When the Good News was first preached in Jerusalem 2000 years ago, the Church numbered only 120 souls. When it was being preached in Rome, the capital of the ancient world, thirty years later, the Church numbered in the tens of thousands. What converted the mighty Roman Empire into "Christendom"? What transformed the apostles and disciples from confused cowards into saints and martyrs? What made them shake the world rather than the world shaking them? Not just Christ's teaching, not just Christ's example, but Christ's real presence, in His Body the Church and in His Spirit. And it was meant to continue. Why hasn't it? Why are the Christian soldiers no longer marching onward but retreating? It is because we no longer understand this "real presence." Most of the generation now becoming adults simply do not know Jesus Christ. They've reduced God to goodness, Christ to a good man, the Holy Spirit to something like "school spirit," scripture to man's word about God instead of God's word about man, and divine institutions to human ones. They are not merely unaware of right doctrine about Jesus, but of Christ Himself, His real presence. We've been neglecting the Church's teaching that Christ's presence in the Eucharist is objective, perfectly real, and worthy of worship, not just a subjective and imperfect presence in souls. Christ is really, truly, objectively, fully present in the Eucharist-hidden under the appearances of bread and wine-as He was in the streets of Nazareth or on the Cross. The crisis of faith in the Church is a crisis of faith in Christ's real presence. The deepest root of the dullness and ineffectiveness of most parishes, laity, clergy, homilies, liturgies, music, catechesis, programs, and all the extra Martha-like activities is not outright heresy or apostasy but simply remoteness-not the Church's remoteness from "the people," but from The Person. What happens when Christ's real presence is known? Read the Gospels and find out. The Gospels are not mere historical records; they continue, they happen, for the One they present is not dead and gone and past but alive and here and now. Where is Jesus present now? In His Church. This means essentially two things. First, He is present in the Church's sacraments, primarily in the Eucharist. Second, He is also present in the Church's members, in the souls and lives of those who have believed in Him. What will happen if we rediscover His presence and adore Him? We will hear again the sound of a blazing fire, the rattle of dry bones coming to life, and the shouts of joy that ring through scripture. "The word of the Lord spread more and more widely and successfully and the churches grow strong in the faith, as well as growing daily in numbers."Acts 19:20 & 16:5 How do we get this joy back? Not by any gimmicks, but by recognizing the real presence and responding with adoration. And the primary place of the real presence is the Eucharist. The primary reason for Eucharistic adoration, however, is not to bring passion and power and joy and life to us, our Church, and our world. Those are only incidentals! The primary reason must be to adore Jesus because He is adorable, and present. Even if it didn't save the world, the Church, or the soul, it would be the right thing to do, not just because of who we are, but because of who He is. Adoration trains us in the habit of seeing the Absolute as absolute and the relative as relative, instead of vice versa. For in adoration we focus on Christ the center, and everything else then appears as it truly is: as a ray of light from that sun, the Son of God. We see the world in terms of Christ's coordinates instead of looking at Christ in terms of the world's coordinates. Even this great mental benefit, or "payoff," must not be our primary motive, however. If we adored the Adorable One for the sake of something else, we would really be worshipping the "something else" as the end and using God as the means. This would reverse the order of reality, treating the End as a means and the means as the end. God has left us clear instructions forbidding this: "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and then all these other things will be added unto you." He commands us to adore Him for His sake, not for our sake; but He does this for our sake, not for His sake. His glory is to be our concern; our glory is His concern. That is what love is: exchange. Eucharistic adoration is not that hard nor requires any special gifts or education. The only requirements are faith and love. Are our faith and love so small that we find spending some time with Lord in His Most Blessed Sacrament burdensome? True. Our faith is smaller than a mustard seed. But faith is like a muscle. And this is a compelling reason for strengthening our faith by exercising it through adoration. "How can we exercise a faith we don't already have?" That's like the question: "How can I read a book entitled How To Read A Book? If I can read already, I don't need to read that book, and if I can't read already, I won't be able to read that book. "We can read a little already, and reading that book will help us to read a lot better. So we have a little faith already, and we can adore a little bit; doing that will help us to have more faith and to adore better. Besides, you can't afford not to give God five loaves and two fishes of your time so that He can multiply it. He really does, you know. Because it's His-time is His gift to us, and it's precious to Him when we give it back to Him. Try it; you'll like it. Everything will fall into place once you acknowledge the Center, Jesus truly present, Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, in the Most Blessed Sacrament! In Eucharistic adoration, we touch the root-the root of everything, Christ, Ruler of All. And when we touch this root-the root of all life-with our own root, our heart, we touch our candle to His fire. We touch a power infinitely greater than nuclear power, the sun, or the Big Bang. This power flows to us and helps us to attain the reason for our being which is to know, love, and serve God and to be happy with Him forever and ever in heaven. Adapted by Ernie Chu from: What I Learned from a Muslim about Eucharistic Adoration ---By Peter Kreeft © Crisis, 1814 1/2 N Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 20036 or call 1-800-852-9962 |