Thursday is always commemorated in some way as the day of the Lord’s Supper, the day when Our Blessed Lord instituted His priesthood and commanded His priests to “Do this in memory of me” – the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

I have found great encouragement recently in discovering a book called “In Sinu Iesu” a book that I would highly recommend to all of you, a book written by a Benedictine monk at prayer (https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=in+sinu+iesu&ref=nb_sb_noss). It records the conversation of the heart of this monk with Our Blessed Lord and is one of the most inspiring works of prayer that I have read regarding the relationship of us with Our Eucharistic Lord and particularly from the perspective of being a priest.

The overwhelming message that I have taken from the book is that of “seeking the face of the Lord” and doing this especially in time before Him in the Blessed Sacrament, in Eucharistic Adoration. It is only in contemplating God in this way, in seeking His face, that we can properly get everything into perspective in our lives, only before Him that we understand who He Is, who we are, and what our true calling is as human beings.

I read something this morning from a non-Catholic Christian site, which deals in a kind of charismatic prophecy. The words that I read echoed, I must admit, what I have felt in my own heart so far during this time, namely that God has pressed the reset button… that in His permissive will God is stripping things back, clearing away the fog, and trying to help us see what is truly important. As I say, it’s not an original thought, I think many people are thinking the same – people of faith at any rate.

The world, it would seem, on the whole, doesn’t accept the Lordship of Jesus Christ, it’s happy to acknowledge Him in some cursory way at times, but seldom does it submit to His authority and rule – that rule of truth and justice and love. And maybe, just maybe, what the whole world is now experiencing will help mankind to understand how fragile human life is, how inadequate human efforts often are, and how dependent we truly are upon the providence and goodness of God – this could be the nature of the reset?

Of course, the attitude of the world will only change when my attitude changes, when the attitude of the individual changes, and when we make the seeking of the face of the Lord a priority in our lives, in fact the priority of our lives. If we don’t do this we’ll never cope with the calamities that life throws at us because we’ll always be struggling along under our own steam, and that steam is very poor – at least I know my efforts are. Without God, and without the grace and determination to seek His face we are left empty handed, purposeless, lost, and yet with Him, with Him we can face and overcome everything, because, as we hear in the Annunciation story of yesterday: nothing is impossible for God.

This (the whole notion of seeking the Face of the Lord) always reminds me of the story of Martha and Mary, and how Jesus says that Mary has chosen the better part – the part of spending time with Him. He tells Martha not to worry and fret but to be like her sister, in a sense, to be with Him and then all things shall be well.

In prayer we can move beyond time and space to be in the presence of God and seek His Face. We can truly be before Him, and be intimate with Him. We can sit at His feet, looking up and, in spirit, gaze upon His glory.

What might help us practically with this, as I’ve said already, in a previous post, is that we make a spiritual communion with the Lord, and also that we place ourselves even spiritually before His Eucharistic Presence in the tabernacle of our church – until we have the opportunity to visit Him again physically. I would encourage you to do this. You may also wish to experience Adoration in a more “virtual” sense using some of the resources that are available on the internet, to even pay the Lord a “virtual visit”, to daily come before Him with your hopes, your fears, your needs, and especially your thanksgiving. There is, for example, live Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament from Tyburn Convent which you may wish to unite yourselves with:

https://ewtn.co.uk/live/adoration

Anyway, let us keep seeking the Face of the Lord in the Holy Eucharist, and let us keep seeing the Face of the Lord in each other, and keep praying for each other, and recommending each other’s needs and well-being to the goodness of our Eucharistic Saviour. Have a blessed and holy Thursday!

God bless,

Fr. Martin