In the silent gaze of adoration I experience Christ. I discover I am not alone. Pope Benedict XVI said that in adoration that “it is precisely this personal act of encounter with the Lord that develops the social mission which is contained in the Eucharist and desire to break down barriers, not only the barriers between the Lord and us but also and above all those that separate us from one another.”(Christmas address to the Roman Curia, 2005).
An image from Scripture helps me to understand this aspect of adoration. In John 6 after Jesus feeds the multitudes with the five loaves Jesus has care for the bread left behind.
“When they had had their fill, he said to his disciples, “Gather the fragments left over, so that nothing will be wasted.” So they collected them, and filled twelve wicker baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves that had been more than they could eat.” John 6:13-14
With Jesus, we are hungry, then we are filled, and then there are even leftovers! And He cares about every remaining scrap. Nothing is wasted.
During mass we break the bread and share in the One Body. We are not the same people as when we entered. We are sent with food for the journey to go and live the gospel. And the consecrated hosts left in the tabernacle are not just the leftovers. They have a purpose. We bring Christ’s body to nourish the sick and the dying and include them in our communion. The abundance of the mass spills over into our lives. We go and feed the hungry and seek the forgotten.
Adoration is part of this abundance. As an extra gift from the Eucharistic action in our lives we see visibly that God has not forgotten us. Nothing is wasted. God holds every moment of our lives in love. He stays with us. And in adoration gazing upon Jesus made real we stay with God.
Pope John Paul II writes in Ecclesia de Eucharistia 6 , “To contemplate Christ involves being able to recognize him where he manifests himself, in his many forms of presence, but above all in the living sacrament of his body and his blood.” Seeing Christ in adoration makes us more able, not less, to see the presence of Christ in our own family and in the neighbors around us.
Peace in Christ,
Sr. Sarah Hennessey
