Eucharistic Reflection - – Oh, Father You Must Not Be Aware of What You Are Doing!

(Today, I am deviating from the style of Eucharistic Reflection I normally offer each week by sharing a  personal one.)

I was on the road recently and stopped at a nearby parish for daily Mass.

As Father elevated the Sacred Host, I intended to gaze upon the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of my loving Lord Jesus Christ, and to silently utter the prayer of adoration first offered by a doubting St. Thomas, “My Lord and my God”.

Before I was able to lip the word “My”, our Lord was no longer visible. Father flicked his wrist and like a Frisbee threw our Lord unceremoniously onto His golden paten throne.  

Oh, Father, you must not be aware of what are you are doing!

Surely, if you saw what I saw, Father, you would no longer act that way.

Oh, how our Lord deserves to be held aloft long enough for all of us present to reverently adore Him. Certainly, He deserves to then be placed reverently and ever so carefully upon the paten.  

Oh, Father, you must not be aware of what are you are doing!

Let us pray daily for all of our priests.

Pray specifically, as St. Peter Julian Eymard recommends in his Litany of the Most Blessed Sacrament,  “that all priests have a profound love of the Holy Eucharist” and that “they celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in accordance with its sublime dignity.”

And consider having the courage to frame the following prayer (which is actually posted on a wall leading to a chapel of the Sisters of Charity in Rome, Italy) and asking your pastor to display it in the sacristy where he vests:

“Celebrate this Mass as if it were your first Mass. Celebrate this Mass as if were your only Mass. Celebrate this Mass as if it were your last Mass.”