience the safeguard of the entire Incarnation (cf. Mt 1:20–21). Peter, James, and John, heavy with drowsiness, opened their eyes on the mountain and beheld the uncreated light streaming from the transfigured Christ (cf. Lk 9:32). Such awakenings are never gentle—they rupture complacency, they command attention. The red ray of this Divine Appeal is not a dawn of natural brightness but the fire of the Precious Blood, issuing from the pierced Heart of the Savior (cf. Jn 19:34). It does not merely illuminate; it sears, it claims, it draws into communion. God doesn’t reveal Himself just to satisfy our curiosity. He draws us into His own life (cf. CCC 52). With that, His voice comes to us in ways completely unexpected. Sometimes, this occurs in some silent moment when all noises around us suddenly cease. Other times it breaks through when we are worn out, and prayer rises from our tiredness almost without effort. And often, it comes when our conscience stirs in the middle of a compromise we were ready to make. These are awakenings—visitations from on high. And in them Our Adorable Jesus bends low to whisper: “My daughter, My son… I have to talk to you.”
Distraction often humiliates us. We kneel to pray, yet our thoughts scatter like restless birds. We sit before the altar, yet our hearts wander through a thousand corridors of worry and desire. Still, the Scriptures reveal that it is precisely here—in the fissures of our attention—that God chooses to act. Moses, turning aside with distracted curiosity at a flame upon the desert bush, stumbled into the revelation that would redefine Israel’s destiny (cf. Ex 3:3–4). The Samaritan woman, preoccupied with her daily errand of drawing water, met the Living Water who pierced her thirst and transformed her shame into witness (cf. Jn 4:7–10). Martha, harried with anxious serving, was interrupted by the Lord’s gentle rebuke and redirected to the one thing necessary (cf. Lk 10:41–42). Thus, Our Adorable Jesus does not recoil from our fragmented prayers; He enters them. The Catechism teaches that prayer begins not in our concentration but in His initiative, His thirst for us preceding our desire for Him (cf. CCC 2560). What consolation this is! For even as we are pulled apart by deadlines, fatigued by family burdens, or enslaved to glowing screens, His hand presses through. He awakens us as He did Jairus’ daughter: “Little girl, arise” (cf. Mk 5:41). He steadies us as He did Peter flailing in the waves: “Immediately Jesus reached out His hand” (cf. Mt 14:31). Our distractions are not disqualifications—they are thresholds. Cracks where the mercy of Christ, like light through broken glass, floods in and transforms the fragments into grace.
The red and blinding ray is no ordinary light—it is the searing fire of Love that unmasks illusions and lays the soul bare. Saul was struck down on the road to Damascus, blinded so that new sight could be given when the scales finally fell from his eyes (cf. Acts 9:8–9, 18). Daniel, overwhelmed by the brightness of a heavenly vision, collapsed until an angel’s hand lifted him back to his feet (cf. Dan 10:9–10). Job, broken by suffering and loss, finally heard God’s voice from the whirlwind, shattering his attempts to understand on his own (cf. Job 38:1–2). These stories show us something we know in our own lives: God’s nearness does not always arrive as comfort first. That light doesn’t come to crush us, though at first it can feel harsh. It comes to clean away the lies we carry—our pride, our fears, our false securities. Think of how a bright morning sun hurts tired eyes; yet without it, the world remains in shadow. In the same way, God sometimes allows a season of confusion, silence, or even failure, not to blind us forever but to give us clearer sight. Slowly, we start seeing things as He sees them: the struggles with patience in the family setting, the pressure of bills, being secretly lonely on the jobs, and some of the weaknesses we attempt to cover. The light does not humiliate us; the light sets us free. What feels like darkness is often the doorway into clearer light. What wounds us is what prepares us for deeper consolation, and what burns us open is what finally sets us free.
This insistence of Christ finds its blazing summit in the Eucharist. The disciples on the way to Emmaus, tired and disoriented, had their hearts set aflame as the Word was opened and their eyes were opened in the breaking of bread (cf. Lk 24:30–32). Zacchaeus, perched distractedly, was seized with an urgency never before known or before felt by him: “I must stay at your house today” (cf. Lk 19:5). These encounters show us that Christ comes not when we are perfectly ready, but right in our confusion, distraction, and hiding. For us, Emmaus can be a tired evening when hope seems gone; Zacchaeus’ tree can be the busyness or noise we use to cover our restlessness. Yet still, Jesus breaks in—awakening hearts, calling us by name, and insisting on His nearness today. At every Mass, Our Adorable Jesus repeats that same divine insistence: “Take and eat, this is My Body” (cf. Mt 26:26). Here, the red and blinding ray that once felled Saul, steadied Daniel, and startled Job descends in sacramental form—not to terrify but to transform. The Host is Love veiled, Fire hidden, a sword of light wrapped in humility. It is the ray that wounds in order to heal, blinds in order to illumine, empties in order to fill. For the novice or postulant anxious with formation, the worker bent with fatigue, the mother attending to ailing relative, the priest at the parish engagements, the sister occupied with community duties—the Eucharist is the Voice breaking through distractions, whispering with inexhaustible tenderness: “My daughter, My son, I have to talk to you.” To receive Communion is to consent to be pierced by Love and to awaken into the dialogue of eternity.
Prayer
O Adorable Jesus, Divine Light of Love, awaken us from our distractions, blind us to false illusions, and purify us in Your burning ray. Speak to us in our work, our rest, and our trials. In the Eucharist, draw us into unending dialogue with Your Sacred Heart. Speak, Lord, for Your servants longs to listen, obey, and love. Amen
Sr. Anna Ali of the Most Holy Eucharist, intercede for us.
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