Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

May the Lord give you His peace! I want to begin this letter by expressing my profound gratitude for your patience as we sojourn in the Parish Hall. I do hope that you are finding the Parish Hall comfortable and reverent enough to pray and draw near to the ever-living God.

For these days of Lent the Parish Hall has become our Church, our place where we meet God. Whether we are in the Church or the Hall we remember that Our Lord was born in a stable! Shepherds adored, Kings lay prostrate, angels sang songs of praise as the animals lifted their own voices before the Creator and Lord of all. If our Lord can find such comfort in a barn, I am sure we can do with a few more weeks in the Hall. Perhaps, since the Lord is truly present here in the Tabernacle, we can consider the hall The Great Palace Hall of the Most High King of Heaven and Earth?

Scripture tells us that when the Magi arrived in Bethlehem they saw the child with His mother Mary, and falling to their knees did Him homage. How is it that these three Magi, three kings, would drop to their knees before an infant, a foreign king of a foreign nation? It’s clear that they saw in this child more than an infant king, more than royalty, more than a man. They saw in Him the Son of the Living God, God Himself, God incarnate, the One Who has come into the world, the Saviour and so, they fell to their knees and worshipped. I sometimes marvel at the humility of these men who saw more than an infant, they saw their God! What strikes me is their reverence.

During Jesus’ public ministry there were few who recognized Jesus as God. Those who did behaved much in the same manner as the three Magi. Whether it was the apostles in the boat who gave Jesus homage after He had calmed the storm or others who were seeking a cure for themselves or their loved ones. In each instance they acknowledged by a public display of reverence that Jesus is God! Either falling to their knees before Him or lying prostrate on the ground at His feet they spoke by their actions the words that Saint Thomas proclaimed after the resurrection: My Lord and My God!

Seven-hundred years before the incarnation of Jesus, the prophet Isaiah wrote: Like a sapling he grew up before him..he had no form or charm to attract us, no beauty to win our hearts... This prophecy about Jesus tells us that when Jesus came and walked among us there was nothing special in His appearance to make people look at Him. Light was not emanating from His face. As Saint Paul said; He became like us in all things but sin. So much did He love us that He wanted to walk among us as one of us. It took the gift of supernatural faith to recognize Jesus as God. His works, His authority, His power was sufficient for all to know that Jesus is God and deserves all homage, praise and honor.

The same could be said for Our Lord’s presence among us today. It takes the gift of faith to believe that in every tabernacle of every Catholic Church that Jesus is truly, really substantially and personally present in the Most Holy Eucharist. The same Jesus Who walked the earth two-thousand years ago abides with us today in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar. 

Like believing that God is walking upon our earth incarnate as man, so it is difficult to maintain belief that Jesus is truly present under the form of bread. It takes faith in the words that our Lord spoke at the Last Supper; This is my body...this is the chalice of my blood, and when He said in the synagogue; My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. As difficult as this teaching may be, it is the teaching of our Lord that has continued in the Church over these last two thousand years. Even the Second Vatican Council called the Eucharist; The source and summit of our faith. Why? Because the Eucharist is not a what, it is a whoand that who is the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity. As we struggle with faith in our Lord’s abiding presence we always need to say with the fellow from scripture; Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.

Whether our faith is strong, moderate, weak or struggling it is important for us to begin to consider the reverence we give to Our Lord in the Most Blessed Sacrament. In faith we believe it is truly Jesus and so, like those in scripture, we are called to show that reverence that belongs to God and He alone. At Mass the priest is required to give homage, such as genuflecting after the consecration of the bread and the wine. We genuflect because at that moment it is no longer bread and wine, no matter what my bodily sense tells me. It is the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ and so I kneel before Him there upon the altar, in my unworthy hands. Every time I come before the Tabernacle I am to genuflect before Him.

Reverence, simply put, is the respect given in word, deed or attitude to a person or object according to the dignity it rightly deserves. We are all called to show respect and reverence to each other according to the dignity that we have in Christ Jesus. As creatures of God, made in His image and likeness and then recreated in Christ through the waters of baptism that has made us sons and daughters of God, heirs to the Kingdom of God, we have an obligation to treat one another with intense reverence and respect.

It is so much more with Jesus present in the Most Holy Eucharist. Whenever we enter and depart a place where Jesus dwells in the tabernacle, or cross in front of the tabernacle we are asked, out of respect and reverence to Him, that in faith, we look towards the tabernacle and genuflect (or bow profoundly if our knees no longer work as well as they once did). As we genuflect we could say a little prayer with Saint Thomas; My Lord and My God! Or; My Jesus, My Friend! Or; My Jesus, My Love!

During this season of Lent let us be renewed in our faith in Jesus’ true and real abiding presence in the Holy Eucharist. Let's say with the fellow from scripture; Lord I believe, help my unbelief. May we all, out of deep and sincere love for Our Lord in the Eucharist, show Him the reverence He so deserves. He, our Lord, our Saviour, our Friend, our Love!

May God bless you and may Mary keep you!

Fr David Mary