Searching for a Portal?

It's an interesting thing.

The one issue I struggled with the most before coming back to and embracing fully my Catholic roots is now that which draws me back and in fact holds me fast.

The Eucharist.  And more particularly and relevantly, the Real Presence of Christ in that Eucharist.

My struggles were real at one time but no longer.  It's as if the more I partake of Him, the more He feeds my faith in His presence.  I can't explain it in any rational way and won't attempt to.  But what I will do is bring you this related piece by Pat Gohn that speaks to me beautifully.  

Perhaps it'll speak to you as well:

When I consider the proximity of Jesus to me personally in the Mass, and in particular when I sit in front of the Blessed Sacrament, that's what warms my heart toward his; to know that his heart is first turned toward me, that his heart burns for mine.

When I humbly kneel or sit in front of the Blessed Sacrament elevated in the monstrance, I'm looking into a holy portal to the other side of all we can hope and imagine. The host in the monstrance is, out of its element, in suspended animation. Its bread was consecrated so that it might be consumed and receive by a communicant—to strengthen them with the very body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ. It is destined, still, to be Holy Communion that nourishes and becomes part of its recipient. Yet, for the moment, that purpose is delayed, as the Church in her wisdom "exposes" the Incarnate One on the Altar that we might draw near to the very love that beats for us, from the heart that gave all.

This is why it's called Adoration.

When we come face to face with heart of this love, we learn what it means to adore. True adoration brings an intimate knowledge we cannot find on our own. In adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, we get a foretaste of the infinite, a prolonged visitation of the True Presence outside of the Mass. Within that thin opaque portal, the Host holds all we need to know and can imagine.

I admit I cannot often describe what goes on in those moments of prayer. But in my finite knowledge of the ways of love I fathom it as my heart "seeing" the face of Jesus, the heart of Jesus, the hands of Jesus—all the infinite Good that my heart can hold. And I can almost imagine passing through the veil between heaven and earth.

On one side of the Host in the monstrance is me, and my all-out neediness. Prayerfully, I'm compelled to bring my concerns to the fore. I'm "all in," as the gamblers would say. I bring it all with me—my family, my friends, my intentions, and the church and world. But in truth, it's really no gamble at all. It's really a win-win.

For on the other side of the Host is the heavenly realm, the angels and the saints, the cloud of witnesses, the Blessed Trinity in the beatific vision. Somewhere on that other side is every loved one that I have lost to death. Heaven contains the ones who "sleep" in Christ, who've been judged and found worthy. They are there just now, on the other side, yoked to the same Body of Christ that captures my gaze in the Host I adore on the Altar. If the Host were a door I could open, I'd almost swear I could peer straight through it into heaven.

She's got more and it's most worthy. 

Listen to me reader.  Hear me out.

If you're pondering the Catholic faith for the first time, the Real Presence is likely a huge hurdle.  It was, again, for me.  A huge one.  My turnaround came, I believe now more firmly than ever, when I coupled my strong desire for it to be true with the realization that He birthed that desire in me.  

If you're a Catholic who's been away from Mass for a while  (I was away for 40 years) yet are longing for God (we all do whether we recognize it or not)... fill that longing... enter into that holy portal.  Go to Mass.

He'll honor your longing. 

I know this to be true.