LET US INFLAME OUR LOVE FOR CHRIST PRESENT...HUMBLY, QUIETLY, FAITHFULLY, POWERFULLY, PATIENTLY, TENDERLY, PASSIONATELY, COVERTLY, LONGINGLY, HOPEFULLY...IN THE SMALL, WHITE HOST IN THE TABERNACLES OF OUR CHURCHES!
(What follows is a contribution to the three-year Eucharistic Revival just initiated by our bishops.)
Amazing: the Catholic reality is that Jesus our Lord is really, literally, physically present to us in every Catholic church and chapel...as he was on earth for those 33 years. Really! Literally! Actually!
I am not kidding! I am not being poetic or symbolic or metaphorical! I am serious. I am prosaic, factual, straightforward about this!
I did not think this up. This is what the Bridegroom has revealed to his Bride, the Church.
No other faith, religion or denomination has such a scandalously corporeal, graphic, intimate, enduring, and endearing presence of the Divine! Incarnate! Contrast the richness and variety of our sacramental, iconic Churches with those of Protestants, Jews, Muslims: bare, boring, iconoclastic, stark, lonely, Their environments testify to the Transcendent in a negative way, by an absence, by a deprivation. Their worship tends to the cognitive, deliberative, verbal but lacks the Catholic traditions of the contemplative mystical, artistic. Our churches witness to a God present really to us in the beauty and splendor of icons, paintings, stain glass windows, statues, stations of the cross, Mary and Joseph and all the saints, and an intoxicating richness and variety of imagery.
The actual body of Jesus of Nazareth is risen, ascended and glorified for ever in heaven. But that very same, exact body is present in every consecrated host. I cannot explain this.
When we receive Holy Communion we take on a union with this Body and ourselves become, by analogy, ourselves...personally and communally...the Body of Christ, our Head.
Yes, we the Church are the Body of Christ. But here and now on earth we and I are not the Body of Christ in the exact way that Jesus himself is his body in heaven and on earth in the Eucharist. When I walk into a Catholic Church, I look immediately for the tabernacle with the red vigil light near by...and I genuflect. I do not genuflect to you when I see you. You do not genuflect to me when you see me.
In the stupidity, silliness, inebriation, delusions, irreverence, apostacy, arrogance, narcissism, and superficiality of the years after the Council, perhaps no Catholic loss was as great as our ignorance, disbelief and indifference to our Lord present to us in every tabernacle. This was not caused by the council documents. It was a perfect storm...a tornado within a hurricane with a tsunami and an earthquake...of diabolical, worldly and fleshly forces. It was a contempt for God present among us. And a collapse into bourgeois consumerism, careerism, scientism, secularism, relativism and spiritual anomie. It was an accommodation to a decadent late-Protestant Americanism as moralistic, deistic therapy.
I invite you, dear reader, to pause for a second from reading. Where is the Catholic tabernacle that is closest to you? A parish? A Catholic institution? Make a quiet, gentle act of praise. Of thanksgiving. Of contrition. Of contemplation in rest. Of resolve to love our Lord in this incarnation.
Our Lord loves us simply, gently, tenderly in the Host. It is so simple for us to love Him back. When we pass a Church, we make the sign of the cross. From time to time we think of his presence near us, and pray to him. If a Church is open, we stop by...even for two minutes...and look to him. Adore him. Petition him. And move on with our lives. Much better for those two minutes.
For me the defining tragedy of the recent pandemic was the closing of the Churches. (Second place would be the closing of schools.) It was an act of weakness by our bishops. An act of infidelity to our Lord in the tabernacle. It was, from a Catholic perspective, ludicrous: we were together in supermarkets, liquor stores, factories, airports, malls,and BLM demonstrations... but we had to lock up our Churches. In buildings that hold hundreds of people we could have social-distanced 60 feet from each other. This indifference to the Eucharistic presence is breath-taking!
My primary critique of the Neocatechumenal Way is the disconnect between their rite and the on-going presence in the tabernacle. The loaf that they consume is clearly not capable of preservation in the manner of the small host. So there is no organic connection between the event of the Eucharist and the ongoing presence. These two absolutely belong to each other; to separate them is an immense impoverishment. Young people growing up in this context will lack a connection to the Tabernacle, the parish as place, the Church beyond this movement, and the Eucharist as banquet-Word-sacrifice-perpetual presence. The directive of the Vatican that they periodically refrain from their communal celebrations to join the mainstream parish Eucharist has been systematically ignored. Big mistake! It is something that will eventually be addressed. My expectation is that with the increased number of Neocat priests, who pledge dual allegiance to this way and to the hierarchical Church, as well as the eventual demise of Kiko himself, there will be an eventual shift of authority from the lay catechists to the ordained clergy. And so, a reconciliation between their rite, the broader Church, and ordinary Eucharistic piety.
In the flux, fluidity, uncertainty and insecurity of late-modernity, where do we find stability? In Christ! Who is present to us always and everywhere: in the communion of faith, hope and love: in the sacramental economy; in every act of mercy and compassion, contrition, gratitude, forgiveness; in the Nazareth-like normality of prayerful family life; in the clarity and certainty of infallible, doctrinal Truth; in the holiness of the saints; in the beauty of art and indeed of all creation; in the religious life and the hierarchy.
But all of that was not enough...not enough for the extravagant Trinity. They desired something more intimate, enduring, tender, corporeal, conjugal, dependable, sturdy, steadfast. And so, Christ abides for us, even after the Event of the Eucharist, in the Tabernacle!
The Mystery: To the natural eye so quiet, small, inert. Indwelling those molecules: an INFINITE AND ETERNAL EVENT of love...explosive, compassionate, tender, kind, dramatic, magnanimous, pure Love! Christ everlastingly loving and being loved by the Father, in the Holy Spirit, and incorporating us. The sacrifice of Calvary evermore re-enacted, but now free of violence, blood, and sin.
I invite you, again, dear reader, to pause from reading and thinking and direct the glance of your heart, intellect and will to the Eucharistic presence in the tabernacle closest to you. Let us together give thanks for this incomparable, inexpressible Gift!
The Eucharistic Revival proposed here is simple. No activism, No bureaucracy, No meetings, No expenditure of time or money, and (Mother of God protect us! Saints preserve us!) NO SYNODALITY!☝☝☝😁😀😀💓💓💓🙏🙏🙏🙋🙋🙋
Simply: Pause from time to time and pray, as with an aspiration, to the nearest tabernacle. Try to arrive five minutes early and stay five minutes afterwards for mass. Preach about the Eucharistic presence. Keep silence in Church: all conversations take place outside. Keep the Churches open; if necessary, employ a guardian to watch. Make frequent, short or long, visits. Make the sign of the cross on passing a Church. Have holy hours, benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, adoration. Share all this with your family and friends. Glancing to the Permanent Presence, cultivate silence, receptivity, serenity, gratitude, admiration, adoration, longing, sobriety, stability.
It is good to end this in prayer. Glancing to the nearest Tabernacle, we pray:
For your presence with us, always, tenderly, generously.....We adore you O Lord!
For your stability, humility, dependability, magnanimity, gentleness.....We adore you O Lord!
For the Holy Sacrifice of the mass, our communities and families of faith, the Catholic Church, the sacramental life, the forgiveness of sins, the clarity and certainty of your Revelation, for your living and infallible Word, for our parishes and renewal movements, for the priesthood and religious life.....We adore you, O Lord!
Come Holy Spirit! Abide in our hearts, minds, wills, spirits, bodies! Inflame in us tender, reverent love for our Savior in his Eucharistic Presence! Amen!
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