Category: Eucharist

On Corpus Christi

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On Corpus Christi, Before the Blessed Sacrament

You languish in the darkness like
a criminal imprisoned
a sick man quarantined
an eccentric, babbling uncle, hid away.

Are they so afraid of You?
Are we so ashamed of You?
This is Your pageant day!

Where are Your holy calvacades?
Your solemn ranks of soldiers
with their Captain at their head?
Your festal, fair procession
winding through the curious crowds
who marvel at the sacred spectacle?

In the quiet I hear echoes
from the stones of ancient streets
crying out with praise to shame us
for our silence.
In the blackness I see faces
of a multitude of children
looking down the ages, wondering
to see so plain a feast.

For the glory due Your name,
how long, O Lord,
must You wait?

 

~Paul Thigpen

The “Little People”

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For the “Little People,” Before the Blessed Sacrament

Tiny round God,
weak and small, You could fit in my hand, yet
all the span of the universe cannot contain You
all the powers of the cosmos cannot resist You.
You have made Yourself like those
who are close to Your Heart.

I carry them here with me today:
the “little people
invisible to the mighty but not to the Almighty.
The world reckons them a zero:
without wealth, without power,
without name, without face,
without arms, without voice.

But You too, Lord, are a Zero,
a white, wheaten Cipher,
a Figure on whom
they have failed to reckon.

When You foes seek to multiply
You will invade their equation
and bring them to naught:
You will nullify their pride,
annihilate their power,
annul their schemes
of domination.
But those of lowly degree
You will stand beside
to magnify.

Tiny round God,
blessed are You
who gather the poor
into the ring of Your riches,
the empty
into the cup of Your fullness,
the weak
into the crown of Your might,
the sorrowing
into the circle of Your dance.
Blessed are You,
encompassing Your people
without beginning, without end,
in Your love.

~Paul Thigpen

The action of the Sun

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“I always found it difficult to remain motionless and contemplate God [in the Blessed Sacrament] in the silent dry spells of my faith. Despite this, I know that one must expose the soul to the action of the Sun and not fear that one is wasting time in the chapel, even when one feels nothing. One must give the Sun time to achieve its bronzing effect. It requires a little patience.”  (King Baudouin of Belgium)

A Prayer of Hope

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

A Prayer of Hope, Before the Blessed Sacrament

Within Your small circumference,
my Eucharistic Lord,
I see the world entire,
an image of the globe as You made it:
pure round planet
lovingly crafted,
playfully spinning,
laden with hope and promise.

Within Your shadow,
my Eucharistic Lord,
I see the world as well,
an image of the world as it became:
dark round abyss
hollowed out in rebellion,
yawning in malice,
swirling with rage and despair

But into the maw
of that black hole of sin
You have tossed this tiny Orb
of Your divinity.
The blackness swallows
but chokes:
Death must die.

For this humble Star has burst
into a glorious Supernova
filling the abyss,
slaying the darkness,
transfiguring the heaven
with the splendor of a billion suns.

Draw me in,
my Eucharistic Lord,
by Your gravity of goodness;
set ablaze, set me spinning
into orbit around You.
Lead me in Your radiant train,
a bright speck
in Your galaxy of grace.

~Paul Thigpen

On Corpus Christi

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

On Corpus Christi, Before the Blessed Sacrament

You languish in the darkness like
a criminal imprisoned
a sick man quarantined
an eccentric, babbling uncle, hid away.

Are they so afraid of You?
Are we so ashamed of You?
This is Your pageant day!

Where are Your holy calvacades
Your solemn ranks of soldiers
with their Captain at their head?
Your festal, fair processions
winding through the curious crowds
who marvel at the sacred spectacle?

In the quiet I hear echoes
from the stones of ancient streets
crying out with praise to shame us
for our silence.
In the blackness I see faces
of a multitude of children
looking down the ages, wondering
to see so plain a feast.

For the glory due Your name,
how long, O Lord,
must You wait?

~Paul Thigpen

He seeks until He is weary

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

From the beginning of  a newly published book, Amazing Nearness, by the author of The Gift of Faith, Fr. Tadeusz Dajczer:

In my daily life, I am constantly getting lost. Yet that means He can constantly find me.  The more I need Him, the closer He is.  I can ceaselessly discover that in weariness He sought me.  This means loving until weary.  Because of Original Sin He constantly searches for us to the point of weariness and exhaustion, humanly speaking.

In the Eucharistic encounter, Jesus regularly finds me quite lost.   Yet, I am normally lost, needing to be found.  So no need for regrets.  If I am lost I can only be found in Eucharistic love.  He can only find me when I am lost and beginning to search for Him.  Love needs two.  It is a grace always given to me to seek Him through faith, hope, and love.

Fr. Dajczer is here making a reference to the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman in John 4.  “Jesus, wearied as he was with his journey, sat down beside the well.”  Augustine points out that Jesus is weary because He is on a journey to seek us each out.  He is thirsty for our faith.  He knows that we are lost and constantly sets out to find us.  If you feel lost today, take heart that He is seeking you and looking for you.  Let yourself be found by Him.

On Corpus Christi, before the Blessed Sacrament

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

A powerful poem by Paul Thigpen

On Corpus Christi, before the Blessed Sacrament

You languish in the darkness like
a criminal imprisoned
a sick man quarantined
an eccentric, babbling uncle, hid away.

Are they so afraid of You?
Are we so ashamed of You?
This is Your pageant day!

Where are Your holy calvacades?
Your solemn ranks of soldiers
with their Captain at their head?
Your festal, fair processions
winding through the curious crowds
who marvel at the sacred spectacle?

In the quiet I hear echoes
from the stones of ancient streets
crying out with praise to shame us
for our silence.
In the blackness I see faces
of a multitude of children
looking down the ages, wondering
to see so plain a feast.

For the glory due Your name,
how long, O Lord,
will You wait?

Pope Benedict XVI leads the Corpus Domini procession in an open van from St. John at the Lateran Basilica to St. Mary Major Basilica to mark the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, in Rome, Thursday, June 7, 2012. Pope Benedict celebrated the evening Mass at St. John Lateran Basilica then traveled a short distance in a procession to St. Mary Major Basilica. (AP Photo/Riccardo De Luca)

On Corpus Christi, Before the Blessed Sacrament

Sr. Dorcee, beloved2 Comments

On Corpus Christi, Before the Blessed Sacrament

You languish in the darkness like
a criminal imprisoned
a sick man quarantined
an eccentric, babbling uncle, hid away.

Are they so afraid of You?
Are we so ashamed of You?
This is Your pageant day!

Where are Your holy calvacades?
Your solemn ranks of soldiers
with their Captain at their head?
Your festal, fair processions
winding through the curious crowds
who marvel at the sacred spectacle?

In the quiet I hear the echoes
from the stones of ancient streets
crying out with praise to shame us
for our silence.
In the blackness I see faces
of a multitude of children
looking down the ages, wondering
to see so plain a feast.

For the glory due Your name,
how long, O Lord,
must You wait?

~Paul Thigpen

“Behold, God’s love for you!”

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

I am reading a fascinating book on the Eucharist by Dr. Brant Pitre, Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist.  In one section of the book, Dr. Pitre illustrates the connection between the Eucharist and the Bread of the Presence  from the Temple.  God had commanded the Israelites to keep twelve loaves of bread on a golden table in the Holy Place. “And you shall make a table of acacia wood . . . You shall overlay it with pure gold, and make a molding of gold around it.  And you shall make its plates and dishes for incense, and its flagons and bowls with which to pour libations; of pure gold you shall make them.  And you shall set the Bread of the Presence on the table before me always.” (Ex 25:23-24)

Later in the chapter, Dr. Pitre explains the custom of the priests bringing this table out from the Holy Place three times a year (the feasts of Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles) so that the pilgrims might see it:  “They [the priests] used to lift it [the Golden Table] up and exhibit the Bread of the Presence on it to those who came up for the festivals, saying to them, “Behold, God’s Love for you!”

What an amazing foreshadowing of God’s love made manifest in the Eucharist. . . .

“The King of glory took as his spouse our souls . . .”

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

from Venerable Louis of Granada:

Indeed the greatest proof of Christ’s love for his disciples at the Last Supper was the institution of the Blessed Sacrament . . .  O great mystery which is deserving of being impressed on the very core of our hearts!  If a prince were to love a slave and take her as his bride and make her queen of all that he possessed, we would acknowledge that such a love is indeed great.  And if, after marriage, the slave’s love were to grow cold, and the prince were to go in search of something to re-awaken her love, this would be proof that his love is exceedingly great.  So also, the King of glory took as his spouse our souls, which were slaves of the devil, and seeing how cold they were in love, he gave them this mysterious food which has the power to transform souls into himself which has the power to transform souls into himself and make them burn with the living flames of love.  Nothing so manifests love as the desire to be loved, and he so desired our love that he invented this wonderful means of arousing it.

The Bridegroom had to absent himself from his spouse and since love will not tolerate a separation nor the absence of the beloved, he wished to depart from his spouse in such a way that he would not be separated from her completely; to leave her and yet somehow remain with her.  He could no longer remain with her.  He could no longer remain with her and she could not as yet accompany him, but although he was to go and she would remain, they would never henceforth be separated, thanks to this great Sacrament.