Harvesting The Fruits of Contemplation

“…whenever we pray it is good to begin by calling to mind the presence of God and how God looks at us. Try and imagine His gaze, His face. Spoiler alert: His gaze is always and only one of love. It is possible that His gaze of love will cause us pain if we are stuck in sin, or if we are conscious of any of our many betrayals. However, this feeling says more about us than about God. His gaze is one of love. His gaze can be one of purifying love if we allow it to be (cf. Luke 22: 61). Perhaps His gaze prompts us to go to confession so that we can hear the voice that accompanies that look of love: ‘I absolve you from your sins.’ We can also see the gaze of love and be comforted. Looking at our Eucharistic Lord and imagining His gaze should console us. What we see explicitly is the gift of Himself to us. The gift that reveals what love is. “Greater love has no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends’ (John 15:15) I lay down my life... no one takes it from me, but I lay i...

"The monstrance often resembles the sun with rays bursting from the center. Have you ever gone outside and turned your face toward the sun and soaked in its rays? I close my eyes and thrust out my chin and try to absorb the sun's warmth, light, and life-giving qualities. This metaphor would dim eventually because you can spend too much time in the sun, but taking in moderate amounts of sun can teach us something about anytime we spend in front of Christ. We are changed. We are warmed, even baked, by the sun. Taking in the sun can be a Eucharistic image. Sitting before the Lord in the Eucharist, we are similarly changed, but spiritually speaking. We can receive greater hues of color and greater depths of warmth. Life abounds. We are like Moses on the mountain whose face was radiant or like Christ at the Transfiguration."   (Father Justin Kizewski from Face to Face and Eye to Eye: A Reflection on Eucharistic Adoration , Adoremus Bulletin, January 2023 issue)