(Audio)
He said, “Who are you, sir?”
The reply came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.
Now get up and go into the city and you will be told what you must do.”
We need the eyes of faith to recognize Jesus where he is present. But this is not something we work up in ourselves either subjectively or rationally. It is a gift and an invitation from Jesus himself. His appearance has the power to overcome our biases and habits. He can allow us to make a clean break from who we are before we encounter him. None of us is so entrapped in his present life that Jesus cannot save him. We can't overcome our own blindness and see clearly without Jesus. It isn't enough to know that he is the answer. We have to let him do what he wants to do in us.
Saul got up from the ground,
but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing;
so they led him by the hand and brought him to Damascus.
If we are having a hard time seeing God's plan for the world and for us it might be that we need to have our eyes opened, for the first time, or again and wider than before.
Amen, amen, I say to you,
unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood,
you do not have life within you.
It is by eyes of faith that we recognize the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. His Flesh is true food and his Blood is true drink. Seeing, touching, and tasting; in him they are deceived. In this time when we can't actually receive communion we can still experience the presence of Jesus within the consecrated elements by our faith. Faith is so powerful that it attains to the not yet even in the here and now. There is not only a sense in which, by faith, we are already back at mass and receiving the Eucharist, but also a sense by which we are already seated in heavenly places (see Ephesians 2:6), sharing in the wedding feast of the Lamb. Our faith connects us to this future and draws us toward it.
“Saul, my brother, the Lord has sent me,
Jesus who appeared to you on the way by which you came,
that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”
Immediately things like scales fell from his eyes
and he regained his sight.
It is certainly true that none of us has a full and complete perception of all that Jesus has done for us, of all that is already ours by faith. He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens (see Ephesians 1:3). Yet, in spite of this, we live impoverished lives, lonely in spite of God's presence, full of hungry desires in spite of all he has down to satisfy us. May he open our eyes to the reality of his gifts.
This is the bread that came down from heaven.
Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died,
whoever eats this bread will live forever.
As we make spiritual communions in this time of quarantine let us feel them connecting us to and accelerating us toward the reality, not only of receiving physically once more, but of the coming of the King and his Kingdom. Maranatha! Come LORD Jesus!
Praise the LORD, all you nations;
glorify him, all you peoples!
The Spirit and the Bride - Matt Maher
Take Me In (To the Holy of Holies) - Kutless
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