“Godhead here in hiding, whom I do adore...”
I believe we often learn a truth by its contrast, i.e. we appreciate a positive by way of a negative. So now I will tell you the story about how I discovered the truth about the Real Presence of Jesus in the tabernacle.
It was 1978 and I was in the early months of my growing attraction to the Catholic faith. Father Paul Shannahan was instructing me and I was spending quite some time in the church thinking things over. I had grown to love the holy quiet of the old Sacred Heart Church and the glow of the sanctuary lamp. But, like Samuel, I had as yet no knowledge of the Lord.
One day I was joined by a pupil from the school where I was teaching. Unhesitatingly she asked, “Do you believe that Jesus is there in the tabernacle?” My mind conjured up silly images of a Houdini man crouched over in a metal box! Was this really what Catholics believed?What I would have to believe? I persevered in my visits, drawn inexorably to the peace, oblivious to the transformation taking place in my soul.
Then came Holy Week. Remember, I had had no experience of church liturgy so on Good Friday morning when I plunged into the shadows of the empty church it was a shock to see the little doors of the tabernacle wide open and a black emptiness within. What's more the sanctuary lamp was out! However, instantaneously with that sharp sense of absence came the realization of His presence. In one and the same moment I both lost and found Jesus in the precious bread of the altar.
It was an epiphany whose loveliness I have never swerved from. He is truly present, living and loving and waiting for us. Did I need any further instruction after that? Yes, but now the priest and I were on the same page. Now I had only one desire – to receive my First Holy Communion, to possess fully the One I had come to know in the tabernacle. If you are Catholic and reading this then treasure this gift! If not, then find it!
— GM