Contemplating the Blessed Sacrament in the Lenten Season

During the season of Lent, the Catholic faithful are accustomed to meditating on the Passion of Christ. Following Our Lord through His sufferings, agony, and death on the Cross enables us to be more perfectly united to His Sacrifice as the Redeemer of mankind. However, in the Lenten readings at Holy Mass (both in the traditional lectionary and in the modern one), the Church presents the faithful with both aspects of the Paschal Mystery: both the Passion and the Glory of Our Lord. These two elements of Passion and Glory are two facets of the Mystery of Christ that we can never separate, for they are founded on the inseparable double reality of the Hypostatic Union: namely, the union of the human and divine natures of Jesus Christ in the one unique Person of the Word (the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity).

In the early centuries of Christianity, many Christological heresies developed and were defeated by the Church. Some of these heresies overemphasized the humanity of Christ to the point of denying His divinity; others fell into the extreme opposite error; namely, stressing so firmly the divinity of Christ so as to de facto deny that He became truly man. Analogously, there has been, over the course of Church history, differing emphases on the Passion and Glory of Christ. At times in the past, the Passion was so strongly affirmed that (it was claimed by Protestants and even the Eastern Orthodox) the Catholic Church had effectively "forgotten that Jesus Christ was risen from the dead." This, of course, is an exaggeration, for the Church never denied or downplayed the Resurrection. However, the focus on the Passion was certainly much stronger than it is in our modern times.

The contemporary temptation, however, lies in the opposite direction: it often consists in emphasizing so much the Resurrection of Our Lord so as to effectively remove the reality of the Passion from the minds and hearts of modern Catholics. Was this perhaps the rationale behind the trend in the 1970s and '80s of replacing Crucifixes in our Catholic parishes and schools with empty crosses or with a simple image of a Risen Christ (with or without a cross behind Him)? These images focusing on our glorified Lord were not of course bad in themselves, but unfortunately they facilitated the temptation of modern Catholics to go straight to Christ in Glory without passing through Christ in Agony: straight to the Resurrection without the Passion. In the modern Missal, this is seen through some of the prayers in the Lent and Holy Week which, while they should be focusing on Christ's sufferings at that time fo the liturgical year, often throw in references to His being raised from the dead — as if the Catholic faithful would "forget the Resurrection" otherwise.

Since both the Passion and Resurrection of Our Lord reveal two different facets of the same Person of Christ, it is necessary to hold both these aspects in balance, never overemphasizing one to the detriment of the other. As mentioned above, this is analogous to the theology of Christ's two natures in one Person: we should never fall into the excess of overstressing one nature to the detriment of the other. Jesus is fully God and fully man. His humanity does not weaken His divinity, and His divine nature does not overpower His human one.

This crucial truth is very important to apply to the mystery of the Holy Eucharist as well. The Real Presence of Our Lord in the Most Blessed Sacrament contains both the reality of the suffering Christ and of the glorified Christ. Both Passion (and Death) and Resurrection are present in the Holy Sacrament of the Altar. And since the Lenten season presents both of these elements of Our Lord's life, when we meditate before the Blessed Sacrament during Lent (including during the season of Passtiontide), we should never separate Passion and Resurrection, Cross and Glory.

In the Holy Eucharist, we find both the suffering Face of Jesus as it was on the Via Dolorosa and His glorified Face as seen in the Transfiguration by Peter, James, and John on Mt. Tabor. The same Christ, whose Sacred Countenance was imprinted on the Veil of Veronica to show to the entire world just how much He suffered in His Passion out of love for the human race, is the One who reigns triumphantly in the splendour of His eternal glory in Heaven. And because the Blessed Sacrament contains the full Christ (and not just a part of Him) — for it is, after all, His Body and Blood, His Human Soul and His Divinity — it follows that both the Passion and the Glory of Our Lord are fully present under the veil of the Eucharistic species.

When we pray before the Blessed Sacrament during Lent, therefore, we should see in this great Sacrament both the Sacrifice and the Glorious Victory of Our Lord. The Holy Eucharist is both Jesus Crucified and Jesus Glorified, Jesus in Agony and Jesus in Heavenly Splendour. We should never seek to bypass the former in order to go straight to the latter, because the fullness of Christ's Mystery includes not just Our Lord reigning triumphantly in Heaven but also Our Lord suffering in atonement for the sins of mankind.

As we kneel before the Eucharistic Presence of God in that holy Tabernacle or on that holy Altar, we are on both Mt. Calvary and Mt. Tabor: the mountain of the Passion and Death, and the Mountain of the Light of Glory (the Resurrection). And the secret to joining Our Saviour one day in His Kingdom of Glory is remaining with Him during His sufferings during the time of His Passion. Could you not stay with Me for one hour? Our Lord asked His Apostles. He wanted them to stay with Him in Gethsemane as He shed tears of sweat and blood because He wanted to teach them that the royal road of the Cross in the only path to Eternal Glory.

The humility of the Blessed Sacrament teaches us that wilfully accepting humiliation and suffering is the quickest, surest, and in fact, only way to salvation. Those who reject Our Lord's Cross in this life will never have a share in His final victory. This is why the Saints embraced the Cross and loved the Holy Cross above all else. In a famous painting, St. Francis of Assisi is shown embracing a life-sized Crucifix, and other Saints are often depicted in a similar way. For example, consider this beautful image of Pope St. Pius V kneeling in humble adoration as he gazes upon a Crucifix depicting Our Lord's ultimate Sacrifice. It is easy to see on the face of this holy Pontiff a profound love for the Author of Love Himself:

This is the attitude that we must bring to the Blessed Sacrament whenever we find ourselves in Adoration. This love for Christ in the Holy Eucharist is indeed what will save the world and offer to God the most perfect reparation possible. Come, let us adore Him, hidden in the Most Holy Sacrament: Christ in Passion and Christ in Glory!

Venite, adoremus!