Harvesting The Fruits of Contemplation

“What is there upon the altar before the Consecration? A bit of bread, a little wine. And after the Consecration? For the senses – for touch, sight, taste – bread and wine still. Faith, only faith, penetrates beneath those veils, to reach the divine reality that is totally hidden there. Without faith, we shall never see anything but bread and wine; we shall not see God; He does not reveal Himself there as He does in the Gospel… (Image Source: Wikimedia Commons ) In the case of the Eucharist, there is room only for pure faith; faith founded solely on the words of Jesus: ‘This is my body, this is my blood.’ The Eucharist is, above all, a ‘mystery of faith’; Mysterium fidei .

“O Christ Jesus, really present on the altar, I prostrate myself at Your feet. May all adoration be rendered to You in the Sacrament You willed to leave to us in witness of the excess of your love, on the eve of Your Passion! Again, we can express that reverence, that veneration, by going to visit Christ in the tabernacle. Is it not, indeed a failure of respect if we neglect this Divine Guest who awaits us? There in the tabernacle He remains, really present, this one who was present in the manger of Bethlehem, at Nazareth, on the hills of Judea, in the upper room, on the cross…