We are Living Sanctuary Lamps
We are Catholic Christians who have experienced different types of suffering in our lives (bereavement and loss, physical and emotional illness, anguish over the sufferings of our loved ones, rejection from others, etc.) and are seeking to open it up to the presence of the Risen Christ so that He can redeem it. This is our journey from the Cross to the Resurrection.
As Catholics, we know that the suffering we experience in this life can be "offered to God as a living sacrifice" (Romans 12:2). We choose to accept our suffering with trust in God's mercy and loving Providence and to offer our difficulties to Him with love. We are grateful that He has made room for our suffering in His suffering and because it now is united to His perfect sacrifice, He is using it to increase the flow of Grace in the world.
Some of us have experienced the death of a loved one and are offering our broken hearts to God as a sacrifice so that He will be loved by all men in the Most Blessed Sacrament.
We have experienced confusion from not fully understanding God's unsearchable, inscrutable ways and are offering it to Him so that others will find clarity and discernment for their lives as they spend time with Jesus in His Real Presence in the Eucharist.
We are offering to God the rejection that we feel from others, and even that seems to come from God himself, so that His Eucharistic Love will be accepted by all men.
We are offering our faults and failures to Him as we struggle to grow in holiness so that His love in the Most Blessed Sacrament will triumph in every heart.
With Mary, we offer to Jesus any misunderstanding we may suffer in our own life, in order that all humanity may come to understand this tremendous love of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.
With Mary, we offer to Jesus all the loneliness in our own life, so that all who are separated from Him may return to the love of His Eucharistic Heart.
With Mary, we offer to Him any suffering in our own life caused by the feeling of not being appreciated, in order that all humanity may come to truly appreciate Jesus in this most Blessed Sacrament.
We are striving to live the message of Fatima and to "make of everything a sacrifice to offer to God as an act of reparation for our sins and all of the sins by which He is offended, and in supplication for the conversion of ourselves and other sinners."
We can't be physically present before the tabernacle as often as we would like to be, but the offerings of our suffering remain before God like the candles that burn continually in the sanctuary even when we are not physically there. This is how we have become "Living Lamps."
We know the following to be true and so even when we cannot be there physically, we are there in spirit:
"During the night in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus sweat blood. An angel came to comfort him. Gethsemane was prolonged into our tabernacles. Jesus waits for someone to comfort him here, too. Here on earth we can do nothing more beautiful than to console Jesus. What joys he will give us in reward.
The most sublime love for the Divine Master is to become a living lamp before the Blessed Sacrament. The greatest regret we will have in heaven will be to have loved the Eucharist so little and to have given it so little of our time.
The living lamps before the Blessed Sacrament are the guardian angels of humanity. The candles in the Church symbolize living candles which are loving hearts" (taken from Ten Series of Meditations on the Mysteries of the Rosary).
"We can do all things [which He has called us to do] through Him who strengthens and empowers us. We are ready to anything and equal to anything through Him who infuses us with inner strength and confident peace" (Philippians 4:13).
You can become a living lamp too and allow the Lord to elevate your suffering and difficulties to a supernatural level. Read this post to learn how: My Heart as a Living Lamp