By Rhys Lowther
“You must look for the things that are in heaven, where Christ is” (Colossians 3:1-5,9-11).
The other day I was filling in a government form and it asked me whether other people live at 180 Drummond Street, Carlton. Perhaps I should have provide details about the most important Person who lives with us at 180 Drummond Street, namely, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, truly present here with us on our Altar and Tabernacle. Whilst it is always a joy to visit our families and friends over the seminary holidays, it is always a great consolation to see again our sanctuary lamp burning knowing that we have moved back in with our Lord.
The privilege of sharing an address with Christ struck me on Thursday evening at the Holy Hour Plus event. A Missionary of Charity from the Czech Republic spoke about her time in a refugee camp where she somehow obtained a key to a room where the Blessed Sacrament was reserved. She told of how she would secretly run through the men’s accommodation block and lock herself in to hide where Christ is in the Blessed Sacrament.
The readings of this Sunday’s Mass have one clear theme: to keep our hearts and minds fixed on heaven. St Paul tells us, “You must look for the things that are in heaven, where Christ is.” We have heaven here with us! Here where Christ is in the Holy Eucharist. Listing aids to priestly life, the Second Vatican Council recommends a daily “visit to and veneration of the Most Holy Eucharist” (Vatican II, Presbyterorum Ordinis, n. 18). This visit to our Divine Friend in the Tabernacle is a practical way to keep our lives fixed on “things that are in heaven, where Christ is.”
A Safeguard for Love
St Paul exhorts us to “kill everything in you that belongs only to earthly life: fornication, impurity, guilty passion, evil desires, etc.” Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen in his autobiography, Treasure in Clay, recalls that early in his priesthood he realized that these vices arise and marriages and friendships fall apart when “sensitiveness and delicacy are lost.” He applied this logic to his life of celibacy by fostering a sensitiveness and delicacy to our Lord’s presence in the Tabernacle. He writes:
When first ordained and a student at the Catholic University in Washington, I would never go to class without climbing the few stairs to the chapel in Caldwell Hall to make a tiny act of love to Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. Later, at the University of Louvain in Belgium, I would make a visit to Our Blessed Lord in every single church I passed on the way to class. When I continued graduate work in Rome and attended the Angelicum and Gregorian, I would visit every church en route from the Trastevere section where I lived. This is not so easy in Rome, for there are churches on almost every corner. Fred Allen [a comedian] once said that Rome has a church on one corner so that you may pray to get across the street; the church on the other corner is to thank God that you made it. (Fulton Sheen, Treasure in Clay).
Later in life, Fulton Sheen arranged to have chapels near the front door or near his bedroom so that he could always pop in to visit the Lord, even just to make a genuflection and short prayer. Fulton Sheen understood that the hearts of celibate men must express their affection for our Lord in a concrete way.
Nazareth and Bethany
There are two locations in the Gospel which perhaps mirror two responses to Christ’s Presence in the Blessed Sacrament: Nazareth and Bethany.
In Nazareth, Christ was rejected, unwelcome and greeted with unbelief (cf. Matthew 13:53-58). On the other hand, in Bethany He was greeted with love and affection. He spoke with His friend Lazarus, Martha served Him and Mary listened to Him (cf. Luke 10:38-42). His feet were anointed with costly oil and the fragrance filled the whole house (cf. John 12:1-8)! St Josemaria said, “For me the tabernacle has always been a Bethany, a quiet and pleasant place where Christ resides. A place where we can tell him about our worries, our sufferings, our desires, our joys, with the same sort of simplicity and naturalness as Martha, Mary and Lazarus” (Christ is Passing By, n. 154).
Devotion to Christ in the Blessed Sacrament is a sure way to “look for the things that are in heaven, where Christ is.” By keeping our hearts centered on Christ in the Holy Eucharist, we keep our hearts fixed on Christ in Heaven.