A prescence that’s real

From the desk of Fr. Ignatius Waters, cp

Sunday, 23rd June 2019

We talk about Jesus’ presence with us and we call it a ‘real’ presence. It is not imaginary; it is a real meeting, a real contact, life flowing one to another. And we do long for real presence, don’t we? And it doesn’t happen all that often. As Jean Vanier says, “We can live in the same house, sit at the same table, kneel in the same pew, read the same books but never meet.” Never really meet! Real presence with Jesus should prepare us for real presence with others.

At Hindu temples in India they tell you, “You come here not to gaze at God but to let God gaze at you.”  We have the same thing in the psalms: “Let your face shine on us and we will be saved.”  And “The Lord takes delight in his people.”  I love the story about a mother who took delight in her little daughter in Trinidad. They are very poor, but the mother takes great care each evening to launder the one well-worn dress that her daughter wears to school each day. Each morning, as the little girl leaves, her mother asks her to stop and turn towards her for a moment. “Just stand there. I love looking at you.” And I told you before about the father who looked at his little girl and said, “When you grow up, you’ll wheel barrows of sunshine into dark places.” It was all the more extraordinary and powerful, because he never said that much. And she certainly has done what he said!

When God, or anyone, beams on you, it makes it that much easier to go forth and spread that positive gaze. Doesn’t It? Consciously coming into the presence of God or Jesus should be something like that.  At Mass or Adoration, it may help to imagine God or Jesus shining on you like the sun. The golden rays of the Monstrance seem to suggest this.  We can sit before Jesus who smiles on us, who fully accepts us. We don’t have to say much. It means we can be happy to be there, really there, in that one place. Not all over the place as we often are!

You remember the story of St. John Vianney, the Cure of Ars, who asked an old man, who was always praying in in the church, how did he manage to pray so much? And the old man replied:

  “It’s easy; I just look at him and he looks at me”!