The center of Ivan’s Christian experience was Jesus Christ. Ivan met and experienced him in various ways and in various fields. He saw him first like a cosmic ruler of the universe, later like One present in the Eucharist, then in the liturgy of the Church and church hierarchy, especially in the Roman bishop – the Pope, and he recognized him in his neighbor.
Christ is the Master of cosmic eternity and immensity.
Christ entered history from eternity, and becoming the center of the whole macrocosm, he gave us Himself in order to revive us physically and psychically.
Christ is the purpose and aim of our eternal desires.
Christ has come into the world to consecrate all of nature.
The more I get to know Catholicism, the better I can see that it is inexhaustible.
Turn your back to Catholicism and everything around you is dark and ugly.
I know and I feel that Catholicism is the only true faith…I’ve never even thought that others
would be better than the Catholic faith.
Catholicism is the universal holder of truth, morality and grace.
The life at the university in Vienna, then the war, studies, and at last Lourdes, completely convinced me of the truthfulness of the Catholic faith.
The whole of my life has been moving around Christ the Lord.
The Catholic faith is my life's vocation and it should be the same with each person without exception.
One should forget oneself completely, working for our Lord Jesus Christ who is the only one eternal.
THE HEART OF JESUS
Ivan was a great worshipper of the Heart of Jesus. During the last six years of his life (1922 – 1928) he went to the Basilica of the Heart of Jesus every day to be present at the Holy Mass and to take Holy Communion. The Providence of God rewarded his love for the Heart of Christ so that his remains lie nowadays in the Basilica of the Heart of Jesus in Zagreb. His hope to unite with the Heart of Christ found an expression also in his last writing – in the epitaph which is read nowadays on his tombstone.
I received the ninth Holy Communion in honor of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and I believe that I will watch the depths of the Most Sacred Trinity.
I must deserve here, at least, a little bit of Christ's immeasurable love, and also, with the help of God I’ll try to continue the act of consecration as strongly as possible.
My prayers to the Sacred Heart of Jesus have been answered. My Dad received Holy Communion after 20 years. He has been converted by a supernatural element: grace. My Mom is still left to be taken care of. The Heart of Jesus, help!
Heart of Jesus, I dedicate my life to you: if I should suffer and come to you in this way,if it is in honor of you, your will be done.
The Most Sacred Heart of Jesus is the strongest factor for re-evangelization of society.
Let everything be to the glory of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus!
I am expecting the mercy of the Lord and undivided, complete, eternal possession of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus.
THE EUCHARIST
A privileged and primary place where Merz met Christ was the Eucharist, which became the center of his spiritual life. Thoughts about the Eucharist that he wrote down are full of zeal and love. The love toward Christ, present in the Eucharist, was the source of his numerous apostolic activities.
Where is God closest to us people than in the Most Sacred Eucharist?!
How great His Love is, when He, Infinity, gives us – tiny and worthless, Himself to eat.
How great is the One who gives us all His greatness, love and even Himself as Bread.
Holy Communion is the source of life.
During the Mass I lively and mystically felt the consecration.
During the consecration I felt mystically that Christ was present there, to whom we must bow.
One can’t express what one feels when Christ unites with us in Holy Communion. There is a wish for more and more, for the whole Christ , for Light, for God – the Creator.
When I think of my feelings during Holy Communion, it seems as if it were some dream, a mysterious, strange and beautiful dream, certain feeling, a certain atmosphere, and when I feel like that, I forget everything, only something pulls me, pulls me irresistibly.
I received Holy Communion yesterday and I’m so cheerful and satisfied, and it seems as if I’d never be sad, even if it might be difficult.
Everybody knows how the closeness of the Eucharist strengthens.
I need spiritual strength right now, I have to draw it from the inexhaustible source of Love, from the omnipotent Eucharist.
The Eucharist fills a soul with light that is brighter than day, which turns it into a spiritual contentment, which calms us down, feeling something unknown and immeasurable.
I crave after this Source – the Eucharist. Oh, God, help me!
I myself don’t know how, but I yearn after the Bread, after that small Host.
My mouth and all the inside parts of my being would like to unite with the Host.
It seemed as if I felt those laws in a certain fog, something that makes everything move, and after that the Madonna with the Child, and I felt all these united in the Host.
I would like to consume the Lord in the Host, who loves me more than anybody else, and whom I love more than anything else in the world.
There is no Holy Eucharist. I live here on the front like a heathen, as if the Lamb were not in the center of the cosmos.
I’m going to receive Holy Communion tomorrow to get strength for the struggle.
Several days ago I saw a priest on the front.I would like to kiss the hands that held Christ.
Don’t let us forget Christ’s immeasurable love and let’s pay more attention to the little white Host which waits for us lonely, in small chilly churches.
Mankind lives for itself, as if this marvel of marvels didn’t happen – the Eucharist.
Some parts from the Gospel according to John about Communion are splendid.
Fast and Communion, two opposites. Fast causes trouble and deprives us of enjoyment, and Communion gives us immeasurable pleasure and transforms our body into a divine being.
In Holy Communion, where your body and your soul unite with the very Divinity, has to be the culmination of your life.
In Holy Communion there is the culmination of entire liturgy.
All of the magnificant prayers and songs, all of your contemplations, all of your deeds during the day have to be aimed at Christ, have to be aimed at the moment of your daily life – Holy Communion.
Uniting yourself with Christ in Holy Communion, even here on earth, your last purpose is fulfilled, and you become partakers in the very Being of God.
The Holy Mass without Holy Communion is to a certain degree fragmentary.
The Saviour assumed the shape of bread and wine and by doing this He told us clearly that He wanted us to consume Him in each Holy Mass.
The Holy Mass is only then complete if we unite with Jesus by the Holy Communion, by the tightest links of love, remelting one being into another.
Let’s be contemporary Catholics and let’s become, by Holy Communion, the partakers of the immense life of the Word of God.
The Eucharist is the strongest means, the fire which burns the rust of sins in ourselves, and gives life to our soul.
Through the Eucharist, let’s experience in ourselves St. Paul’s words: “I live, however it’s not me, but Christ lives in me.”
The Eucharist leads us toward the culmination of Christian perfection, toward a real inner life.
The Eucharist is our first joy on earth; through it we are already becoming partakers of a future heavenly glory.
Through Holy Communion, those waters which lead into eternal life, start flowing in our soul.
Holy Communion revives and raises our inner life the most rapidly and in the easiest way.
In Holy Communion a soul celebrates its triumphs, it becomes similar to its
divine Fiance, becomes divine, becomes a partaker of immensity and eternity.