From Jesus Christ
in the Most Blessed
Sacrament of the Altar ...

to you

You have found me ...

For so very, very, long I have awaited this moment! Since first I formed you in your mother's womb, in unutterable love, I have awaited this moment ... and it is come.

Let us now speak, face to face ... no, no, child, do not cast down your eyes, but lift them up. See: I hold your face even as you speak; let me look upon your eyes, as ever a father looks lovingly into the eyes of his child. You are mine; even more than you are his.

Let us remember this moment.

At every Mass I had sought you. I peered past the faces of my many beloved children, and I looked for you, looked upon you – and after every Mass I invited you, called to you, but you did not hear me. You did not hear me because you did not see me.

You knew I was here, but you had forgotten.

Not in vain did they hide me so far – sometimes even completely hidden from – the Altar of my Sacrifice, as though the Lamb could be separated from his own immolation.

You did not gaze upon me because you did not see me. My Altar has become barren of my Agony ... it is become a table, a refectory for many, and no longer the Altar of the Sacrifice of the One.

I must ask you, my child, did you ever see me laid upon that Altar? Did ever you see my bruised, battered, and broken body laying across, upon, that hallowed height? Did you ever see me, before your very eyes, lifted upon the Cross before you as my Priest held me up to the Father in the Holy Eucharist?

Did you ever recognize that what was being enacted before you in the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the very same Sacrifice which I offered up to my Father on Calvary? Not a different one. Not a symbolic one. But the same Sacrifice enacted before your very eyes. Did you know that what separates you from my Holy Mother at the foot of the Cross ... is the closing of your eyes ... even as she closed hers – and I was, I am, present to you both. You were not at Calvary. You are at Calvary ... at the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass!

You have forgotten so much, my little one, or more often still – and this is so painful to me – there is so much that you had never been taught.

Tell Me ...

We are talking ... at long last in My very Presence ... so let me ask of you one question, my child. It is really a question I should like you to ask yourself. Tell me:

Would you behave any differently were you to see me visibly; were you to behold me physically standing before you, the wounds still in my hands and my feet, still in my side? Were I to appear thus to you ... would you behave any differently toward me than you do in acknowledging my Presence – Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity — in the Eucharist, in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar, in the Tabernacle, at the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass? Think well before you answer, little one, for much depends upon how you answer this.

If your behavior would be any different, if your reverence would be greater, your love more fervid ... oh, little one, you are then lacking so much in faith; and what is more grievous still, your behavior does not accord with your belief: you aver, profess to hold to, one thing ... and behave as if you do not believe what you profess at all ...

It may sting you, my child, and it so pains me to tell you, but this grievous disparity between what you profess to believe, and how you actually behave is either the deadly sin of  pride or the shameful sin of hypocrisy. Either you pretend to believe what you really do not believe, or you do believe but are too proud before the world, before the eyes of men, to humble yourself in my Real Presence. Were I visible to their eyes, you would not hesitate; but because I am not, that act of Faith that conquers Pride defers to the world of men. You have Faith, my child, but you have no courage. Instead of ignoring men ... you ignore your God. And think, my child ... is that not the essence of sin?

“How so?” you ask, “and in what ways?”

 Look back and think of the many, many times you have passed by me in the Tabernacle – how lovingly I have watched you approach, thrilled at your coming, ... and how sadly I have watched you pass me by with not so much as a silent greeting, a genuflection or even a bow. You have passed by me as by a column in the Church, which is unknowing of you, heedless of you, without love for you. Quickly, thoughtlessly, and most often attentive to your neighbor whom you would not dare to affront by ignoring or disregarding their presence. Surely you would not pass by even a casual acquaintance, let alone a loved friend, without so much as a word, a gesture – and yet you seem to fear, as it were, scandal, by acknowledging me.

Do you not know by now that to be one of mine is to be a scandal to the world, a contradiction to it?

You shrink from the epithets they will hurl at you, even as they hurled still greater ones at me. Do you think I do not know of them?

   “See how pious he makes himself appear to be!”

   “Look at her, ever holier than thou.”

   “She should be humiliated by these acts of piety!”

   “He is doing it for the praise of many, to be thought holy in the sight of men. What a hypocrite!”

   “Who does she think she is ... a saint? Pretending to be one! ... shameful!”

You know they will avoid you, marginalize you, accuse you of subtle evil ... and most often they will think you ill of mind; you will be shunned, and even hated ... and so often, to my unspeakable sorrow, by the very people held to the holy: by your priests, your deacons, your nuns — you will be a scandal to them because you will cause them to accuse themselves.

You will be a reproach to them, and they will hate you for it. But take heart. Did I not tell you that if the world hates you, know that it hated me first? You wish to share in my glory. But will you share in my shame? You will be glorified with me; but will you also be humiliated with me? For your sake I bore humiliation. For my sake will you bear it also? Is the servant greater than the Master?

Beloved child, I hear you sing that I, the Lord of Heaven and Earth, am “the center of your life”, and at once behold the breathless celerity with which you leave my church, a haste that will not allow a reverent genuflection before me, an unspoken word of love to me ... Who has fed you with the Bread of Angels, and Who ever beholds you  ... and sustains you in my love. I am puzzled, my child; but more than puzzled, I am greatly sorrowed.

_______________________________________________________________

The Empty Vestibule

Do not be discouraged, little one, by what I tell you. Ever and always I speak to you in the gentlest love, and yet, my child, I must ask you now to consider more. We are Heart to heart, are we not? And Voice to voice? Even Ear to ear? Listen to me, my child:  Had I chosen to remain with you in my true Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity ... that is to say, in my total being, as your Lord, your Redeemer, and your God – had I chosen but one place to abide, – let us say with my servant Peter in Rome – and in no other Church except St. Peter's, how many, many pilgrimages would be made, and at what great cost and sacrifice to the faithful, to be truly in my Real Presence, where I may be found as in no other place on earth! No expense would be spared, no suffering not gratefully endured, no hardship happily undertaken ... as long as the journey brought them to Me!

With what reverence, love, and devotion would they accord themselves before me! Having enjoyed this but even once in a lifetime would suffice to make for a happy death. Each would say, in utter consolation,

“I have knelt before my God, I have been in His Presence, I have offered him my love — and what is more .... what is infinitely more ... He gave himself to me! He gave me, fed me, placed upon my tongue, His very Body, His very Blood, His very Soul, His very Divinity! He Himself! All this ... all this ... He deigned to give me, an unprofitable servant in the mid-day sun! I have received ... Communion with God. I have become one with Him and He with me. I have partaken of the Bread of Angels. I have received the pledge of life eternal: “Who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has life eternal, and I will raise him up on the last day.” Truly ... truly, what possible return could I make to my God for so unspeakable a gift! His very Self! Is this not the Gift given the blessed in Heaven?”

“But I see that you are eager to speak. Come, then, let us whisper. Now I will be silent. It is your turn, little one .... speak.”
 

Continued:  Part 2: Song of the Servant

For Boston Catholic Journal

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