Nativity Catholic Church
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Looking Beyond the Door Eucharistic adoration is making a slow, but methodical comeback in Catholic life. Not that we have forgotten it completely, but the time the average Catholic spends in front of the Blessed Sacrament, reserved in the tabernacle of a church, has declined steadily over the past decades. There are many suppositions as to why this is the case, and the “answers” to this development are far more complex than most people who make a deliberate stand in either advocating more devotion to the reserved presence of Christ, or those who dismiss it as “so Middle Ages” are willing to admit. Much as the media uses sound bytes to convey as little information as possible to the masses, so go the banner-like arguments voiced by both supporters and detractors of Eucharistic adoration. Surely, spending sacred time in meditation and reflection, humbly placing oneself before the Body of Christ reserved in the tabernacle, needs no justification. It is an extension of the Eucharist we celebrate and consume whenever we share in the sacrifice of the Mass. But there are surely “cautions” as well, especially when one’s Eucharistic adoration goes no further than the door of the tabernacle. One of my favorite sacred spaces can be found at the Eucharistic chapel of the Norbertine community of Santa Maria de la Vid in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where I have spent time on personal retreats. Set on the western mesa just beyond the city, the Norbertine retreat combines the beauty and silence of the desert, with sweepingly grand views of the mountain ranges that surround Albuquerque. As one enters the adobe pueblo-like structure that is the center’s church, although surrounded by all the modern amenities of contemporary worship spaces, there is an overwhelming sense that one is stepping back in time. This sacramental surge is conjured not only by the design of the space, but by the “ancient ones” whose presence is immediately felt within the walls of the church. These “ancient ones” are both Catholic and Native. As the community of faith gathers for Eucharistic liturgies, as well as Liturgy of the Hours, supplicants are surrounded both by life-size statues of Catholic saints (who incidentally sit on the same level as the worshippers, signifying that they are praying with us every time we gather in liturgy), and by the intangible, but no less palpable presence of the “first peoples,” who seem to rise up out of the sacred mesa dirt upon which the church sits, once home to the Anazasi peoples. Leaving the main, circular worship space and walking a few short steps through a passageway, one enters the Eucharistic chapel in all its profound simplicity. It is impossible to sit in this space and gaze upon the reserved Blessed Sacrament without seeing what lives beyond the door to the tabernacle. A massive, clear-paned, floor-to-ceiling window graces the southern wall of the chapel. There is no way to fix one’s eyes upon the tabernacle, the reserved Body of Christ, and not be drawn into the world that moves and groans just beyond those wooden doors. To adore the Body of Christ in the tabernacle must always lead one to adore the Body of Christ as it lives and breathes in the world God has created. After all, the Body of Christ is just that—a “body”—flesh and blood and marrow, emotions and wants and needs, hurts and joys and disappointments, confusions and certainties and wonder. To adore the Body of Christ is to keep one’s gaze firmly fixed on the world where the Body and Blood of Christ are broken and shared countless more times than on any altar in any church. To adore the Body of Christ in the tabernacle must always lead to a seeing beyond the doors of that sacred receptacle, for Christ cannot be held prisoner, whether for worship or adoration, but must instead be freed to make his home in all creation, especially in the broken and wounded humanity, whose stripes he continues to bear. The famous artist Henri Mattise, conversing with his lifelong friend, Sr. Jacques-Marie regarding what he considered his greatest masterpiece, “The Chapel of the Rosary” in Vence, France, responded to her curious query. Sr. Jacques-Marie noticed that from inside the chapel, one could see the outside world through the windows, perhaps determining that this might be some troublesome distraction to those who came to the chapel for prayer and worship. Matisse simply said, “Of course, you have to pray for them too.” While one can speak of “private” time in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, in truth there can be nothing “private” about conversing with the Lord Jesus, for to approach his heart and divinity, is to find there the whole of humanity and the created order. I think the Norbertines got it right in Albuquerque; they provided a window to the world in close proximity with the doorway to the tabernacle. And isn’t this precisely what “communion” is all about? Being joined to Christ and his sacred Body means to feed the hungers and thirsts of the world, just as he did at the Last Supper and continues to do at every supper where we gather in his name. May we begin to make the time to pray before the Blessed Sacrament in our church, and let our adoration of Christ’s living presence in the reserved sacrament always find us looking beyond the door.
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