Window to Heaven - 4

 Window to Heaven - 4

“The doctrine of the Real Presence means that Jesus is no less present in the Eucharist today than He was at the home of Martha and Mary.  “Oh”, someone might say, “we have the Eucharist on earth: the historical Jesus lived back then; the risen Jesus is in heaven.”  But don’t you see?  In Jesus, earth and heaven became fully one, fully wed: the risen Jesus is earth taken up into heaven.

In Him, the wedding feast has begun.  And Jesus is God, the Lord of heaven, made visible and tangible for us: seeing Him, we see the Father (Jn 14:9).  Our fleshly eyes see bread, for being earth all they see is earth.  But cloaked beneath that form of bread and wine is Jesus Christ, whose risen Body is the heart of heaven.  About Him dance all the company of angels and saints in mirthful adoration.  And some children of earth kneel and sit at the gate of heaven, looking up longingly through the circle of light that is heaven’s heart, and while they are there, all of earth gives way like husks that yield a flower: in His presence all is peace, all is light.

The Eucharist is a real, ongoing presence, not just a moment of communion, but an ongoing being with, and abiding, the eternal reality of the Incarnation, present “in every tabernacle of the world until the end of time,” as the prayer puts it.  In our day, Eucharistic Adoration has become an ever more popular way to be in the presence of Jesus, to adore Him: a way to be in heaven while on earth.”

   (Father Raymond T. Gawronski, S.J.)