Book Review: Fire of God's Love: 120 Reflections on the Eucharist

I love quotes.

Quote books, quote websites, friends who send me quotes, great, obscure little quotes that pack a punch, quotes written on envelopes, and keeper quotes that leap out at me from the pages of a book in which I'm immersed, like a beloved friend showing up unexpectedly on my doorstep. 

I love my holy hour.

The quiet, the Real Presence, the candles, my husband praying next to me, the peace of prayer in the midst of a stormy world.

I love the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

I love that Jesus comes to me -- Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity -- each and every Sunday, and every other time I'm able to make it to Mass. I love that our Lord left us with priests, men whose hands and words miraculously deliver Him to us, in ways we cannot fully understand, but at the same time grasp with a sort of breathless gratitude.

And I love it when all these things come together.

My recent holy hour companion has been Fire of God's Love: 120 Reflections on the Eucharist, by Mike Aquilina. A collection of quotes from a wide range of sources, this book includes both the usual suspects -- St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, St. Ignatius, St. Bernadette, and other sublime and saintly voices -- as well as more contemporary offerings from G.K. Chesterton, Dorothy Day, and J.R.R. Tolkien. You'll even find Conrad Hilton and Marshall McLuhan alongside St. Pio of Pietrelcina and St. John Vianney.

This little book is a rich resource for meditation on the goodness and generosity of the God who gives us Himself in the Eucharist. It will take me quite a long time to exhaust its possibilities for holy hour companionship.

And you can quote me on that.