The Catholic Geography and a Eucharistic Prayer

Each person carries interiorly an intimate geography: a psychological/spiritual map of the places of significance. Last week I spoke in the hospital with an octogenarian, devout Roman Catholic who grew up in the Jersey City neighborhood where we now have our Magnificat Home residence: Clerk Street off Claremont, Ocean,  and Arlington. He was delighted to talk with me. He explained that his home was on Arlington, around the corner from Our Lady of  Sorrows Church and school, around the corner from his father's butcher shop on Ocean. His entire world was contained in four loci within a few city blocks...and he recalled it with immense pleasure!

For most of us our geography finds its center in our home; and then work/school, church, and other things like bar, gym, basketball court, etc. When I travel, for example on vacation, I have three priorities: where will I sleep, where will I eat, and where is the Catholic Church.

For the Catholic, anywhere on the globe, the center of the world, indeed of the physical universe, is not NYC, DC, or even Jerusalem or Rome! It is our Eucharistic Lord in the tabernacle in the nearest church or chapel. The entire cosmos...and the flow of history...is lightened, warmed, purified, sanctified...by the radiance from this Mysterious, thin, white, light, quiet, humble wafer.

Recall: St. Charles de Focauld adoring the Eucharist, alone in the Sahara desert, hundreds of miles from any other Catholic community. Recall St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, during her conversion, sitting in the Anglican church but praying to the Eucharistic presence in the Church down the street.

It took a while for the Church to fully recognize the Eucharistic Mystery. In the early centuries, reservation was for practical purposes, the last rites of the dying, not for adoration. The tradition developed from about the 4th century and was fully in place by about 1100. The cult was in full bloom e by the institution of Corpus Christi, the 13th century, the age of St. Thomas Aquinas and a high point of Catholicism.

I pause at this point, dear Reader, to peacefully glance toward the Eucharist, present a few hundred yards from where I sit. I invite you to do the same where you are. 

And I offer a simple Eucharistic prayer, that can be prayed any time of day, directed physically to the nearest tabernacle.

Jesus,

My friend, brother, captain, king, lord, savior and God,

Present Eucharistically in the host...

    so thin, white, light, quiet, and humble.

Make me like Yourself...

    small, simple, silent, serene;

    poor, powerless, patient, persevering, pure;

    receptive of and radiant with Your holiness!

Amen!