There are times when our Lord seems very near, and there are other times when we may struggle to sense His presence at all. Prayer can feel dry, our burdens can become heavy, and the ordinary troubles of life may leave us wondering whether the Lord is truly beside us. Yet our faith does not rest upon what we happen to feel at a particular moment. It rests upon the promise of Christ Himself. Before His Ascension, our Lord assured His disciples, \u201cBehold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world\u201d (Matthew 28:20). He did not promise to remain with us only when life is peaceful or when prayer brings consolation. He promised to remain with us always.
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Christ remains with His Church in a unique and wonderful manner in the Most Holy Eucharist. At Holy Mass, we do not simply remember a teacher who lived long ago. The same Jesus Christ who was born at Bethlehem, who died upon Calvary, and who rose gloriously from the tomb is truly present under the appearances of bread and wine. Our Lord said plainly, \u201cHe that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, abideth in me, and I in him\u201d (John 6:57). When we kneel before the Blessed Sacrament, we kneel before Christ Himself. We may bring Him our fears, our gratitude, our loneliness, our sins and our hopes. Even when we can find few words to say, it is enough simply to remain with Him.<\/p>\n
Christ is also with us in the quiet circumstances of daily life. He is present when we pray in the morning, when we struggle patiently with illness, when we forgive someone who has hurt us, and when we perform some small act of charity that nobody else notices. We should not imagine that holiness consists only in extraordinary experiences. Much of the Christian life is lived in ordinary rooms, ordinary duties and ordinary difficulties. Our Lord tells us, \u201cFor where there are two or three gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them\u201d (Matthew 18:20). The home in which Christ is remembered, the bedside from which a suffering soul offers a prayer, and the quiet place where the rosary is prayed can all become places of encounter with Him.<\/p>\n
When loneliness, sorrow or uncertainty comes upon us, we should return to the simple truth that Christ has not abandoned us. We may not understand what He permits, and we may sometimes walk for a long while without consolation, but His presence does not depend upon our ability to perceive it. We can speak to Him simply and confidently, receive Him worthily in Holy Communion when we are able, adore Him in the Blessed Sacrament, and place ourselves each day beneath His loving care. Saint Paul gives us words worth carrying into every difficulty, \u201cIf God be for us, who is against us?\u201d (Romans 8:31). Christ is not only the Lord whom we hope to meet at the end of our earthly pilgrimage. He is Emmanuel, God with us, accompanying His people along every step of the road home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There are times when our Lord seems very near, and there are other times when we may struggle to sense His presence at all. Prayer can feel dry, our burdens can become heavy, and the ordinary troubles of life may leave us wondering whether the Lord is truly beside us. Yet our faith does not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-homily"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/frcharles.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/frcharles.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/frcharles.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frcharles.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frcharles.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=696"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/frcharles.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":697,"href":"https:\/\/frcharles.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696\/revisions\/697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/frcharles.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frcharles.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frcharles.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}