The act of communion is the supreme surrender of ourselves to Jesus, that we may entirely share with Him in all that He offers to His Father; that He may fill us with Himself, and make our acceptance possible; and that we may lose ourselves in the common life of the Father's household. Thus in Jesus we are atoned with God and man.
Ideally this act of communion is necessary to a full share in the sacrifice that is being presented. And we perceive that our complete self-identification with the Christ, in order to give our Father His due, depends upon the sacramental presence of Jesus in our midst. Then is our Father glorified when Jesus, who is all He seeks from His creatures, enters, really and truly, within the hearts and bodies of a congregation of men and women. How much more, then, is He glorified in heaven, where the whole body of the saints lives only because Jesus lives in them?
See, then, how wonderful is the Blessed Sacrament, as we kneel before Him at the tabernacle. The liturgy of the Sacrifice is finished for the day, and our communion has gathered us up right into the sacrificial act, making us, with Jesus, well-pleasing to the Father. And we have come back to the sacramental presence. Why? Because Jesus is sacramentally present! He is present as our Sacrifice, our Life, and our unifying Head. Kneeling before Him, so revealed, we find a royal road to the contemplation of the Father's love and wisdom; moving along which we may praise and magnify our Saviour Road-maker, and give hearty thanks to the Spirit, our Guide. The Sacrament speaks of the Blessed Three who is yet One. It is the characteristic mode of the Father's atoning activity; it makes articulate the dual relation in which we stand to Jesus. Therefore to the Blessed Sacrament we return; to the very Christ present with us; to the Spirit who, by sacrament, makes all things one; to the Father, from whom and in whom, for whom and to whom, the Blessed Sacrament and we have our being. We renew, in heart and will, the morning's Sacrifice, for is not the High Priest and Victim present? And, so doing, we are consciously one with heaven's great company who cease not, day or night, to offer to the Father the Lamb, whom they as ceaselessly adore.
We renew our union with Jesus, spiritually, with all our power of faith and penitence; feeding by faith upon Him who came to us so short a time ago in sacramental manner, and who remains within us mystically our life and our salvation. And, so doing, we are lifted up by Him into the Father's love; we find ourselves gazing, through the manhood born of Mary, into the very face of God, which no man shall ever fully apprehend. And, prostrate before Jesus, the Head of the Church, our Lord, our King, and Priest, we pour out to Him the prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings He has inspired us to bring, that our prayers and His may ascend together, as smoke from one golden censer, before the Father's throne.
Again, we listen. For God, may, perhaps, vouchsafe a message through His Incarnate Word, Jesus, the Blessed Sacrament. It may be in listening silence, it may be in humble self-examination that we shall be made aware of His will for us. And we find ourselves drawn out of our narrow lives into the wider life of the brotherhood. And, finally, we depart to do our brethren nobler and more humble service, just because we have met God in Christ.
Excerpt from the book:
"God with us: the meaning of the Tabernacle"
by Frank Weston
