The Great Presence

                                                             THE GREAT PRESENCE

By Ed Mohs

February 1, 2007

I am humbled; I am in awe, kneeling but five feet from the monstrance, the vessel used to publicly show, worship and honor the Eucharistic Jesus Christ. Radiating rays of purified gold surround the body of Jesus within the monstrance. It is like the Transfiguration of Christ - arrayed in dazzling brightness.

Since childhood, I have always been close to Him especially in the Eucharist. I recall my First Holy Communion picture as I waited to receive my Lord for the first time. In the early eighties, I frequently rose out of bed at 3:00am to converse with and adore my Savior.

The late Father J. Hardon, S.J. (1914-2000), catechist and prolific writer, spoke about “The Real Presence” in the Eucharist. He explained: “We are to believe that the Eucharist is Jesus Christ - simply, without qualification. It is God who becomes man in the fullness of His divine and human nature, body, and soul, and in the fullness of everything that makes Jesus, Jesus.” 

Dr. Tom Curran is the director of Trinity Formation Resources, Federal Way, WA. He proclaims in a four-part series, To Celebrate Worthily-Entering the Drama of the Mass, “as the priest’s hands are extended over the bread and wine, the Power of the Holy Spirit comes upon these gifts (bread, wine) and transforms them into Christ’s body and blood. Jesus entrusts all power to the priest during Consecration...drawing the past of the Last Supper to the ‘Present’ moment...including His Death and Resurrection.”

Historically, a 1997 book written by Father Benedict J. Groeschel, C.F. R., and James Monti, “In the Presence of Our Lord, examined the early Church Fathers, Doctors of the Church, and the lives of the Saints. They presented significant evidence indicating Christ’s Presence within the Eucharist.

St. Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem (315-386), inspired pilgrims receiving Communion: “Make your left hand a throne for your right, as for that which is to receive the King...hallowing your palm, receive the Body of Christ, saying it the ‘Amen.’”

“The Great Presence,” which makes a Catholic Church different from every other place in the world, is really a most wonderful experience to see the Divine Presence looking on. I never knew what worship was until I entered the Catholic Church. A convert to Catholicism, Cardinal John Henry Newman, England (1801-1890) had become an ardent apostle of the religion he had originally sought to refute. Newman asked: If a person is obligated to grant that God created all things out of nothing, “why doubt His power to change the substance of bread into the Body of His Son?”

Pope John Paul II, (1920-2005) in his apostolic Letter on the Eucharist, February 1980, said, “...the Church and the world have a great need of Eucharistic worship. Let us be generous with our time in going to meet him in Adoration...May our adoration never cease.”

“The Christ who faith tells me is here...is Jesus of Nazareth -  Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity. The Jesus of the Eucharist is the Savior of the world.” -Father Benedict Groeschel

Doctor Scott Hahn, former Presbyterian minister, humbly proclaimed his conversion: “but in two or three weeks I was hooked...head over heels in love with Christ and His Real Presence in the Blessed Sacrament, ...but most of all, with the Holy Eucharist to know ourselves around the table of God, His own children.”

“To me, the Eucharist is about receiving Christ with my fellow church members.” Cara, a parishioner at Immaculate Conception Church in Everett, WA, and former associate choir member continued, “It is a spiritual renewal --meaning that it fills me with holiness as long as I recall it within me...It is the culmination of the Mass...and is to be received reverently and acknowledged when received with a firm, ‘Amen’.”

Dr. Curran explained: The Mass is the “most dramatic event we will ever witness in our lives. The Lord, Jesus comes literally into our being--into the very depths of our hearts. Upon partaking of our precious Lord and Savior are the spoken words: ‘The Body of Christ...Amen.’ (This is) fascinating!”