Eucharistic adoration and social concern
It’s good that the devotion to the Eucharist, through its adoration outside of the Holy Mass, is spreading quite well in our country. Wherever I go, I see special chapels where the Blessed Sacrament is exposed for adoration, and even for perpetual adoration.
I consider this another sign of the abiding faith we, a large number of Filipinos, have in God, and in particular in the real presence of Christ in the sacred species. This is something to be thankful to God for. But we also have to realize that we have in our hands a tremendous and delicate treasure that we need to take extreme care of.
This is a challenge actually to everyone, though certainly the leading role falls on the bishops, priests and other religious persons. We need to give more attention to this responsibility so that the devotion can truly mature and produce fruits not only for the individuals but also for the whole of society.
Truth is many people have complained that in spite of our supposedly Christian background and culture, our society is still wracked with all sorts of shameful anomalies in its different sectors and levels. We need to have more consistency between what we profess to believe, and what we do in our business and politics, etc.
First of all we need to highlight, as constantly as possible, the intrinsic link between the celebration of the Holy Mass and the Eucharistic adoration outside of the Mass.
In a 2007 document of Pope Benedict XVI, “Sacramentum caritatis” (Sacrament of charity), he noted that sometime ago there were some people who thought that the Blessed Sacrament is not meant to be looked at but only to be eaten.
This, the Pope said, is a false dichotomy. Quoting St. Augustine, he said that “no one eats the flesh without first adoring it.” He argues:
“In the Eucharist, the Son of God comes to meet us and desires to become one with us. Eucharistic adoration is simply the natural consequence of the Eucharistic celebration.”
He said that receiving the Eucharist means adoring him whom we receive. The adoration outside the Mass prolongs and intensifies all that takes place during the liturgical celebration itself.
We need to understand and discern this dynamics of the Eucharist. The Pope said that it is precisely this personal encounter with the Lord in the Eucharist that strengthens our social mission contained in it.
“The Eucharist,” he said, “seeks to break down not only the walls that separate the Lord and ourselves, but also and especially the walls that separate us from one another.”
These are nice words that certainly convey a deep insight about the mystery of the Eucharist. The challenge now is how to make everyone aware of this reality. We the clergy have to demonstrate and act this out ourselves first before we can dare to convince the others. But everyone has to do his part.
Little things count a lot here. The care and devotion we give when we kneel or genuflect before the Blessed Sacrament, for example, can already go a long way in helping us enter deep into Christ’s presence and into the lives of people.
This will be an entering that goes beyond our psychological, temperamental or social and cultural conditionings. It will be an entering that is led by faith and love. It will enable us to savor Christ’s presence and people’s lives in a manner that beggars description.
To achieve this in a stable way, we can think of developing the habit of making visits to the Blessed Sacrament everyday, spending time with the Lord there, talking to him not only about our personal affairs, but also about the affairs of society in general.
There is an awful lot of things to consider and bring up with our Lord in these visits. First of all, we need to ask for more light and strength, for more grace and courage. And then we need to consider the nitty-gritty of the different issues right in front of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.
Many saints have done this and came out of it enlightened and enabled to undertake tremendous tasks. This Eucharistic moment is like the heart purifying used blood and pumping fresh arterial blood—the divine impulses—to our entire human system, from the personal to the social, material to spiritual, etc.
If only all of us, especially the clergy and our civil and political leaders, can have this Eucharistic devotion!
(Fr. Cimagala is the Chaplain of Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE), Talamban, Cebu City. Email: roycimagala@gmail.com)
