Dialogue with Christ in the Blessed Sacrament
What a blessed thing, this practice of visiting Christ in the Blessed Sacrament! Let's hope that this practice becomes more widespread and appreciated by more people. There, sadly, are indications this practice is vanishing, and those who still do it do it without due propriety.
In schools where the students are led to make these visits, there's the observation that many of the students just actually mutter some prayers without entering into some intimate conversation with the living Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. They just give it a blank stare.
It's really a pity, for it's like a most precious pearl is just hurled into a pack of pigs that do not know what they have in front of them. Let's hope that some effective and continuing catechesis be done about the "inexhaustible richness" of the sacrament, and that this blessed devotion takes root in individuals, in families, schools, offices, and society in general. Giving good example of how it is done, of course, is a very effective tool.
This practice is, of course, an exercise of piety and devotion. And as such, it has to be done with faith and love as the primary motive and motor. When one has the proper dispositions, he can easily enter into a most moving dialogue with Christ.
For one, he will be most moved just to be before the real presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. He will be moved to see Christ remaining in a little box we call a tabernacle, waiting for people to visit him and, at least, to show some affection to him.
"O Lord," the dialogue might start, "how good of you, the very Creator of the universe and our own savior, to stay with us, to be close to us, to inspire us, to reassure us. How good of you to show how much you love us to madness!"
From there, all kinds of considerations can be made. With our faith in Christ who is truly present in the Blessed Sacrament, we can hear him say, "My child, how good of you also to come and visit me. I want to be with you always because we are meant to be together. You and I are actually meant to have a shared life. What is yours is mine, and what is mine is also yours. Understand that very well."
The few minutes spent in the presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament will be filled with many thoughts, desires and impulses that would strengthen our faith, hope and charity, and that would make us more aware of our duties and responsibilities as a child of God.
It's in those moments when we, in a manner of speaking, can recover our senses, get a more objective and global view of things, strengthen our supernatural understanding of things that would know the value of suffering, for example, and would make us to realize that we need to help and love everyone, bringing Christ to them and vice-versa.
It's in those moments when we can confide to him, who is everything to us, our problems and difficulties. There we surely can get our consolation and encouragement, the reassurance of his mercy and help, and the spiritual renewal that would bring back peace and joy to us as we pursue our duties in life.
It's in those moments when we can seem to hear our Lord telling us, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." (Mt 11,28) In fact, it's in those moments that the words we read in the gospel become alive and actual and somehow addressed to us.
This is no fiction. Faith, which to some can sound and look like fiction, is actually the ultimate reality. We have to understand that reality is not what we make out of it, what our senses and intelligence can discern and understand. It's what our faith tells us, the faith that God, the creator and the very foundation of reality, is giving us to share what he knows with us.
Christ, truly present in the Eucharist, is the fullness of the revelation of God. And he is making himself completely available to us all throughout time in the Holy Eucharist.
If we would only be aware of this truth, and come to believe it, I am sure that we can never afford to be indifferent to Christ in the Blessed Sacrament! We would visit him and talk with him every chance we have.
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