I wanted to reflect further on the nature and value of Eucharistic processions by looking at selected passages from Scripture. These passages may not be specfically about processions or the Eucharistic, but I believe they can give us some important insights into Eucharistic processions.
My thanks to Christopher West for bringing to our attention Isaiah 52:7-10:
How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good tidings, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, "Your God reigns." Hark, your watchmen lift up their voice, together they sing for joy; for eye to eye they see the return of the Lord to Zion. Break forth together into singing, you waste places of Jerusalem; for the Lord has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem. The Lord has bared his holy arm before the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.
Consider how this passage can help us look at a Eucharistic procession. How beautiful are the feet of the priest who brings "good tidings" or "good news." As Fr. John Corapi is fond of saying, the Good News isn't some thing; the Good News is some one. The priest brings Christ, the Good News, through the streets and thereby announces "Your God reigns." The Lord is "bared" in the Eucharist "before the eyes of all" who "shall see the salvation of our God." Those in the procession "lift up their voice, together they sing for joy." The Eucharist adoration brings us closer to Christ and thereby brings life to the waste places of our souls, brings comfort to our sorrows, and brings redemption to our sinfulness.
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In the second paragraph of Deus Caritas Est Pope Benedict says, 'We have come to believe in God's love: in these words the Christian can express the fundamental decision of his life. Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.' (italics are mine)
As I read what Fr. Corapi wrote I thought it very similar to the Holy Father's words in his first encylical.
I like what you wrote here, 'The Eucharist adoration brings us closer to Christ and thereby brings life to the waste places of our souls, brings comfort to our sorrows, and brings redemption to our sinfulness.' I believe He shines His Holy Light into the darkness within me caused by my own sinfulness. Usually I don't want to leave when I go to Adoration.
God bless you for this post...as well as the others!
Booklady, thanks for the reference to Deus Caritas Est. It's on my list of "to reads" and this just confirms why. I have a tendancy to think too abstractly at times, it is important for me to get grounded in the concrete, the personal. I think of people like Origen who seem to have lost their way because the disconnected, lofty idea led them away from the person of Christ and the bosom of his bride, the Church.
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