Daniel Lloyd, a third year ordinand from the Diocese of Oxford, gave this Eucharistic Meditation whilst on placement with Fr Ross Northing (SSH 1993-95) at St Mary and St Giles, Stony Stratford, also in the Diocese of Oxford.
It is easy to kneel before the Sacrament and yet to feel remote from the object of our adoration. The white disc in the golden sunburst on which we are concentrating our minds and our hearts is the same, in body, blood, soul and divinity, as the Judge of all Mankind, the transfigured and ascended Lord of Time and Eternity. And so it is small wonder that we feel the chasm between us suppliants and the Throne of Glory. We who are sick, hurt, distressed, lost: what have we to say to him to whom the angels ministered? What can we have to expect from him? And yet, this is the same Lord who knows the most intimate aspects of our humanity.
The life of Christ speaks to all of us, at all stages of our own lives. Christ, begotten before all worlds, knows our needs before we ask and our words before we speak them. Living in the womb of Mary, he knows what it is to be at once most vulnerable and most protected. Beloved of the Holy Family, in his childhood he knows the fears and joys of all children. Preaching the Gospel and teaching the Faith, he confronts the powerful, exposes the hypocrites and helps the oppressed.
When he heals the sick, brings sight to the blind, makes the lame walk and the deaf hear, he knows what it is to be broken, and what it is to be made whole. Hanging on the cross, he knows the pain of betrayal, and the hurt of injustice. Lying in the tomb, he knows the chill of death, the sorrows of those who mourn, and the depth of the abyss that separates this shore from the next.
Risen and ascended, welcomed and glorified, he sits at the Father’s right hand. Fully God and fully man, all that he assumed is healed. Present now in his glorious body, he bathes us with the radiance of his presence; giver of himself for heavenly food, he fills us with his love.
To seek healing is to seek to be made whole. Healing, wholeness, completeness are found only in him. Our hearts are restless till they find their rest in him, but to accept who we are, in our frustration, our hurt and our frailties, and to use all that he has given us in his service: that is healing, that is wholeness, that is rest.
The healing of body and soul for which we long has only one aim: that, by his grace we may one day come to look upon him, not only under the form of bread but face to face, adoring and praising him in the company of all the angels and archangels, the apostles, the prophets, the martyrs and confessors, matrons and virgins, and of his glorious and blessed Mother, ever crying alleluia, alleluia, alleluia. Amen.
It is easy to kneel before the Sacrament and yet to feel remote from the object of our adoration. The white disc in the golden sunburst on which we are concentrating our minds and our hearts is the same, in body, blood, soul and divinity, as the Judge of all Mankind, the transfigured and ascended Lord of Time and Eternity. And so it is small wonder that we feel the chasm between us suppliants and the Throne of Glory. We who are sick, hurt, distressed, lost: what have we to say to him to whom the angels ministered? What can we have to expect from him? And yet, this is the same Lord who knows the most intimate aspects of our humanity.
The life of Christ speaks to all of us, at all stages of our own lives. Christ, begotten before all worlds, knows our needs before we ask and our words before we speak them. Living in the womb of Mary, he knows what it is to be at once most vulnerable and most protected. Beloved of the Holy Family, in his childhood he knows the fears and joys of all children. Preaching the Gospel and teaching the Faith, he confronts the powerful, exposes the hypocrites and helps the oppressed.
When he heals the sick, brings sight to the blind, makes the lame walk and the deaf hear, he knows what it is to be broken, and what it is to be made whole. Hanging on the cross, he knows the pain of betrayal, and the hurt of injustice. Lying in the tomb, he knows the chill of death, the sorrows of those who mourn, and the depth of the abyss that separates this shore from the next.
Risen and ascended, welcomed and glorified, he sits at the Father’s right hand. Fully God and fully man, all that he assumed is healed. Present now in his glorious body, he bathes us with the radiance of his presence; giver of himself for heavenly food, he fills us with his love.
To seek healing is to seek to be made whole. Healing, wholeness, completeness are found only in him. Our hearts are restless till they find their rest in him, but to accept who we are, in our frustration, our hurt and our frailties, and to use all that he has given us in his service: that is healing, that is wholeness, that is rest.
The healing of body and soul for which we long has only one aim: that, by his grace we may one day come to look upon him, not only under the form of bread but face to face, adoring and praising him in the company of all the angels and archangels, the apostles, the prophets, the martyrs and confessors, matrons and virgins, and of his glorious and blessed Mother, ever crying alleluia, alleluia, alleluia. Amen.
