“For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.” John 6: 55-58
I thought, “Okay. I'm not nuts.” And then she said, “There was a woman sitting beside me and she nearly knocked me out of the pew because she just thumped me.” She said, “Did you just see what I saw?” And she said, “Yes!” I said, “What was that?” She said, “I've never seen anything do that before.”
For some reason, an unseen Angel decided that Host was better off back in the Tabernacle than in that man's hand. I don't know why. I don't know who the person is even. She didn't know who the person was. But the angels, their eyes were on it. For whatever reason they returned it to the Tabernacle.
At every Mass, the eyes of all of Heaven are on the altar. They're on this area around the altar. Saint John Chrysostom said, “If the Lord lifted the veil, we would see a countless number of angels gathered around the altar at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass adoring the Lamb of God. So, all through Mass the eyes of all of Heaven are here. Then we receive Jesus and Holy Communion and as we walk out the door of the church, just shortly after receiving Holy Communion, those same eyes of Heaven are on you and me. And all eyes are on the tabernacle where Jesus is all day every day in the Most Holy Eucharist. But that's a metal box, as lovely as it is. But you and I we're walking, talking, living, breathing tabernacles when we leave the Mass, the Eucharist within us. That is nothing small and insignificant! That is an enormously beautiful privilege that is ours, but we can take it far too much for granted. No one is more likely to do that than me. Because I can probably say I'm at Mass more often than any of you are.
Familiarity hopefully will never breed in me contempt for the Holy Eucharist. Certainly, familiarity can breed a certain complacency, a certain kind of “ordinariness” that blinds me to the extraordinary, Holy Presence of God, of Jesus’ Body Blood, Soul and Divinity at every Mass and in every Holy Communion Host. God has nothing greater to give than Himself and that's the gift He makes to each of us when we come forward to receive Him in Holy Communion.
Our Lord doesn't ask for much. He asked that we come in faith, that we come with love, that we come with our souls right with God, that we're not conscious that there's areas of our life that are completely in contradiction with Christ. That doesn't mean we have to be Padre Pio but that we're trying to live up and make ourselves ready for this great gift, the Holy Body and Blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
God Bless,
Fr. Don Kline
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