"The light is with you for a little longer. Walk while you have the light, lest the darkness overtake you; he who walks in the darkness does not know where he goes. While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light." (John 12:35-36)
En route to an early morning appointment in Washington, D.C., about five years ago, I stopped for a visit at a small adoration chapel in rural Pennsylvania at 4:30.
FIND THE ADORATION CHAPEL NEAREST YOU BY GOING HERE.
I was surprised and edified to find three or four people praying before the golden monstrance.
Years later, walking into a similar chapel in Louisiana, I encountered a similar scene: several heads bowed in adoration or bent over prayer books, immersed in Eucharistic silence. The atmosphere in both was one of a “warm” silence, permeated by an all-encompassing Presence that seemed to whisper gently but powerfully,
“Stay with Me.”
An adoration chapel is a genuine oasis in today’s world. A few pews or chairs with kneelers, lighted candles, all arranged before a golden monstrance displaying the white
host upon which all eyes and thoughts are fixed.
In the silence, our thoughts travel back centuries to the days when Our Lord and Savior announced and established this mystery:
“I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I will give is My flesh for the life of the
world” (John 6:51-52);
“For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed” (John 6:56); “This is My body which is given for
you. Do this in remembrance of Me” (Luke 22:19); “This is My blood of the new testament, which shall be shed for many” (Mark 14:24).
Ever since, Holy Mother Church has taught that when a validly ordained priest pronounces these same words over the bread and wine, transubstantiation takes
place. That is, the substance of bread and wine give way to the substance of the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity
of Our Lord Jesus Christ, true God and true Man.
He becomes truly present in the Sacrament under the
appearances of bread and wine.
Saint Augustine says:
“The bread you see on the altar is the Body of Christ as
soon as it is sanctified by God’s word. The chalice, or better, what is contained in the chalice, is the Blood of Christ as soon as it is sanctified by God’s word.”
In the beautiful words of Saint Crysologus (400-450): “He is the Bread sown in the Virgin, leavened in the flesh, molded in His Passion, baked in the furnace of the sepulcher, placed in the churches, and set upon the altars, which daily supplies heavenly food to the faithful.”
Thus it is that we have had this Treasure of treasures with us for nearly two thousand years. Protestants have long ceased to believe in this Real Presence of God among
us, but belief and devotion has also tragically declined among recent generations of Catholics.
Nevertheless, the past decade or so has seen a growing return of Catholics to Eucharistic devotion as well as many conversions of non-Catholics overwhelmed with joyful wonder on discovering the Real Presence.
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