Today June 10

Today is the feast of Corpus Christi. Msgr. Ronald Knox calls the Eucharist "the window in the wall" -- which I think is very evocative, not only of the shedding of light from without -- from heaven -- into our prison world (gilded though it may be), but as a direct reference to the Bridegroom in the Song of Songs:

"And now he is standing on the other side of this very wall; now he is looking through each window in turn, peering through every chink. I can hear my true love calling to me, Rise up, rise up quickly, dear heart, so gentle, so beautiful, rise up and come with me." (Songs 2:9)

Knox goes on to say that there is definitely a veil -- or what could even be termed a veritable wall -- between our world of the senses and the other world, the supernatural one. Too easily we think, looking at our very material world, "that's all there is" -- what a depressing thought! But Christ has broken through -- and light has shone in the breach. There is another world, dear friends: a world of fields and farms, clean air and running water, and not just this stuffy and gilded cage we live in now, one that has a faint whiff of wickedness (and sometimes not so faint). Jesus may have passed into the world beyond -- He may have ascended into heaven and a cloud taken Him from our sight -- but He is really and truly here. It is His face on the other side of that window in the wall, and I put to you that He is here in the most perfect way in the Blessed Sacrament . . . in His Body and Blood.

It has been said "Christ is equally present in the Eucharist, the Word, the priest, and the people." And what I think is meant by that is simply that He is present in each of those ways, much like I would say, "It is equally true that we are Catholics and that it is June 10th." Yeah, but the fact of what we are is fundamentally more important than what day it is! Or . . . it is equally true that I am a woman and that I am wearing a blue dress . . . both true at the same time: one very important and fundamental and one not. And so it true at one and the same time that Jesus is present in His Body and Blood and in the Word being read and in the celebrant and in the congregation -- but it is not true in the same way. Okay, that's fair enough. Here's an analogy. If I have a picture of my husband, or if I have him on the phone, or if he is standing right beside me, I still have him, but not in the same way. "Is that him?" someone asks, pointing to his picture. "Yes, indeed, that is he," I say, and smile and am comforted by it. Or they overhear me talking on the phone and listening to his actual words. "Is that him?" they say. And I nod excitedly -- "Yes, it is he!" Or they see him next to me, my hand touching his, communing with him, if you will, and they say, "Is that him?" And I say, with force and conviction, "Yes, it is he!" Now all those are my husband, but in different ways. And the Blessed Sacrament is akin to this last way. Be comforted. As Matt Talbot used to say: "How can anyone be lonely, with Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament?"