Naturally and Spiritually

A reflection on today’s Responsorial Psalm:

“Blessed the man who…delights in the law of the Lord and meditates on his law day and night.  He is like a tree planted near running water, that yields its fruit in due season and whose leaves never fade.  What he does prospers” Psalm 1:1-2, 3.

Last night I arrived a half hour early to my parish to attend a Lenten series on the Passion of Christ.  It was somewhere between twilight and dusk, and only a few church lights were on, illuminating the large, imposing crucifix hanging in front of the altar, a “sacramental” I long to see daily.  Together with the sacrifice of the Mass, it’s the root of perseverance in my faith, a holy reminder that keeps me seeking Jesus, an intimation to stay close to Him and remain in His Love.

There wasn’t a sound of another human being around.  The only note I could hear was the soft rippling of the baptismal font at the back of the church. The staff had left for the day and I was alone with both Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and that awe-inspiring crucifix.  I stood beneath it and it seemed much larger than before.  The silence was, as I can express it, audible. It was an unfamiliar awareness - not a personal revelation, spiritual feeling or colloquy as I’ve experienced.  I can only describe it as a gift from time, not eternity.  It was the silence I long for in prayer and the peace I pursue in anguish or sorrow.  The Magisterium of the Church often helps me witness to Christ’s love by putting into words what I cannot:

“God speaks to man through the visible creation.  The material cosmos is so presented to man’s intelligence that he can read the traces of its Creator.  Light and darkness, wind and fire, water and earth, the tree and its fruit speak of God and symbolize both his greatness and  his nearness.”  Catechism, Paragraph 1147

St. John Chrysostom, Bishop and Doctor of the Church, clearly sensed the spiritual when he recorded his thoughts before the altar:

“When you are before the altar where Christ reposes, you ought no longer to think that you are amongst men; but believe that there are troops of angels and archangels standing by you, and trembling with respect before the sovereign Master of Heaven and earth. Therefore, when you are in church, be there in silence, fear, and veneration.”

Both naturally and spiritually, I embrace my grace encounter at the altar as yet another reason we as Catholics worship inside a church where the Real Presence of God resides.

Blessed be God!

Elizabeth