481. Friday after Corpus Christi
Meditations no. 224 (unofficial computer-aided translation)
It is the suffering Christ who remains for us, voluntarily, in the Sacred Host.
Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age. Our Lordâs promise has been fulfilled exactly. He is here, in the Sacred Host, a holocaust for love. He is present in a real, mysterious way, that can only be seen by the eyes of faith. What greater wonder could there be than this Sacrament? In it, the bread and wine are substantially transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ. Christ, perfect God and man, is contained under the appearance of bread and wine.
His human soul, and his Divinity, are also present in the Host, because Jesus Christ is risen in glory and cannot suffer separation. But what we have directly by means of the words of Consecration is his Body and Blood, the humblest, most material aspect of his sacred Humanity. And he is there in the form of bread, as accessible as he could possibly be. The humility of Jesus: in Bethlehem, in Nazareth, on Calvary⌠-But more humiliation and more self-abasement in the Sacred Host: more than in the stable, more than in Nazareth, more than on the Cross.
In the Sacrament of the Eucharist Jesus shows himself to us in the condition of a victim - Christus passus - Christ suffering. As on Golgotha, with his arms and his heart wide open to everyone, he wants us to copy the way he gives himself to all souls. If we do not work on Godâs land, and are not faithful to our divine mission of giving ourselves to other people, helping them to recognize Christ, we will find it very difficult to understand what the Eucharistic Bread is. No one values something which does not cost an effort In order to value and love the Holy Eucharist, we must follow Jesusâ way. We must be grain. We must die to ourselves and rise full of life, and bear an abundant yield: a hundredfold!
Christâs way can be summed up in one word: love. If we are to love, we must have a big heart and share the concerns of those around us. We must be able to forgive and understand; we must sacrifice ourselves, with Jesus Christ, for all souls. If we love Christâs heart, we shall learn to serve other people and we shall defend the truth clearly, lovingly. If we are to love in this way, we need to root out of our individual lives everything which is an obstacle to Christâs life in us: attachment to our own comfort, the temptation to selfishness, the tendency to be the centre of everything. Only by reproducing the word of Christ in ourselves can we transmit it to others. Only by experiencing the death of the grain of wheat can we work in the heart of the world, transforming it from within, and making it fruitful.
Jesusâ loneliness in the tabernacle.
Jesus knew that we were going to need him at every moment, and at any time; and in an excess of love he chose to stay in the Sacred Host, not just during the Holy Mass and while we receive the Sacrament, but also in the consecrated hosts and particles that are left over or reserved after Communion, so that, besides receiving him physically, we can come to the tabernacle in the unshakeable certainty that he is there waiting for us.
He has remained in this humble fashion so as to be at our side, even though he knew how ungrateful people are, and knew the profanations to which he would be subjected. On earth, when a person is something, has a position, has some degree of authority, anything that sets him apart from the rest, whether he wants it or not, then people who want to see him have to wait for their turn. And what are all the worldâs rulers, what is all the dignity in the world, compared with the Majesty of God? But God doesnât keep us waiting. It is he, in his infinite goodness, who waits his turn.
What response has this overflowing divine love met with on manâs part? All too often, with coldness and indifference. So Christ continues to be left alone in the tabernacle, as he was on the Cross. And he begs us for a little friendship and affection. He who is the King of kings and Lord of lords, is waiting for our company and our love. He came to give his life as a ransom for many, and often all he receives in return is incomprehension, hostility, or indifference.
For me the tabernacle has always been a Bethany, a quiet and pleasant place where Christ resides. A place where we can tell him about our worries, our sufferings, our desires, and our joys, as simply and naturally as Martha, Mary and Lazarus. That is why I rejoice when I catch sight of a church in town or in the country; itâs another tabernacle, another opportunity for the desire of the soul to take flight and be there with our Lord in the Sacrament.
In the tabernacle our Lord awaits our company.
In this prison of love, as our Father used to call the tabernacle, Jesus is waiting for us. It is true that we werenât there to walk the roads of the earth with him; we donât know what his voice sounded like, in the quiet of the evening, talking to crowds, or speaking intimately with his disciples; weâve never seen the look of peace in his eyes. But in the light of faith we can relive the same scenes before the tabernacle. Our heart is moved by his love there, which is stronger than life or death, and which comes to us today just as young and just as alive.
We want to keep Jesus company, to stop him from being lonely. When you approach the Tabernacle, our Founder tells us, remember that He!⌠has been waiting for you for twenty centuries. And so we have to live with our heart set on Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, desiring to be with him, to make atonement to him, and to love him in order to make up for all the love that mankind has failed to give him. Donât ask Jesus for pardon just for your own faults: donât love him just with your own heart⌠Make up to him for all the offences that have been done to him, are being done to him and will be done to him⌠Love him with all the strength of all the hearts of all those who have loved him most. To do this, we resolve now to come and visit him as often as we can.
We must finish these minutes of prayer. Savouring Godâs infinite kindness in the intimacy of your soul, realize that, through the words of Consecration, Christ is about to become really present in the Host, with his Body, his Blood, his Soul, and his Divinity. Adore him reverently, devoutly; renew in his presence the sincere offering of your love. Donât be afraid to tell him you love him. Thank him for giving you this daily proof of his tender mercy, and increase your desire to receive Communion, in a spirit of trust. I am awed by this mystery of Love. Here is our Lord seeking to use my heart as a throne, committed never to leave me, provided I donât run away.
Comforted and strengthened by Christâs presence and nourished by his Body, we will be faithful for as long as we live on earth. And afterwards we will be victorious with Jesus and his Mother in heaven.
There was one person who was faithful to Jesus for the whole of his life; one person - our Blessed Lady -who never abandoned him, but stood at the foot of the Cross and stayed by him at the hardest times of all. We want to imitate our Motherâs fidelity. We want to be a comfort to Jesus, a joy to his wounded heart. We want to be loyal friends to him, and never leave him, but rather to make him a return of love for the love he shows us in the Blessed Sacrament.