Eucharistic Reflection - You Are There! You Are There!

Dearest Lord Jesus!

You are present Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Eucharist, we know.  Sometimes, as in the miracle You granted us in Bordeaux, France in 1822, You appear as a person, blessing the faithful.  Sometimes, as in Chirattakonam, India, in 2001, You appear as an image.  Particularly poignant to me are the miracles in which the Eucharist becomes a piece of flesh.  I’m thinking specifically of the 1996 miracle in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Since this was obviously a miracle — You allowed the Host to turn into flesh and stay uncorrupted for 3 years in the Tabernacle—then Cardinal Bergoglio allowed a sample to be sent to a doctor without sharing any information with the doctor about the source of the sample.  

The doctor, a cardiologist/forensic pathologist, was disturbed by the fact that the sample was a piece of heart muscle that belonged to a living person when taken, and that this person had been beaten about the chest (as evidenced by the condition of white blood cells in the tissue).  When told that the sample had been taken from a Host and stored in water for three years, he was stunned and had no explanation.  (He subsequently became a believer.)

Dearest Lord!  It seems important to ponder Your decision to manifest as a living heart, a heart that has been subjected to great suffering.  Are You not calling all of wounded humanity to sit in the presence of Your loving, wounded heart?  Are You not reminding us that You have suffered everything, and more, that we are suffering?  Is this not a reassurance to those who think You are not present when they feel abandoned in their pain, in their worries, in their illness, in their persecution, that You are there, You are there, You are there?

It is, as St. Catherine says, the blood of Your wounds is ever moist.  

You wait for us, a beating heart in the tabernacle, in the monstrance; a loving God who blesses us at Benediction from that monstrance.  

We love You, dear Jesus.  May we radiate that love and may we draw more people to Your presence in Your gift of the Eucharist!

Pia Pell, St. Dominic Fraternity, Washington, D.C. from Godhead Here in Hiding Whom I Do Adore - Lay Dominicans Reflect on Eucharistic Adoration)