Our People

Last year I visited a number of dioceses and religious congregations in the United States with a view to learning what I could from the American experience of attracting priestly and religious vocations. The American Church suffers from many of the same problems we do: increasing secularization, some hostile people in the media and other institutions, a 'culture of death' marked by moral relativism and various vices, some deadly new biotechnologies, clerical scandals, declining church attendance… But some dioceses and religious congregations have had extraordinary success in drawing converts and attracting vocations. There are a number of reasons for this: faithful and charismatic bishops; dynamic vocations and youth ministry teams; visible, fruitful and happy clergy and religious; priestly and lay loyalty to the papacy and the magisterium; and other factors. But the one that all these successful dioceses and orders have in common is: encouragement of regular Eucharistic Adoration.

 

Against all the misgivings of many priests and laity, against the prophecies of some in the media (especially sections of the 'Catholic' media), against all attempts to create new church 'relevance', it is the age-old relevance of Jesus' presence in the Blessed Sacrament that brings people to their knees and young men and women to the altar and the convent. This will not be surprising news to anyone here today-but we should still take delight and marvel at the fact that statistics show that regular Adoration is a major key to revitalizing the Church and attracting future priests and religious.

 

Today I would like to recall, first, the truth about the Blessed Sacrament; then, secondly, the reason we adore this wonderful sacrament; and thirdly, the effect this can have-on individuals, on families, on vocations, and on the Catholic presence and profile in the world.

 

1. "O sacred Banquet in which Christ is received"

 

The foundation of the modern nation of Australia begins with the landing of the First Fleet of settlers at Sydney Cove on 26th January 1788. Its legal foundation dates to two weeks later when, on 7th February, Captain Arthur Phillip took his oath of office as Governor of the new colony before the Deputy Judge Advocate. Philip then "made a 'pointed and judicious speech', a 'very well delivered and energetick piece of oratory', the batallion was reviewed, 'a feu de joie  was fired, the band played several pieces suited to the business', loyal toasts were drunk, and New South Wales was on its way". Governor Phillip's oath contained two themes: he affirmed that he would dutifully serve His Majesty in the government of the colony; and he denied the popish and treasonous notion 'that there was any transubstantiation in the sacrament of the Lord's Table'. Such were the conditions of his taking up his new post: Australia, you might say, was founded upon the affirmation of the monarchy and the denial of transubstantiation!

 

Why the concern with this strange mediæval word and the even stranger idea it tries to capture? Well, two centuries before, on 11th October 1551, with the pious hope "that it might pluck up by the roots those weeds of appalling errors and schisms with which in these our calamitous times the Enemy has sewn amongst the doctrine of the faith in the use and worship of the sacred and holy Eucharist", the Council of Trent sought to set forth the genuine Catholic faith. Despite having the Sacred Scriptures and the Summa Theologiæ of St Thomas Aquinas laid open on the altar for counsel, the Council Fathers humbly admitted they could scarcely express the doctrine of the Eucharist in words. Nonetheless they defined as the Catholic faith that in the sacrament of the Eucharist the whole body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ are contained "truly, really, and substantially", and not just in sign, figure, power or effect as some Protestants had claimed in the decades that precipitated the Council. This was declared to come about by a wonderful and unique conversion most aptly called Transubstantiation. So this word and the doctrine behind it was a badge of Catholic orthodoxy not just for Protestant Governors of new colonies on the other side of the world, but for those Catholic bishops against whom such governors defined their faith.

 

When the Church speaks of the great sacrament of his Body and Blood left to us by Jesus the night before he died, she uses her most theological and philosophical language. It is as if so great and so scarcely describable is this sacrament that we must dress it in our finest language, our finest vessels, our grandest clothes, rather like the monstrances for Exposition and the copes for Benediction. Just what do these difficult terms such as 'transubstantiation', 'substance' and 'accidents', 'species' and 'ontological change'  mean, and how do they relate to the loving presence of the Lord in the sacrament of the altar? Does it matter that, according to the National Church Life Survey conducted in 2001 amongst Catholics attending Mass, only two-thirds of regularly practising Catholics and two-fifths of less regular attenders, said they believed that "the bread and wine truly become the Body and Blood of Christ"? Does it matter that about a third of them thought it better to say "the bread and wine symbolize Christ's sacrifice"?

 

My answer is, as the Fathers of Trent and Governor Philip foresaw: yes, it matters very much. First, much of what we do and say around the Blessed Sacrament is purely and properly symbolic: our incense symbolises prayers, candles symbolize our offerings, kneeling our adoration, vestments the beauty of the divine liturgy, and so on. But the sacrament itself is more than just a symbol of Christ: it does not simply represent Christ in a symbolic way. In the case of the other sacraments we have symbols that are sacred because we use them in a sacred action: water for baptism or oils for catechumens, the sick, those being confirmed and ordained. With the Blessed Sacrament, however, we have a symbol that is sacred in itself: sacred because it is Christ. The water of baptism is not Christ; the sacred oils are not Christ; but the 'bread' and 'wine' of the Blessed Sacrament, which are mere symbols when they are brought to the altar at the offertory, are Christ, from the moment the priest pronounces the words of consecration. Independent of being received by us in Holy Communion, independent of being recognized by us, independent even of there being anyone else there at all, Christ is now there. No wonder our tradition has seen those elements as fit not only for communion but also for reservation, adoration, benediction!

 

To describe this change of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ the Church uses the term 'ontological'. An ontological change in some physical thing is a change that introduces a new reality: at the consecration something changes really, fundamentally, objectively. It does not just change linguistically, or intentionally, or metaphorically, or symbolically: indeed what the bread and wine most clearly symbolize-a 'sacred' meal, 'spiritual' nourishment, 'communion' with each other and with God-do not change at the consecration. Bread and wine in the context of the Eucharistic celebration already symbolize those things for Catholics even before the consecration or if there is no consecration.

 

No, says Catholic faith: what changes is not merely the meaning we invest in the bread and wine, or how we feel about the bread and wine, or what the bread and wine but us in mind of. We many in fact understand or intend or advert to or feel very little or very wrong things without undermining the Eucharistic action. Rather, the change at the consecration means that Christ is now just as objectively present as the priest and the congregation in church are. Indeed, he is in a sense more present than them.

 

Let me explain this extraordinary claim. Jesus, when he walked amongst us two thousand years ago was God present to us in the flesh, a most wonderful way: yet only one or two or twelve or sometimes 5,000 or so were with him at a time. He was present to some but absent to others. But by virtue of the Last Supper, the Cross, the Resurrection and the Ascension he can now be present to millions at a time and indeed is so every Sunday. Thus while Jesus' body and blood are now present to us sacramentally through the Holy Eucharist-while he remains physically at the right hand of the Father in glory-yet he is by virtue of that new sacramental presence more present than he ever was while on earth and more present that we can ever be.

 

When St Thomas Aquinas expounded and defended this wonderful teaching he used the most up-to-date technical science, philosophy and theology he could muster to express it-just as a sharp Catholic thinker today would do. He was nervous about this: not because he was afraid of the sciences but because he knew he own mind-probably the greatest theological mind in history-was no match for so great a mystery. He spent hours in prayer before the crucifix and the tabernacle seeking divine wisdom on this matter. He would even put his head in the tabernacle to talk to our Lord present in the Eucharist, before daring to write about him. And then he got to work. He took the philosopher Aristotle's idea of 'substance' and 'accidents' and applied this to the sacrament. A substance is something which exists in its own right, like a cat or a pew: the cat's fur only exists because the cat does, the scratch on the pew only exists because the pew does, whereas the pew and cat exist in their own right. Before the consecration the gifts have the substance of bread and wine-substances in their own right which possess a certain colour and smell and taste and place and quantity, but are not dependent on these. At the consecration, however, the Church teaches that the entire substance of bread is changed into the substance of Christ's body, as is the wine into his blood. Normally, such a change would mean that what was bread now takes on the colour, smell, taste, place and quantity of flesh, but body is not dependent on looking like body. Hence, in the case of the Blessed Sacrament God allows the substance of body and blood to maintain the appearances of bread and wine-thankfully, otherwise Holy Communion would be difficult to swallow and love of the sacrament difficult to cultivate in our hearts.

 

St Thomas' and the Church's word for this change is 'transubstantiation'. By this term we teach that bread is no longer present in the sacrament (there is no consubstantiation). Nor is the bread annihilated (as in a thermo-nuclear explosion) and replaced by Christ. Rather, the whole reality of the bread is changed into the whole reality of Christ by God's power. Of course, it continues to taste and look and smell like bread-in technical-speak the 'accidents' or properties of bread remain. But they are not there because any bread is there; rather, they are maintained miraculously by God in their own right to help us to approach the Body of Christ in faith and love.

 

This technical talk is not something every Catholic must use or even very well grasp. Its main purpose is to give us a language in which we can confidently state that now there is no bread or wine: now Christ himself is really and objectively present. He is not present merely as a symbol, nor is he present as flesh-tasting substance; rather, he is present sacramentally, in body and blood, in body and soul, in humanity and divinity; just as objectively (if differently) present here as once he was when he walked in Galilee and as now he is at the Father's right hand in heaven.

 

2. "The memorial of his Passion is renewed, the soul is filled with Grace"

 

Many Christians and even some Catholics deny that Our Lord is objectively present in the Blessed Sacrament. It is not hard to grasp why they then query adoration: to adore a mere symbol, something that represents Christ because of how we feel or what we decide, would be ridiculous, even blasphemous. A senior Anglican cleric once said, in answer the question 'what would you rather die that do?', that he would rather die than celebrate the blasphemy of the Mass. And he would be right if it were blasphemy, sacrilege, idolatry, if we were worshipping bread and wine. In the same way, when the three kings came to Bethlehem, singing O Come Let Us Adore Him, they would have been engaging in a terrible mistake at best and a terrible blasphemy at worst, if they had laid their gold, frankincense and myrrh before Herod the king of the Old Israel, instead of Jesus, the Infant King and Messiah of the New.

 

But sometimes people do believe in the real presence and yet still query adoration. Indeed, in some places the Blessed Sacrament has become invisible except at Holy Communion time-and even at Holy Communion the exposed sacrament in or outside the sanctuary may be treated with less than the worship due to Christ himself. This may be a matter of decision, ideology, confusion, or just plain neglect. It is unlikely to be simply malice. Why then is it that people can feel positive about the Eucharist but negative about adoring the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament?

 

After the Second Vatican Council there were great changes in the Sacred Liturgy of the Church, some of these directly mandated or at least permitted by Church authority, and some with no authority at all. Some of these changes were very positive. In our cathedral, for instance, a beautiful Blessed Sacrament Chapel was appointed where the Eucharist could be adored without the interruption of tourists or the great distance between the people and the high altar. But amongst the changes that came in, in many places, there were several that had the (desired?) effect of demystifying and desacralising the Mass and the Church, and the net effect was the removal of almost every external sign of reverence for the Blessed Sacrament. No longer would priests face the tabernacle or make multiple signs of reverence for the Sacrament throughout the Mass; no longer would the people kneel at altar rails with altar cloths and communion plates to receive the Sacrament on the tongue. Many tabernacles were removed to obscurity and gestures such as double genuflection before the sacrament exposed and single genuflection at other times diminished or disappeared. So did fasting before communion and dressing the Eucharistic vessels; indeed many precious vessels and vestments and candlesticks went to antique dealers. Eucharistic sodalities and processions, holy hours, convents and other places of perpetual adoration, quiet 'visits' to the Blessed Sacrament, exposition, benediction, incense, bells, silences for preparation before and thanksgiving after Mass, and so much else soon vanished…

 

Now I am not saying that any one of these external signs of our reverence was essential or properly immovable or irreformable. We must not turn nay one of these signs into a fetish or obsession. We must not confuse the substance for the accidents in devotion any more than in sacramentality. Some of these changes were made with the true authority of the Church and whatever our judgment about their prudence we should comply with them rather than making a fuss or acting contrary to the Church's "use and worship". If the Church now says we can receive the Eucharist either on the tongue or in the hand we should respect the freedom of the children of God and allow both and not judge those who choose either. If the Church now says that we need fast no more than one hour before communion, we may choose privately to fast for longer, but must judge no-one else who observes the law. And so on…

 

Furthermore, in our modes of preparation, reception, reverencing and thanksgiving, we must remain focussed on Christ, his Body and Blood, whole and entire, and not get too distracted by the externals of how beautiful or ugly the vessels or the priest are! It is the Eucharistic Lord that is all-beautiful and our acts of adoration participate in that beauty. Nonetheless, in his recent Apostolic Letter Mane Nobiscum Domine, proclaiming this the Year of the Eucharist, Pope John Paul II says that

 

There is a particular need to cultivate a lively awareness of Christ's real presence, both in the celebration of Mass and in the worship of the Eucharist outside Mass. Care should be taken to show that awareness through tone of voice, gestures, posture and bearing…moments of silence both in the celebration of Mass and in Eucharistic adoration. The way that the ministers and the faithful treat the Eucharist should be marked by profound respect. The presence of Jesus in the tabernacle must be a kind of magnetic pole attracting an ever greater number of souls enamoured of him... (§18)

 

Gestures and posture and bearing are mentioned here amongst the marks of that magnetic attraction to the tabernacle and the Eucharistic Lord within. These things matter a lot to Dominicans like myself. St Dominic, our founder, had nine Ways of Prayer. They were examples of gesture, posture and bearing for prayer. They included multiple genuflections, standing with his arms outstretched, prostrating himself, and generally engaging in a sort of spiritual callisthenics or liturgical jazzercize. To this day when Dominicans gather to pray the Divine Office we do a great deal of kneeling, standing, sitting, standing up again, bowing profoundly towards each other, in two choirs or groups. A lot of old-fashioned carry-on your might say. But there is a wisdom here in this Dominican way of praying. It is the wisdom of the body.

 

Pope John Paul II has elaborated a whole theology of the body upon which many people have now written and lectured, myself among them. Obviously Christ's bodily presence in the Eucharist is a key theme; so is the nuptial meaning of the bodily presence of each one of us. In St Dominic's day there were 'dualist' heretics called Albigensians and Cathars who taught the opposite. They believed that the body and everything about it-including the Incarnation and Resurrection of Christ, the Sacraments especially the Eucharist, marriage and sexual intercourse, human conception and bodily life, the promise of bodily resurrection for us all-all of it is evil. The flesh, they taught, is created by an evil god. Dominic said this was nonsense and he founded an Order to say so with him. There is only one God, a good God, and everything he makes, including sex, the body, food, marriage and family are good, he said. There is only one Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the same good God, and his Incarnation and Resurrection redeem and reconfirm the value of all human life including bodily life. There is only one Holy Spirit, the same good God, and he dwells in the Temple of our bodies as Christ does in the tabernacles of our Church. How did Dominic preach this? In part, with the very bodiliness of his prayer. Physical prayer is perfectly natural to people with such beliefs.

 

In certain places the habit of standing or even sitting throughout the Eucharistic Prayer has been encouraged. Kneelers have even been removed to make it harder to kneel for the Eucharistic Prayer. Of course, in certain places this may be an ancient and continuous practice, something of deep cultural significance, conceivably a posture of adoration. But to encourage it, contrary to the clear liturgical norms both universal and local, in a culture such as ours where standing is a fairly ordinary, everyday posture of respect (at most) and where kneeling is the understood gesture of adoration, seems to me to make a strong anti-adoration statement. People stand when a colleague, a friend, the boss, an older person comes into the room; they may stand for national anthems or funeral processions, sporting laps of honour or visiting politicians. But when the Creator and Redeemer of the universe is here in his real presence, an everyday gesture of politeness and civil respect hardly seems sufficient.

 

We kneel before God, and before sacred images and works of God, because it is then and then alone that kneeling really makes sense. In former times-and still today when they are knighted-people knelt before the King or Queen, not because they represented the people but because they were consecrated by Christ's priests to do God's service. People still kneel to meet the pope and kiss his ring because he is the Vicar of Christ. How much more fitting then that we kneel at the real presence of the Christ himself? Kneeling before persons or things makes no sense unless we understand this as honouring something of God in them. Kneeling is, therefore, a powerful gesture of honour, worship, adoration, directed properly towards God and his glorious presence among us. Even the priest, acting in persona Christi, properly falls to his knees after the consecration or when he opens the tabernacle. We all should do so.

 

People who oppose this sometimes argue that kneeling is craven, slavish, gives us unhealthy feelings of sinfulness or unworthiness, contradicts human dignity, represents the posture of the scrupulous penitent. This is nonsense. Of course, kneeling can mean penitence as indeed it might if we kneel before going to Confession. And of course kneeling can mean timorous subjection or low self-esteem. But when a Christian kneels before Jesus Christ it is, like the Magi kneeling before the infant Messiah, or the woman who knelt to touch the hem of Jesus' robe than she might be cured of her hæmorrhage, or the man who knelt to ask him to cure his leprosy, or the woman who knelt before him to plead for a cure for her daughter, or the ruler who knelt to ask him to raise up his dead daughter, or the woman who washed and anointed Jesus' feet as a sign of her devotion and his forthcoming death, or the young man who knelt before him to ask "Good Master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" All these knelt, as we do, to acknowledge not just another man but the divine Son of God. It is not the feudal submission of an inferior to a superior: it is actually a prayer, a prayer of love for and worship of the One who made us and saved us. It is for the creature before his Creator the most natural posture of all.

 

Adoration of our maker and redeemer can hardly be opposed to human dignity. Human dignity is the special value that human persons possess-a sort of irreplaceablility that means we cannot trade or measure or use or substitute persons as we do objects. This is of course a Christian idea, rooted in the Mosaic tradition, in the teachings of Our Lord, and in the moral teaching of the Church. Kneeling in praise and thanks of our maker who became human to save us is not opposed to human dignity: it is a statement of human dignity. It is the profound acknowledgment that God in his humanity, incarnate in Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, this is the God we can see face to face because he has raised a human nature to share his throne of glory. The same God far from casting off the flesh on his return to the Father, remains for all eternity incarnate, and takes his own humanity with him to heaven. He has already drawn the body of his mother there after him and he calls all the saints to join them there in the end. In the meantime he leaves that same flesh and blood sacramentally present to us in that forever changed bread and wine, once merely the symbols of human life and growth, of nourishment and sustenance. If acknowledging the all this in acts of adoration is psychologically unhealthy for some people, it is only because they misunderstand the love of God, the humility of God made flesh, and the nature of prayer of adoration.

 

Don't get me wrong. If we take this point too far, we could get hung up in the opposite direction. We would never get up off our knees. If the Church tells us to stand, as she does after the Consecration (in some places) or after the Great Amen at the end of the Eucharistic Prayer (here in Australia), we adopt the postures approved by the Church. Our worship in Mass is not a private devotion, but a public, communal act of worship. There might be times and places to prostrate yourself fully upon the ground before God in this Sacrament: this was one of St Dominic's favourite ways of praying. But please don't do this in the middle of the Communion queue or you might get stamped to death. Kneel when the Church kneels and stand when the Church stands.

 

Last week I visited Cologne in Germany to help to prepare for World Youth Day there in August 2005. Cologne has been chosen as a centre for the youth of the world to gather in part because the great cathedral there contains the shrine of the three kings or wise men who worshipped the baby Jesus in Bethlehem at the first Christmas. It is their words-we have come to worship him-that have been chosen as the theme for this year's Word Youth Day and for the title of my talk. These men left their Eastern homes and journeyed a great distance into strange lands because of an old prophecy that a bright star would indicate the birth of a great king. They were not Jews, nor do we know what happened to their faith after their brief visit to Bethlehem. But we do know that there they worshipped him. Though not of his tradition and people, not bound by religious law or convention to pay homage, these pagan strangers recognized that at this crib their proper place was on their knees. Kings, they knelt before One whose kingship they recognized as dwarfing their own. Then, the Bible tells us, they returned home safely, by another way.

 

The point is that these unlikely people knelt in adoration at the least likely of sights-a little baby in the most ordinary of cradles in a cold and smelly shed. People who are looking for the Lord will find him-even people who are not 'official' Christian believers-and when they do, they want to place their lives utterly before him. Of course no gesture is sufficient to express this; but symbolic gestures are what we use when no simple gestures will suffice. When we choose postures that human nature and human culture mark out as specially significant, we can identify these with our wishes and intentions and through them express otherwise inexpressible thoughts.

 

One of the greatest Catholic philosophers of our time, Elizabeth Anscombe, used to tell the story of a child-perhaps one of her own-who at two and a half years old was only then beginning to talk. He had been introduced to the mystery of the Eucharist in simple language by her parents at Mass. The woman was coming back from communion when she was met by her son in the free space at the back of the church. 'Is He in you?' the child asked. 'Yes', she replied. And to her amazement the little boy immediately prostrated himself in front of her.

 

The story is heart-stopping and it is beautiful; but it is also theologically and philosophically profound. What the child had grasped was that this really is Christ's body and blood and that before this all we can do is to adopt a posture and attitude of adoration. If we believe that the priest does what Jesus himself did at the Last Supper, then we have reason indeed to worship and to adore, to say wow with our whole minds and bodies in wonder and awe. When we adore we do not worship a thing, an object: we kneel again before the One whose Passion is recalled and renewed and who fills our souls with grace.
3. We are given the Pledge of Future Glory

 

In Mane Nobiscum Domine John Paul II says that "during this year Eucharistic adoration outside Mass should become a particular commitment for individual parish and religious communities." (§18) Yet people sometimes worry that adoration is a private devotion-indeed, one criticism made of adoration is that it is too privatised, not social enough, a denial of community, a negative self-focussed indulgence. In fact, adoration seems to me to be public, social, an affirmation of community, and a positive Church-focussed choice. We can think about this by considering adoration in relation to the priesthood and to marriage.

 

Priests and bishops remain faithful teachers and wise administrators when they are men of strong prayer. The sacrament of orders is not primarily about running parish meetings efficiently or keeping the buildings up but about sanctifying: praying for holiness for oneself and one's flock. Prayer for holiness is first and foremost prayer to the holy living presence within our churches and on our altars. At daily Mass and at daily devotions before the tabernacle, the priest adores Our Lord and prays for his people. Priests who maintain that healthy relationship with the holy presence at their fingertips stay holy; and their holiness attracts people old and young to the Church. That is why this week the Pope proclaimed a plenary indulgence for those priests and others who pray the divine office before the Blessed Sacrament during this Year of the Eucharist.

 

Providing the opportunity for adoration and giving priestly leadership at adoration encourages young people to think about priesthood and religious life. When young men think that Father is only really a priest for the one hour a week at the altar and the rest of the time a sort of cross between a social worker and a business manager, this is hardly a vision to attract the enthusiasm and energy of youth. But when they know that Father is priest even in his sleep and is before his Lord at every opportunity, praying and worshipping, that is a vision of courage and perseverance and faith that can attract a young heart.

 

Of course preaching, social work, relief of poverty, offering counselling to needy and confused people are worthy and great goals. The Church's tradition of service and care in social services, education and healthcare rivals even that of governments. Priests are at the forefront in leadership in these areas, and many priests should stay in these positions. But for a priest, love of our fellows is understood as charity, love of God. Priests love and serve the community because of their love and service of God. The sacrifice of the altar is the context in which they understand the sacrifice of their time and energies for others. To adore God is to grow in the knowledge of the God who became man so as to serve and to save. This knowledge and willingness is the primary qualification priests possess for serving people.

 

People, including young people, including families, do not come to church in great numbers for entertainment or the support of the like-minded or to hear an interesting speaker. They go to church because of a real, living presence there. It is the very opposite of a self-focussed indulgence. Those churches that offer regular Eucharistic adoration and so attract youth turn the focus from the self towards Jesus exposed once in shame on the Cross and now in glory on the altar. There is little room for self-indulgence when the mind is filled with God; little room for selfishness and privatised devotion when Christ calls people out of themselves and reflects their thoughts back to the needs of the world.

 

That call to community and to other people is found most dramatically in the effect of adoration upon marriages and families. Marriage and family has taken many knocks in the past thirty years in Western countries. Marriage is often seen as a contract, a matter of 'getting hitched', giving it a go, adding a rubber-stamp for people who have lived together for years. People who were partners now become a couple. Together with this minimalist, de-sacralised version of marriage goes a minimalist version of family. Families are (very) small groups of people, usually of different ages, who choose to live together. The trend today is for small families, with children reduced to an income-enhancing minimum of one, or sometimes with a later second child whose chances of conception may be boosted by IVF.

 

Modern married and family life can be insecure and unhappy. Partly, this is the result of not understanding marriage. In marriage a couple become one flesh-it is not just a metaphor or a symbolic way of speaking. By word, intention and deed the married couple form a relationship which can only come about through marriage. The key to this relationship is that by mutual consent they acknowledge they are different individuals and different sexes but will now live as one in the hope that through this mutual gift great love and new life will flow. This is a mystery, a sacrament. Perhaps the best way we have in which to understand it is to contemplate and adore the Blessed Sacrament, for here too we have 'one flesh', the living presence that is both entirely God and entirely man yet somehow totally unified as a single individual. This is something no philosophy and no theology can explain; it is something for prayer, and wonder, and deep, deep thankfulness.

 

More prosaically, Eucharistic adoration is unitive for marriages and strengthening for families. Couples who adore Christ together bring the sacrament of marriage before the Blessed Sacrament. They offer not just themselves but their marriage in adoration. And families who adore together find in the real presence the little baby whose presence made of Mary and Joseph a holy family. The adoration of a family is a special gift to the Lord. Once he was a baby and the adoration of children, as in the story of Professor Anscombe's son, must surely be a delight to him still.

 

Perhaps most important of all now is to help people simply to open their eyes and to see the world differently. Everyone who can should study some philosophy and theology, but for various reasons not everyone can. Knowing this, Our Lord has made himself fully available to anyone who chooses to see beyond their own familiar sensory experiences. It is sometimes tempting to think: this is too hard; why does Jesus not physically reveal himself to me in Randwick or Liverpool? But in fact if he did, would we believe our eyes: would we accept this was Jesus, or would we want more evidence, more tests, more reasons? Would we get ourselves seen to by some doctor or psychologist? And would members of each culture accept this was Jesus when he appeared as a man very different from themselves? Probably not. The only way in which Jesus can appear to everyone is to appear in a form that belongs to no culture and requires no scientific testing or medicine or counselling: to appear sacramentally. In this way, he appears as himself-body and blood, mind and body, humanity and divinity-and cloaks that awesome reality in the appearances of the universal human necessities of food and drink.

 

Jesus is universally available in this sacrament: hence he is the medium in which all believers, all of the world's people, can finally communicate with one another. His followers are not creatures of the printed and electronic media of the day: for we have a medium, a language of our own. We worship a living God-man; his name is Truth and because we are his family we can hear the truth and share it with all of the world's peoples. Jesus is the living Word of God, the source of truth, a real presence in the contemporary world before whom, with saints and angels and popes and wise men, we kneel and adore.

 

St Thomas Aquinas made the Eucharist the centre of his 'spirituality'. He once told his Franciscan friend St Bonaventure that he had learned more from the Eucharist than all books he had read-and he had read many. His great Eucharistic hymns such as the Pange Lingua and the Adoro Te reveal his burning love for the Eucharist and how the greatest minds can unite truth, beauty and goodness in their teaching and devotion. Yet after writing the tract De Eucharistia for his famous Summa, that would one day sit upon the altar of the Council of Trent, though at height of his powers, something happened to Thomas while celebrating Mass. He retired forever from teaching and writing and prepared to meet his God. On the way to the Second Council of Lyons, in January 1274, his strength failed him. His brother friar, secretary and friend, Reginald, gave him viaticum, the Eucharist as food for the journey of the dying. Before receiving the sacrament he declared his certainty "that Jesus Christ, True God and True Man, Son of God and Son of Mary, is in this Sacrament." And then he added:

 

I receive You, the price of my redemption, for whose love I have studied, toiled and kept vigil. You only have I preached; You have I taught; never have I said anything against You. And lest I have made any mistakes in my teaching concerning this sacrament or other matters, I submit all to the judgment and correction of Holy Roman Church.
-in whose obedience this great adorer of the Blessed Sacrament passed from this life on 7th March 1274. Thanks be to God!