Saint Damien and friendship with the Blessed Sacrament

Within the context of the Holy Mass, by means of the Communion Antiphon, Holy Mother Church asks to consider these words of the Lord Jesus today as we receive the Eucharist: "Father, I pray for them, that they may be one in us, so that the world may believe it was you who sent me" (John 17:20-21).

We were first united with Jesus - made one with him - in the saving waters of Baptism. This is why Saint Paul speaks our being "baptized into Christ Jesus" as being "united with him" in his death and his resurrection (Romans 6:3, 5). It is because of this unity with Christ that the Apostle speaks of the one Body of Christ (see I Corinthians 12:12-27).

Yet, after Baptism we can weaken or even sever this unity with Christ by our sin. We can rightly make these words of Saint Paul our own: "For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want" (Romans 7:19). Likewise, Saint John distinguishes between "sin which is deadly" and "sin which is not deadly" (I John 5:16, 17).

This is why the Lord Jesus entrusted the power of the forgiveness of sins to his Apostles (John 20:23) - through which sins which are not deadly are forgiven (see I Corinthians 11:27) - and why at the Last Supper the Lord commanded the Apostles to "do this in remembrance of me" (Luke 20:19). Through the Eucharist Jesus nourishes us with himself, with his own Body and Blood as our food, because, as he says, "unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you" (John 6:53). He gives himself to us as food and drink to strengthen our unity with him.

What is more, as if in answer to the request of the disciple on the road to Emmaus - whose request petition, as well - who said to Jesus, "Stay with us," Jesus gave us the Eucharist because "he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him" (Luke 24:29; John 6:56).

Saint Joseph Damien de Veuster recognized the profound truth of all of this in a most intimate way. Amidst the great pain and suffering he witnessed and endured in the leper settlement on Moloka'i and the loneliness he experienced by being the only priest of his order on the island and not hearing from his family for years at a time, Father Damien found his truest friend in the Eucharistic Lord. Of his friendship with Jesus, he wrote most movingly:

I find my consolation in the one and only companion who will never leave me, that is, our Divine Savior in the Holy Eucharist. . . .It is at the foot of the altar that we find the strength necessary in this isolation of ours. Without the Blessed Sacrament a position like mine would be unbearable. But, having Our Lord at my side, I continue always to be happy and content. . . . Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is the most tender of friends with souls who seek to please Him. His goodness knows how to proportion itself to the smallest of His creatures as to the greatest of them. Be not afraid then in your solitary conversations, to tell Him of your miseries, your fears, your worries, of those who are dear to you, of your projects, and of your hopes. Do so with confidence and with an open heart.

Looking to the Eucharistic faith of Father Damien, on this last day of the novena in his honor before the celebration of his memorial, we ask of the Sacred Heart of Jesus "an increase of devotion to Holy Mass and to the Blessed Sacrament" and for the grace "to prepare my heart more worthily and more fervently to receive You in Holy Communion."

A simple glance around the pews at any Sunday Mass is enough to remind us of the sad reality that too few people - Catholics included - believe in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. This is a great tragedy because they lack an essential aspect of the friendship of Jesus in their daily lives.

From his youth, Father Damien showed a devotion to the Blessed Sacrament; perhaps this is why he joined the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary and of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. In his devotion to and friendship with the Blessed Sacrament, Father Damien was and is not alone.

The celebrated author J.R.R. Tolkien also wrote movingly of his friendship with Jesus in the Eucharist in a letter to his son Michael:

But I fell in love with the Blessed Sacrament from the beginning - and by the mercy of God never have fallen out again: but alas! I indeed did not live up to it.

In that same letter, Tolkien perhaps explained how - or why - he never fell out of friendship with the Blessed Sacrament:

The only cure for sagging of fainting faith is Communion. Though always Itself, perfect and complete and inviolate, the Blessed Sacrament does not operate completely and once for all in any of us. Like the act of Faith, it must be continuous and grow by exercise. Frequency is of the highest effect. Seven times a week is more nourishing than seven times at intervals.

I daresay Father Damien would agree. The only way to grow in friendship with Jesus, to strengthen our unity with him, is to spend time with him.

Tolkien on "the one great thing to love on earth"

As we celebrate today the great mystery of the Lord Jesus gift to us of his very own Body and Blood for our nourishment, I cannot help but recall the beautiful words with which J.R.R. Tolkien wrote of the Blessed Sacrament to his son, Michael:

Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament... There you will find romance, glory, honour, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves on earth, and more than that: Death. By the divine paradox, that which ends life, and demands the surrender of all, and yet by the taste -or foretaste- of which alone can what you seek in your earthly relationships (love, faithfulness, joy) be maintained, or take on that complexion of reality, of eternal endurance, which every man's heart desires.

The only cure for sagging or fainting faith is Communion. Though always Itself, perfect and complete and inviolate, the Blessed Sacrament does not operate completely and once for all in any of us. Like the act of Faith it must be continuous and grow by exercise. Frequency is of the highest effect. Seven times a week is more nourishing than seven times at intervals.

Also I can recommend this as an exercise (alas! only too easy to find opportunity for): make your communion in circumstances that affront your taste. Choose a snuffling or gabbling priest or a proud and vulgar friar; and a church full of the usual bourgeois crowd, ill-behaved children - from those who yell to those products of Catholic schools who the moment the tabernacle is opened sit back and yawn - open necked and dirty youths, women in trousers and often with hair both unkempt and uncovered. Go to communion with them (and pray for them). It will be just the same (or better than that) as a mass said beautifully by a visibly holy man, and shared by a few devout and decorous people. It could not be worse than the mess of the feeding of the Five Thousand - after which our Lord propounded the feeding that was to come.

Parents, how do you speak with your children about the Eucharist? Do you, as Tolkien, share with them your love of the Eucharistic Lord? Do you speak to them at all of your relationship with the Blessed Sacrament?

Why does prayer feel different in a church than in my room?

As I sat down this morning to catch up on the world through Facebook and Twitter, one of my former students asked a question of me.  He had just returned from a period of prayer in a nearby church and asked, "While I was there it was really weird feeling compared to like just praying in my room.  Why is that?"

I thought I understood what he meant, but, just to be sure, I asked what felt different about it.  He said, "Like someone was there with me when I was alone for the majority of the time."  He had just come from a Catholic church and was praying before the tabernacle.

He had not been alone, I answered, but was in the very presence of Jesus Christ, present in the tabernacle; the Lord was with him.  He had stumbled upon the great secret of life and found the means through which Jesus keeps his promise to be with us always; though a Catholic who prays, the reality of the Eucharist was revealed to him in those moments of prayer in a way it had not been before.  Have you had such an encounter with the Lord?

If often happens - regrettably - that we do not feel the Real Presence of the Lord at Sunday Mass.  There are often many distractions around us: friends and family, music and responses, children crying, people chatting and moving about, and even by a desire to participate as fully and consciously as possible.  None of these are bad in and of themselves but do sometimes lead us to miss the simply reality that we have come into God's presence; they can disturb the silence necessary to be aware of his presence.

To enter a Catholic church or chapel where the Blessed Sacrament is reserved at a more quiet time is quite another matter.  If we quiet ourselves and are still, we will slowly become aware of a certain stillness unlike any other.  There is a quiet peace and a subtle glory to it and, as my former student found, it can also be uncomfortable.  Why?

To be in the very presence of Christ makes us aware of our sins, of our failures to love, and of our need for his tender mercy.  Rather than acknowledge our sinfulness and confess our sins, we often would prefer to put our minds to something else and so we carry on about our day without spending much time in his presence (if we even visit him in the tabernacle outside of Sunday Mass).  This is a great tragedy.  If we do not wish to be in his presence in this life, would we want to be in his presence for eternity?

He gently calls us to himself, saying, "Come to me."  The uncomfortableness we might experience does not come from him, but from ourselves; it comes from our pride.  If we enter his presence with humility and allow ourselves to rest his stillness; if we allow ourselves to be vulnerable; if we yield and allow ourselves to be conquered by his love, then we will know a joy and a peace the world cannot give and does not even know.

This was the experience of Saint Damien of Moloka'i, who wrote of the Blessed Sacrament:

I find my consolation in the one and only companion who will never leave me, that is, our Divine Savior in the Holy Eucharist. . . .It is at the foot of the altar that we find the strength necessary in this isolation of ours. Without the Blessed Sacrament a position like mine would be unbearable. But, having Our Lord at my side, I continue always to be happy and content. . . . Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is the most tender of friends with souls who seek to please Him. His goodness knows how to proportion itself to the smallest of His creatures as to the greatest of them. Be not afraid then in your solitary conversations, to tell Him of your miseries, your fears, your worries, of those who are dear to you, of your projects, and of your hopes. Do so with confidence and with an open heart.

Please, do not shy away from him!  Enter his presence with thanksgiving.  Bow down in humility and he will raise you up!