“His Presence will linger there.”
One of our Sisters made this observation last summer, reflecting on the number of places touched by the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage, which traveled across the country from its four corners that spring and summer. Everywhere Jesus had been carried, she observed, not only had He been present to the people then, but His Presence would also “linger,” fostering future encounters with His grace in the place where He had been.
I experience the reality of this on an almost weekly basis, as I drive down the road in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where we had the “Source and Summit Procession” leg of the pilgrimage, the single largest event of all four pilgrimage routes. To this day, eight months later, something feels different when I turn onto that road — and that feeling leaves whenever I turn off the road. It’s as if when I exit Summit Avenue, I am now on just an ordinary road again. But when I turn onto Summit Avenue, there is a sense of peace and order, as though everything is right in the world. There is something more to life than just the drudgery of everyday existence that I sense in the people walking and driving around me elsewhere. On Summit Avenue, where He has been, I am reminded of a greater purpose.
Of course, some of this sense is probably simply my own memory of the pilgrimage event. As I drive down that road, I recall walking down it last May with 7,000 people and Our Lord in the Sacred Host. But there is also the reality that this place has been touched by His Presence, and whatever He touches can never be the same again. Whatever He touches, He heals and sanctifies, if we are open to receiving this gift.
If His Presence can linger this profoundly even on a road, what about in us? After you have received Him in Holy Communion, after He has touched you in this most intimate way, becoming even your food, does His Presence linger where you go? Do those who encounter you after Mass meet Jesus? Or do you treat them in just the same way as you did before Mass? Have you and I really allowed the Lord to touch our hearts, to heal and sanctify and transform us?
In fact, when we enter a Catholic church, do we even notice and give our attention to this Presence of our God in the tabernacle? How blest we are: to encounter the Presence of Christ, all we have to do is step into our parish church! His Presence — not just spiritually as on Summit Avenue, but even physically — remains there, waiting for us to come to meet and adore Him. But how often are our minds elsewhere when we enter the church? How often are our genuflections sloppy or rote or even forgotten? How often do we just chat with the person next to us before or after Mass, instead of taking the opportunity to speak and listen to Him?
What a difference it could make in our lives and in our world if we began more intentionally to attend to His Presence in the Holy Eucharist! Let us go to meet Him there. Let us let His Presence in the Eucharist so permeate our own lives with the healing power of His love and mercy that His Presence will then “linger” in us. Then, all who encounter us will meet not only us but Him! And His Presence will “linger” in their own lives and be spread to the world.
Sr. Mary Martha Becnel is a member of the Ann Arbor-based Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist.
