First Sunday of the Month -- and a Surprise!

My regulars know that a Solemn Exposition and Adoration of the Sacrament is something I will not miss, under any circumstances, barring real illness. They are just excellent opportunities to sit with Jesus and just be with him. I enjoy the solemnity that is put into the taking out and exposing the sacrament, especially the swinging of incense, etc., but that's just the opening business. After that is all over you can go up front and sit for as long as you want.

Whenever I go there are people on their knees, or sitting facing the sacrament (Jesus hiding in the bread), with an overwhelming feeling of the awesomeness of the occasion pervading the entire room. Rosaries are often clicking, two monks kneel silently before the monstrance, some people read, others just stare silently. I tend more to the stare silently and open my mind, because if I try to pray it sounds very trite and made up, rather like most older Catholic prayerbooks with lots of pious sounding phrases that mean nothing at all.

After about half hour of that quietness then I can feel things starting to stir inside of me, and some real prayer begins. So it was today. After the praying part was done I settled back into silence, and then it hit me. We are all soooo very solemn about all this, the taking out of the sacrament, and the putting it back, as we should be, but for Jesus, it's a time for merriment!

Before you close the browser in disgust hear me out: how do you feel when someone goes out of their way to visit you? Are you not happy? I run to the store and buy food and beer, anything to show the visitor who went out of their way how much I welcome and appreciate them. So why should it be any different for Jesus? He was taken up into heaven in his human body, that is integral to the Christian faith, so that human part of him remembers what it's like to have a visit from friends.

I couldn't help but smile, because here we all were being oh so serious, and Jesus was enjoying it like a cookout or something. I am not trying to denigrate the seriousness of an Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, but I am trying to say that if it is to be more than an encounter with a monstrance with a piece of round host in it, then we must expect Jesus Christ to be present. If so, then what and where does it say that he was dour? Should we treat it as special? Oh yes. Should we treat is like it was an atom bomb? In no way.

Jesus is HAPPY and MERRY when we come to visit him in the adoration. We're the dour and serious ones. Did he not make jokes in his life that are recorded in the NT? After all, it's not what you put in your mouth it's what comes out the other end, if that isn't a joke what is? So the next time you are sitting all dour and serious before the Body of Christ in solemn exposition, remember it's not some ass-kicking, sin-counting king, but our loving savior who ate, drank, and yes, made merry!