The Real Presence

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins, and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, St. Joseph, my father, and lord, my guardian angel intercede for me.

He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him.

The real presence of Our Lord and the Sacred Host is a divine mystery. We know that when the priest pronounces the divine words, “This is my body, this is my blood,” the bread and wine become the body and blood of Jesus. The substances of bread and wine are no longer there because they've been changed, transubstantiated, is the word used, into the body and blood of Jesus.

The bread and wine keep only their appearances, to express the reality of food and drink. Our Lord's own words have said, My flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.

Beneath the veil of the Host, therefore, and within the chalice, is the divine person of Jesus, with His body, blood, soul, and divinity, who gives Himself to whoever receives Holy Communion and remains continually in the consecrated hosts, placed in the tabernacle.

St Ambrose wrote, “How is the change of bread and wine into the body of Christ brought about? “ It's by means of the consecration, with the words, that the consecration is accomplished, with the words of Jesus. When the moment arrives for working the sacred wonder, the priest ceases to speak; he speaks in the person of Jesus. The Church likes to call this in persona Christi, in the person of Christ. Christ takes over the words and the actions of the priest.

“The words of the consecration,” says St Ambrose, “are the most wonderful and awesome words that God has given to his Church.” Those words have the power, through the priest, to transform a bit of bread and wine into our crucified Lord. They achieve this wonderful, mysterious feat, in virtue of that power that surpasses the power of the angels. A power that belongs only to God and is shared by his priests. It's through those divine words of the consecration that Jesus is on our altars, in our tabernacles, and in the hosts.

An educated Muslim once asked a missionary bishop, “How is it possible that bread and wine should become the flesh and blood of Christ?”

And the bishop answered, “You were tiny when you were born. You grew big because your body transformed the food you ate into your flesh and blood. If a man's body can change bread and wine into flesh and blood, then God can do this far more easily.”

And then the Muslim asked, “But how is it possible for Jesus to be holy and entirely present in a little host?”

And the bishop answered, “Look at the landscape before you and consider how much smaller your eye is in comparison to the landscape. Yet within your little eye, there's an image of this vast countryside. Can God not do in reality, in His person, what is done in us by way of a likeness or an image?”

And the Muslim then asked, “But how is it possible for the same body to be present at the same time in all your churches and in all the consecrated hosts?”

The bishop answered, “Nothing is impossible with God.”

And this answer ought to be enough. But nature also indicates how to answer the question. If you take a mirror and throw it on the ground, crashing it on the floor and breaking it into little pieces, each piece will multiply the image which the whole mirror previously had reflected but once. So too, the self-same Jesus reproduces Himself, not as a mere likeness, but in truth, in every consecrated host.

He is truly present in each one of them. One day, a priest who did not believe in the special gifts of saints, responded to a request to bring Holy Communion to St Catherine of Siena when she was sick but he brought a host that was not consecrated. When the priest entered the room, St Catherine did not make a move as she was accustomed to doing to adore Our Eucharistic Lord. But she fixed her eyes on the priest and reproved him openly for the sin of deception and the sin of idolatry in which he wanted her to fall.

The same thing has happened with other saints. One was intentionally given an unconsecrated host and the Holy Woman instantly realized the deception and experienced a never-ending sadness which she confided to her confessor.

St Alphonsus Maria de Liguori, the founder of the Redemptorists. He received Communion one day on his deathbed but immediately realized that he'd been brought a host without Jesus, an unconsecrated host. An investigation was taken and it was learned that the priest who had celebrated Mass that morning had been so distracted that he'd left out everything from the memento of the living to the memento of the dead in the Roman canon and so had completely omitted the consecration of the bread and wine. The saint had detected the absence of Our Lord from the unconsecrated host.

But outweighing all these events and testimonials is the faith by which the truth of the Real Presence is assured, and on which we must base our unwavering certainty that it is so.

In the Gospel of St John, we're told Jesus is the truth and he has left us the Eucharist as a mystery of faith for us to believe with our whole mind and our whole heart.

St Thomas Aquinas was brought Holy Communion on his deathbed, a Holy Viaticum. He got on his knees, and he said, “Even if they were to exist, a light a thousand times more brilliant than the light of faith, I would not believe with greater certainty that He whom I am about to receive is the Son of the Eternal God.”

St Paul VI chose to caption his encyclical, the Eucharist, with the words, The Mystery of Faith because for divine realities there exist no certain sources of knowledge higher than theological faith. And because of this faith, the saints merited to see Jesus in the host, though they had wanted no further proof than what they had, namely God's Word.

Pope Gregory XV declared that St Teresa of Avila, whom he canonized, saw Our Lord Jesus Christ present in the host so distinctly with the eyes of her spirit that she said she did not envy a happy lot of the blessed that behold the Lord's face to face in Heaven.

St Dominic Savio once wrote,” To be happy, nothing is lacking for me in this world. I lack only the vision of heaven, of that Jesus whom with the eyes of faith I now see and adore on the altar. “

It's with that same faith that we ought to try and approach the Holy Eucharist and keep ourselves in that divine presence, loving Jesus in this sacrament and making others love Him.

The church has wanted that in every tabernacle where Our Lord is present, there would be a little lamp burning, the sanctuary lamp, as a sign of the real presence of Jesus. This a good thing to point out to children.

A kindergarten teacher told me once she was preparing some little children for First Holy Communion and she asked them what was the meaning of that lamp that's there beside the tabernacle. And one little girl said, “Well that's to tell us that Jesus is at home in the Tabernacle.”

The teacher remarked I was rather impressed with those words. She could have just said that he's there or he's present, but she said he's at home in the Tabernacle. The teacher remarked, “Well we all like to be at home. That's where we're comfortable and relaxed.”

Part of our role with our Eucharistic piety, with our reverence for Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, with our refinement in the care of His real presence, is that we truly make Him feel at home in the Tabernacle. St Josemaria said that our altars and our tabernacles have to be Bethany.

The same Jesus who was sheltered by Our Lady within her virginal womb is as it were enclosed in a little cavity formed by the species of a consecrated host.

The same Jesus who was scourged, crowned with thorns, and crucified as a victim for the sins of the world remains in the Cimborium as the host offered up for our salvation. Our Lord is truly with us.

The Curé d'Ars []{.mark}when he was preaching often turned to the tabernacle and said with emotion “He is there.”

And St Teresa of Avila heard someone say, “If only I had lived at the time of Jesus if only I had seen Jesus, if only I had talked with Jesus.”

She responded saying, “But do we not have in the Eucharist the living, true and real Jesus present before us? Why look for more?”

The saints didn't look for more. They knew where Jesus was and they desired no more than the privilege of keeping inseparable watch with Him, both in their affections and by bodily presence. Being ever with our beloved is not one of the primary demands of true love.

This is the Blessed Sacrament. Eucharistic adoration and Benediction are often the secret yet evident yearnings of the saints. The time of paying a visit to Our Lord is a time of love. A love that will continue in paradise because as St Paul says, Love does not come to an end.

A visit to the Blessed Sacrament, our acts of faith and love, and when someone has a greater faith and a greater love, it can always be growing. It feels more strongly the need of being with Jesus.

One time St Josemaria was visiting Hampton Court in London and he was shown into a room where Henry VIII was buried and when he was told that Henry VIII was buried here, he ran out of the place. He didn't want to be there even for a second. A cold shiver ran down his spine. He said, “If it hadn't been for this man, the world might be Catholic today.” And then he said to the people who were with him, “Tengo que estar con Jesus.” “I need to be with Jesus.”

The saints sometimes felt a physical need to go to Our Lord in the Tabernacle to calm their souls and calm their hearts or to find inspiration and consolation with our God of consolation.

Our Lord is always waiting for us. The great friend never gets fed up, and never goes away.

He's always there. No longer do I call you servants, but I have called you friends.

A catechist once told his young pupils that if an angel were to come to you from Heaven and tell you, Jesus in person is in such and such a house and is waiting for you, would you not at once leave everything in order to go to him? Would you not interrupt any amusement or anything else that occupied you?

And you'd count yourself fortunate to be able to make a little sacrifice in order to go and to be with Jesus. Now be sure he said, and do not forget, that Jesus is in the Tabernacle and He's always waiting for you. Because He wants to have you near and He desires to greatly enrich you with His graces.

How greatly and how highly the saints have valued the presence of Jesus in person in the Tabernacle and our Lord's desire to have us near Him.

We need to go to Him. Sometimes we'll be able to stay a bit longer and tell Him affectionately what's in our hearts.

When we speak to Jesus with simplicity and with all our hearts and all our minds, we're going to be able to tell Him what's in our hearts.

“When we speak to Jesus with simplicity and with all our hearts,” said the Curé d'Ars, “He acts as a mother who holds her child's head with her hands and covers it with kisses and caresses.”

Saint John Bosco said, “Never omit the daily visit to the Most Blessed Sacrament, be it ever so brief. It's enough if it is constant.”

There's a story of a little girl who was told by her mum to go and make a little visit to the Blessed Sacrament in the chapel of her school every day. At break time, she would rush into the chapel and say a quick, “Jesus, hi, Jesus, this is Mary,” and then rush out again. She did this every day.

But then one day she got sick, seriously ill, and she was going to die. And her mother was very worried but she said to her mother, “Well, mum, don't worry, because last night I had a dream and in the dream, Jesus said to me, ‘Hi, Mary, this is Jesus.’”

We can try to increase those little visits. Saint Josemaria encouraged those who live in the centers of Opus Dei to approach the tabernacle and greet Our Lord when coming in and out of the house or to make other little visits during the day when passing by.

Not everyone is in those circumstances. But we can go to the tabernacle with our mind and with our heart when we wake up in the morning before we go to bed at night, and when we're moving around the place to be aware of the presence of Our Lord in different tabernacles, in different places. We can try to increase those little visits or when we're moving around the place to be aware of the presence of Our Lord in different tabernacles, in different places.

Saint John Bosco says, “Do you want the Lord to give you many graces? Visit him often.

Do you want him to give you a few graces? Visit him rarely.

Do you want the devil to attack you? Visit Jesus rarely in the Blessed Sacrament.

Do you want the devil to flee from you? Visit Jesus often.

Do you want to conquer the devil? Take refuge often at the feet of Jesus.

Do you want to be conquered by the devil? Forget about visiting Jesus.

My dear ones, the visit to the Blessed Sacrament is an extremely necessary way to conquer the devil. Therefore go often to visit Jesus and the devil will not come out victorious against you.”

Saint Alphonsus de Liguori says “You may be sure that of all the moments of your life, the time you spend before the Divine Sacrament will be that which will give you more strength during life and more consolation at the hour of your death and during eternity.”

When one truly loves and loves greatly, one begins to adore. Great love and adoration are two distinct things but they form a whole. They become adoring love and loving adoration. Our Lord in the Tabernacle is adored only by those who truly love Him.

And He's loved eminently by those who adore Him. The saints and experts of love are faithful adorers of Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament.

Eucharistic adoration has also been considered the closest likeness we have to the eternal adoration in which our whole paradise will consist. The difference lies only in the veil that hides the vision of that divine reality of which faith gives us unwavering certainty.

We're told that Mary of Bethany sat at our Lord's feet and listened to His word. Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament has been the great passion of the saints. Sometimes their adoration lasted hours, sometimes whole days or nights. We can learn from Mary of Bethany to be in loving union with Him, absorbed in contemplating Him. Surrendering our hearts like the saints did in the pure and vagrant offering of adoring love.

Doctors of the Church like St Thomas Aquinas and St Bonaventure. Popes like St Pius V, St Pius X, St John Paul II, and priests like the holy Curé d'Ars, all these have been ardent adorers of the Eucharist.

In the recent book that has been published this week, memoirs of the former spokesperson of John Paul II, he talked about on a trip sometime he entered into an oratory that was in the house where they were living and he found John Paul II prostrate on the floor before the tabernacle. He decided to wait there. After an hour he had to leave but Pope St John Paul was still there prostrate before the tabernacle.

These chosen ones, their love was true. They kept no count of the hours of adoration that they spent day and night before our Lord in the Tabernacle.

One of the organizers of the trips of John Paul II used to say that they almost had to try and keep St John Paul away from the Tabernacle because when he went there, he would spend long periods and the schedule would all get disrupted. In one of the places where they stayed, there was a corridor with many similar doors but one of those doors led to a chapel.

This organizer, a priest, gave instructions to make sure that door is firmly closed so that when St John Paul, Pope John Paul passes by he doesn't know that there was an oratory there. The following day they were walking along the corridor and when John Paul II passed this door he stopped and went back, gently opened the door, and discovered a tabernacle in the oratory. He went in and the priest organizer said that was the end of the schedule for the day.

St Francis of Assisi spent much time, often entire nights, before the altar and caused a great deal of impression on those who saw him there.

St Margaret Mary Alacoque, to whom our Lord revealed His Sacred Heart, spent many hours in adoration. When St Francis de Sales visited the cathedral in Milan, Il Duomo, someone said to him, “Your Excellency, did you see what a wealth of marble there is here, how majestic the architecture is?”

And St Francis de Sales said, “What do you want me to tell you? Our Lord's presence in the Blessed Sacrament has my spirit so absorbed that all the artistic beauty escapes my notice.”

Because of the real presence of Our Lord in the tabernacle, we have to try and help everyone to behave specially in church, respecting that presence of Our Lord with silence, with our genuflections well done.

We can't let anybody just talk in any old way inside the church. We have to maintain that spirit of recollection and adoration.

St Teresa of Avila said in the presence of Jesus, we ought to be like the blessed in heaven before the divine essence. That is the way the saints behaved in the church.

The Curé d'Ars used to adore our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament with such fervent recollection that people were convinced that he saw Jesus with his own eyes. Love is indeed stronger than death.

He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood will live forever.

Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is a heavenly love that enlivens us and makes us one with Our Lord the victim, always living to make intercession for us, as we are told in the letter to the Hebrews and this is the highest charity towards all men, to obtain for them the kingdom of heaven.

“Only in paradise,” said one writer, “will we see how many souls have been delivered from the gates of hell by Eucharistic adoration, done in reparation by holy persons known and unknown.”

At Fatima, the angel personally taught the three shepherd children the beautiful Eucharistic prayer of reparation.

O Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, I adore you profoundly and I offer you the most precious body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrageous, sacrileges and indifference with which He is offended, and through the infinite merits of His most sacred heart and of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg of you the conversion of poor sinners.

Eucharistic adoration can be the most powerful salvific practice in the apostolate of saving souls. We can ask Our Lady, that we must always be close to her Son with the angels around the tabernacle, that she might help us to grow in our faith, in the real presence of Our Lord, in the sacred host, in every tabernacle of the world.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my Guardian Angel, intercede for me.

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