Sunday Reflection – 2 December – First Sunday of Advent
The Eucharistic Face of Christ
In the Cenacle, together with Our Blessed Lady and the Apostles, one contemplates the Eucharistic Face of Christ. The commandment of the Lord on the night before He suffered, “Do this in commemoration of me” (Lk 22:19), was certainly obeyed by the Apostles during the days that separated the Ascension of the Lord from Pentecost. The Mother of the Eucharist was there. The very Face that disappeared into the heavens over the Mount of Olives on the day of the Ascension re-appears in every Holy Mass, hidden and yet shining, through the sacramental veils.
The Priestly Prayer of Christ to the Father, first uttered in the Cenacle on the night before He suffered, is wondrously actualised in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. It is Christ, the Eternal High Priest, who stands at the altar with His Face turned toward the Father and His pierced Heart open for all eternity, that out of it we may receive the life-giving torrent that is the Gift of the Holy Spirit. In some way, the final chapters of Saint John’s Gospel are a sustained contemplation of the Face of Jesus turned toward us and lifted to the Father.
Contemplate the Face of Jesus, portrayed in the Fourth Gospel, the Holy Spirit will surely draw you into His filial and priestly prayer to the Father. One who receives the Body and Blood of Christ, receives the very prayer of Christ into his soul. The grace of every Holy Communion is that of Christ praying to His Father in us and for us.
Through the adorable mystery of the Eucharist, the Face we so long to contemplate, is set before our eyes and burned into our souls. “It is given to us, all alike, to catch the glory of the Lord as in a mirror, with faces unveiled; and so we become transfigured into the same likeness, borrowing glory from that glory, as the Spirit of the Lord enables us” (2 Cor 3:18). – (Fr) Dom Mark (vultusstblogs)
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