Childlike Before the Eucharist

Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I give you praise, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike…Turning to his disciples in private he said, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see...” Luke 10, Gospel for 12/2/08, 2nd Tuesday of Advent.

To be childlike before the Eucharist is NOT to be insightful, creative, committed, inventive, discursive, comprehending, analytic, rational, conceptual or expert.

To be childlike before the Eucharist is to be awe-filled, wondering, assenting, surrendered, receptive, engaged, possessed, indwelt, abiding, deflated, serene, hopeful, content, enraptured, enamored, nourished, inspired, and marveling.

Everything about the Eucharist baffles the intellect: Bloodless sacrifice? Transubstantiation? Eating the body and drinking the blood? But Jesus did not command us to “understand the Eucharist.” He did direct us to “eat his body and drink his blood in remembrance of him.” He also told us to “abide in Him.”

We need to participate in the liturgy and we need to sit and kneel in quiet and peace before the Eucharist. Our greatest omission is probably that we don’t take time to abide in Him.

At Eucharist we need to suspend the rational, and especially the sophomoric (i.e. cocky, analytic, argumentative, self-assured) intellect in order to regress to childlike wonder and advance into mystical union.

Blessed are we who see what we see and hear what we hear!