Blessed Sacrament. January 31 , 2013

Praying before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. His Presence is one that draws us into divine Love. In this moment of contemplative prayers, Jesus speaks to the human heart, a voice that "lures us into the desert." We stand before Jesus "naked" in our brokenness and sinfulness and in this desert he gazes at us and into the center of our beings. Like the father in the parable, he wraps us with the arms of grace dissolving all that separates us from his love.

When taking a walk to St. Peter's piazza , I take the short cut through a parking garage and underground. Through this long "tube" one can't help but encounter all the "least ones" of the kingdom...the poor. They know that at the end of the tube stand the massive columns forming the architectural masterpiece of the colonnade that circle the square. One almost feels them embracing all of humanity.

The poor are the "blessed sacrament " ...the very Presence of Jesus. And they embrace us with their cries and pleas Yes, they repel us and lure us at the same time
They prick the conscious which wounds our heart, opening them to see ones self in these rejected ones. A glance of love can change the hardest of hearts.

In this beautiful Eternal City stands the mother of all churches, a mother that wants to nourish humanity with God's Presence and Love. This wonderful church beckons us to become just a bit more uncomfortable in our privileged worlds. The purpose of a beautiful church is to make us more Christlike. And in gazing at Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament give God the permission to wound our hearts so that may "see"with His eyes.

The church teaches that Jesus in the Eucharist is "food for the journey (camino)." We feed on Christ's Body so that we will do what the colonnade and basilica do: we open wide our arms to embrace the least ones and in this embrace , we , too, become a least one. Buen camino. Padre