# What Is Eucharistic Adoration? | Bishop Barron's Daily Sermons

An episode of [Daily Sermons With Bishop Robert Barron](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/6783446284), 23 Aug 2026, 42 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/73920855/what_is_eucharistic_adoration.mp3



## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: You know, well, thank you well, God bless you well,
[0:13] Speaker 1: thank you. Will you still be standing when I finished tonight?
[0:16] Speaker 1: Is the question? Listen, I think I was just introduced.
[0:21] Speaker 1: I couldn't hear one thing back then. I couldn't hear
[0:23] Speaker 1: what they were saying. There we go. Well, listen, I
[0:27] Speaker 1: really am delighted. And what a wonderful crowd to see here.
[0:30] Speaker 1: How many thousands have gathered here, and that to me
[0:33] Speaker 1: is just a wonderful indication of the importance of this
[0:36] Speaker 1: Eucharistic revival. And boy, you know, I want to echo
[0:40] Speaker 1: what felt and said. I think I heard him say,
[0:44] Speaker 1: Bishop Cousins, who has carried the ball so magnificently in
[0:48] Speaker 1: this revival which will culminate in Indianapolis. But what a
[0:52] Speaker 1: beautiful expression of it here. So congratulations to both these
[0:56] Speaker 1: great churchmen who have sponsored our event tonight. When I
[1:00] Speaker 1: was invited to come here, as I think I heard
[1:03] Speaker 1: them say, as a fellow Minnesotan, how could I possibly
[1:06] Speaker 1: say no to this? Okay? You know, when I was
[1:13] Speaker 1: thinking about this talk everybody, I've been speaking and writing
[1:16] Speaker 1: a lot about the Eucharists the last couple of years.
[1:19] Speaker 1: I've talked about meal sacrifice, real presence the Mass. But
[1:24] Speaker 1: I thought this evening really is focused on eucharistic iteration,
[1:30] Speaker 1: so I want to talk about that for this brief presentation.
[1:34] Speaker 1: You know, to be honest with you, when I was
[1:36] Speaker 1: coming of age as a young seminarian, even a young priest,
[1:41] Speaker 1: eucharistic adoration was kind of frowned upon. It was seen
[1:45] Speaker 1: as individualistic, as pietistic, not liturgical, it distracted from the Mass, etc.
[1:54] Speaker 1: All those arguments are silly, may I say, And I'll
[1:57] Speaker 1: try to make that clear in the course of the talk.
[2:00] Speaker 1: But when I was a young guy, we were kind
[2:02] Speaker 1: of discouraged from doing eucharistic generation. You know what the
[2:06] Speaker 1: great prophet was. It was our special of Fulton Jay Sheen.
[2:11] Speaker 1: You know, my parents loved Fulton Sheen, and that's the
[2:14] Speaker 1: generation he spoke to directly on radio and TV. My father,
[2:19] Speaker 1: who was never very effusive in his praise of religious people,
[2:22] Speaker 1: once said about Sheen. I liked what he said, I
[2:26] Speaker 1: liked the way he said it, and that was true.
[2:28] Speaker 1: I think of a lot of people in their generation well,
[2:31] Speaker 1: as you know, Fulton Jay Sheen ended every talk he
[2:34] Speaker 1: ever gave to priests with the recommendation of doing a
[2:38] Speaker 1: Holy Hour before the blessed Sacrament. Now, as I say,
[2:44] Speaker 1: Sheen's influence kind of skipped my generation because before the
[2:49] Speaker 1: Internet and all that, if he wasn't on radio and TV,
[2:52] Speaker 1: we didn't see him. He was someone our parents listened
[2:55] Speaker 1: to him. But the wonderful thing is, and I discovered
[2:58] Speaker 1: this when I was a teacher at Mundolines. Some the
[3:01] Speaker 1: generation that I was teaching were very interested in Fulton Sene.
[3:06] Speaker 1: They got it probably from E. WTN I think, was
[3:09] Speaker 1: playing a lot of his old sermons. But they picked up,
[3:12] Speaker 1: believe me, his recommendation of doing the Holy Hour before
[3:17] Speaker 1: the blessed Sacrament. And I'll say it with requisite humility.
[3:21] Speaker 1: I already learned that from them. I watched my own
[3:25] Speaker 1: students do this practice of the Holy Hour, and so
[3:29] Speaker 1: I began doing it and found it to be of
[3:33] Speaker 1: enormous spiritual power. I hope it's essential to this Eucharistic
[3:39] Speaker 1: revival that we pick up Sheen's recommendation, you know, with
[3:44] Speaker 1: all these wonderful bishops from the Twin Cities. About two
[3:47] Speaker 1: weeks ago I was up at Saint Paul Seminary to
[3:50] Speaker 1: give a day of reflection to the community and all
[3:52] Speaker 1: my seminarians from Winona, Rochester are up there too, so
[3:55] Speaker 1: I visited them and I was talking about the Holyality,
[4:00] Speaker 1: and one of the faculty reminded me at the break well,
[4:02] Speaker 1: you know the chapel that you're speaking in at the seminary.
[4:05] Speaker 1: The young Fulton Sheen worship in this chapel and learned
[4:10] Speaker 1: the discipline of the Holy Hour right here. And so
[4:13] Speaker 1: I made a great point with the seminarians. Don't forget
[4:16] Speaker 1: the influence of this great Man. So what's it all
[4:21] Speaker 1: about eucharistic adoration? My spiritual hero, Saint Thomas Aquinas said
[4:29] Speaker 1: that if the words of consecration, it's as though a
[4:32] Speaker 1: great fire has now been kindled in a new place.
[4:37] Speaker 1: It's a beautiful image. I think there aren't like many
[4:40] Speaker 1: Christs around the world, but the one great fire has
[4:43] Speaker 1: been kindled in many different places. When I was moving
[4:48] Speaker 1: into my house in Rochester a couple of years ago,
[4:51] Speaker 1: house was still full of you know, unopened boxes. But
[4:55] Speaker 1: the second I got the altar and the tabernacle in
[4:59] Speaker 1: the chapel, I said, I'm gonna say mass. I said Mass,
[5:03] Speaker 1: and then I took some of the bus sacrament and
[5:05] Speaker 1: reserved it in the tabernacle. I kindled the fire there.
[5:12] Speaker 1: It's been burning in that place ever since this morning.
[5:16] Speaker 1: I did my Holy hour in that fiery presence. Stay
[5:21] Speaker 1: with that emission requirements of the fire. Fire is light
[5:28] Speaker 1: in a dark world. What gives us direction? Everybody, in
[5:33] Speaker 1: this sinful world that often we lose our way, we
[5:36] Speaker 1: stumble about. What gives us direction? But the fire of Christ.
[5:43] Speaker 1: I love this story I heard many years ago from
[5:46] Speaker 1: a priest in San Francisco. He said a middle aged
[5:50] Speaker 1: lady came to him and just she had no religion
[5:53] Speaker 1: at all, no religious background at all, much less Catholicism.
[5:57] Speaker 1: She knew nothing about its ritual or practice anything, but
[6:01] Speaker 1: she was searching for meaning, searching for something. He said
[6:07] Speaker 1: to her, Now, before I teach you anything, I want
[6:10] Speaker 1: you to do something. I'd like you to go into
[6:13] Speaker 1: the church. And he mentioned the local parish church. And
[6:16] Speaker 1: she said, I'd like you to find this little red flame,
[6:20] Speaker 1: this little red lamp, and I want you just to
[6:24] Speaker 1: go as close as you can and find a seat
[6:26] Speaker 1: and sit there for fifteen minutes. Now do that for
[6:30] Speaker 1: a week, then come back and see me. So she did,
[6:33] Speaker 1: and she came back and said, Okay, I did it,
[6:36] Speaker 1: but I don't get it. What is that red lightning?
[6:38] Speaker 1: He said, don't worry about it, just go back. I
[6:41] Speaker 1: want you now to spend a half hour every day
[6:43] Speaker 1: in front of that light. She came back the next
[6:47] Speaker 1: week and she said, I'm not sure what's going on here,
[6:51] Speaker 1: but I just feel such peace when I sit in
[6:56] Speaker 1: front of that little light. And it was only then
[7:00] Speaker 1: that he revealed the secret of what that little lamp
[7:03] Speaker 1: was indicating. I've always loved that instinct. Before he got
[7:07] Speaker 1: to talking about the Eucharist, he just brought her to
[7:11] Speaker 1: the fire. He just brought her to the light. Fires,
[7:18] Speaker 1: heat against the cold. Gosh. Our secularized world today, I think,
[7:22] Speaker 1: especially of our young people growing up in a world
[7:25] Speaker 1: often without a sense of direction purpose, meaning it's a
[7:29] Speaker 1: cold place. The Euchrist is warmth in a cold world.
[7:37] Speaker 1: Something else. If you're camping out in the deep woods somewhere,
[7:42] Speaker 1: that fire is light and its heat. But it's also
[7:45] Speaker 1: protection against predators, isn't it. There are lots of enemies,
[7:49] Speaker 1: we know this in the spiritual order, some that we
[7:51] Speaker 1: can see, some that we can't see. What keeps them
[7:56] Speaker 1: at bay the fire, I think one of the best
[8:02] Speaker 1: bits of spiritual advice I can give you is everyone here,
[8:05] Speaker 1: stay close to the fire. At the words of consecration.
[8:11] Speaker 1: It's as though fire is kindled in a new place.
[8:14] Speaker 1: Christ becomes really and truly present. Stay close, stay close
[8:19] Speaker 1: to the light and to the fire. Here's something she
[8:24] Speaker 1: said too, about the Holy houry spending time before the
[8:29] Speaker 1: blessed sacrament. He said, I look at him, and he
[8:34] Speaker 1: looks at me. You know, he said, you can say
[8:38] Speaker 1: your prayers, if you pray the office, you can read
[8:40] Speaker 1: the scriptures, you can you can offer prayers a petition terrific,
[8:45] Speaker 1: But at bottom, what's happening when you're sitting there by
[8:48] Speaker 1: the fire. I look at him and he looks at me.
[8:53] Speaker 1: The way two friends can be silently in each other's
[8:57] Speaker 1: presence without feeling the pressure of having to come up
[9:01] Speaker 1: with the right words, having to say just the right thing.
[9:04] Speaker 1: Really good friends can just be at each other's presence.
[9:09] Speaker 1: So it is with the Eucharistic Lord. Here's another sheen image.
[9:13] Speaker 1: He says. When I'm doing the Holy Hour, I'm like
[9:17] Speaker 1: a loyal dog at his master's feet. Maybe the Master
[9:22] Speaker 1: doesn't have any great task for me. Maybe he's not
[9:25] Speaker 1: calling me yet. On some great adventure. But I'm there
[9:29] Speaker 1: and I'm waiting, and I'm available if he needs me.
[9:33] Speaker 1: Good good. He also said it's like radiation therapy. I'm
[9:40] Speaker 1: in the blazing light of the presence of Jesus and
[9:45] Speaker 1: just being there, even if my mind's drifting a bit,
[9:48] Speaker 1: even if I start thinking about, you know, my worries
[9:51] Speaker 1: of the day. So what you're there by the fire.
[9:58] Speaker 1: You know, everybody, so many of them saints. It practically
[10:02] Speaker 1: is the common denominator of the saints. Is this love
[10:07] Speaker 1: for the eucharistic Lord. Think of John Henry Numan, another
[10:13] Speaker 1: great intellectual hero of mine, one of the most brilliant
[10:16] Speaker 1: men in the history of the church. Newman writes, these
[10:18] Speaker 1: gorgeous prayers. I've got them next to my chair when
[10:21] Speaker 1: I'm before the blessed sacrament, These gorgeous prayers to pray
[10:25] Speaker 1: in the presence of Christ. Saint Edestein. You know her story,
[10:31] Speaker 1: don't you. Edstein born of a Jewish family, comes of
[10:35] Speaker 1: age and the Jewish religion, but by the time she's
[10:38] Speaker 1: about twenty, she's drifted into atheism. She becomes a student
[10:43] Speaker 1: of philosophy, becomes one of the most brilliant philosophers of
[10:46] Speaker 1: the twentieth century, and then she commences this beautiful, long
[10:52] Speaker 1: journey back to faith. One night she reads Theresa Babula's biography,
[11:01] Speaker 1: and when she finished it, spent the entire night reading it.
[11:04] Speaker 1: She put the book down and she said, das is
[11:06] Speaker 1: the vahit in her Germany. That is the truth. She
[11:12] Speaker 1: comes to the Catholic faith. And before she becomes a
[11:17] Speaker 1: religious which she eventually does, when she's still a lay person,
[11:21] Speaker 1: she lives with some sisters and she spends hours every
[11:27] Speaker 1: day in Eucharistic iteration. The nuns were so impressed they
[11:33] Speaker 1: built a special chair for her close to the tabernac,
[11:37] Speaker 1: hours and hours in the presence of the Eucharistic Lord.
[11:41] Speaker 1: In times she becomes a carmelite, and then you know
[11:44] Speaker 1: the story. The Nazis came when they turned on Jews
[11:48] Speaker 1: who had become Catholics, and they took Edstein off to Auschwitz,
[11:51] Speaker 1: where she was put to death. I agree with all
[11:54] Speaker 1: of her biographers who say, what gave her strength to
[11:59] Speaker 1: face her martyr him were those hours upon hours in
[12:05] Speaker 1: the presence of the fire Yedstein loved the Eucharist. Jacques
[12:11] Speaker 1: mary Tan maybe not a household name anymore. But one
[12:15] Speaker 1: of the great Catholic intellectuals of the last century, a
[12:18] Speaker 1: French philosopher, mary Tan, traveled the world, often came to
[12:23] Speaker 1: this country, by the way, I think he was in
[12:25] Speaker 1: Collegeville a number of times. Anyway, mary Tan, despite his
[12:29] Speaker 1: world travels, was based in Paris, and when he was home,
[12:36] Speaker 1: he would often journey at night up to Momaut, that
[12:40] Speaker 1: beautiful hill that overlooks Paris, at the top of which
[12:44] Speaker 1: is the Great Church of Sacrica the Sacred Heart, and
[12:48] Speaker 1: there Jacques Marytan, the great philosopher, would spend the entire
[12:52] Speaker 1: night in eucharistic adoration, the blessed sacrament. By the way,
[12:58] Speaker 1: he has been adored continually in that since the late
[13:01] Speaker 1: nineteenth century, Jacques mary Tan would spend entire nights in
[13:05] Speaker 1: vigil Mother Teresa of Calcutta. When I went to the
[13:11] Speaker 1: motherhouse there many years ago, it's very moving. It's just
[13:14] Speaker 1: a very simple kind of open room, and there's the tabernacle,
[13:17] Speaker 1: and you can still see in the corner there's this
[13:19] Speaker 1: hyper realistic statue of Mother Teresa in her characteristic pose,
[13:26] Speaker 1: kind of crouching like this in prayer. It's how she
[13:30] Speaker 1: would spend everybody, hour upon hour in front of the
[13:35] Speaker 1: blessed sacrament. What gave her strength to do her world
[13:41] Speaker 1: changing work. But those hours of prayer, that time spent
[13:46] Speaker 1: by the fire. I don't know if you know this
[13:50] Speaker 1: story about Dorothy Day, which I love. The founders of
[13:57] Speaker 1: the Catholic Worker movement. Nobody in the century was more
[14:01] Speaker 1: devoted to the poor, Nobody was more given to the
[14:04] Speaker 1: social gospel. And she lived among the hungry and the
[14:07] Speaker 1: marginalized and the poor. But Dorothy Day was just as
[14:13] Speaker 1: committed to the Mass, to Benediction, to Rosary, to all
[14:17] Speaker 1: these different forms of prayer, and above all the Eucharist.
[14:22] Speaker 1: Here's the story that I loved. In the late sixties,
[14:26] Speaker 1: there was a young, kind of idealistic priest came to
[14:29] Speaker 1: visit her, and while he was there, he said Mass
[14:32] Speaker 1: for her in her little community, and he thought he
[14:35] Speaker 1: was being very hip and cool. And he took a
[14:37] Speaker 1: coffee mug off the shelf and he used it for
[14:41] Speaker 1: the chalice for Mass. He finished Mass, and Dorothy Day,
[14:46] Speaker 1: you know, thanked him. But then once he left, she
[14:50] Speaker 1: carefully purified that cup, put it in a towel, took
[14:55] Speaker 1: out a hammer, and then she broke it up into pieces,
[14:59] Speaker 1: went out in the and she buried it, and her
[15:03] Speaker 1: friend said, Dorothy, what are you doing? She said, that
[15:07] Speaker 1: cup held the blood of Crest. I can't I can't
[15:12] Speaker 1: imagine using it again as a coffee mon What gave
[15:16] Speaker 1: strength to her great work among the poor was her
[15:19] Speaker 1: love for the Eucharist. Just a couple more of the
[15:24] Speaker 1: stories of Saints John Paul the Second, the great Carl Voitiwa,
[15:31] Speaker 1: I've got this one from the horse's mouth. Had I
[15:35] Speaker 1: had the privilege to live with Cardinal George of Chicago
[15:38] Speaker 1: for about five years. And Cardinal George had in his
[15:41] Speaker 1: house three wonderful sisters. They were Albertine sisters from Kraco
[15:47] Speaker 1: and Poland. And the eldest of them was called Sister Theodosia,
[15:51] Speaker 1: and she knew Carl Voitiwa because he used to come
[15:55] Speaker 1: to their convent in Krocoll when he was archbishop there. Well,
[15:59] Speaker 1: one day he come to pray. He loved their chapel,
[16:03] Speaker 1: and one day he went into the chapel, and then
[16:06] Speaker 1: like an hour or so later, one of the sisters said,
[16:08] Speaker 1: have you seen the cardinal? And so she went into
[16:12] Speaker 1: the chapel and she looked around. No, no, he's not here.
[16:17] Speaker 1: So they kind of wondered, and then they finally said,
[16:20] Speaker 1: Sister Theodosha, could you check again? So in she goes
[16:24] Speaker 1: to the chapel, and this time she went up around
[16:27] Speaker 1: the pews to the front, and there she saw Karl
[16:31] Speaker 1: Voiitia spread ego on the ground. He would pray in
[16:37] Speaker 1: that attitude in the presence of the bus's sacrament. Where
[16:41] Speaker 1: did John Paul the second strength come from? His world
[16:46] Speaker 1: changing strength? It came from staying close to the fire.
[16:51] Speaker 1: Just one more, and I'm going to use this to
[16:53] Speaker 1: transition into the second part of my talk my spiritual heroes.
[16:58] Speaker 1: He had Thomas Aquinas at the hearings for his canonization.
[17:05] Speaker 1: His assistant, who was still alive, said, first of all,
[17:09] Speaker 1: Thomas Aquinas got far more of his ideas from prayer
[17:14] Speaker 1: than he did from thought. One of the most brilliant minds,
[17:18] Speaker 1: of course, in the history of a church. But he
[17:21] Speaker 1: got his ideas, his friend said, more from his prayer
[17:24] Speaker 1: than from his thoughts. And then he added this. He said,
[17:28] Speaker 1: Thomas would often go into the chapel and he would
[17:32] Speaker 1: rest his head on the tabernare as though asking for inspiration.
[17:40] Speaker 1: Where did Thomas's power come from? He stayed close to
[17:44] Speaker 1: the fire. Can I stay with Thomas Aquinas because where
[17:49] Speaker 1: I'm going to lead us is to this great hymn
[17:52] Speaker 1: that we're going to sing. I'm pretty sure later on
[17:55] Speaker 1: this evening, at the end of our benediction. When I
[18:01] Speaker 1: was in Rome last October, I was there for the
[18:03] Speaker 1: synod on Citadelity and CITs are a lot of work,
[18:09] Speaker 1: may I say. The day begins at about eight thirty,
[18:12] Speaker 1: it ends at seven thirty pm, and they work you
[18:14] Speaker 1: from Monday through Saturday, no kidding. We get one day
[18:18] Speaker 1: off for five weeks. So the sit is a workout.
[18:22] Speaker 1: So at the very end, I played hooky one day,
[18:25] Speaker 1: and I'll admit that. Don't tell the Pope, but I did.
[18:28] Speaker 1: I played hooky one day. I went with a Dominican
[18:33] Speaker 1: friend of mine, father Paul Murray. It was a wonderful
[18:37] Speaker 1: spiritual figure himself. And our destination was the Church of
[18:42] Speaker 1: San Domenico, the Great Church of Saint Dominic in Naples.
[18:46] Speaker 1: So a couple hours in south of Rome and we
[18:49] Speaker 1: get to the church, and our goal was a side
[18:53] Speaker 1: chapel of that church. Because Thomas Aquinez stayed at the
[18:59] Speaker 1: Dominican house there in the twelve seventies. The very end
[19:02] Speaker 1: of his life, he was working on the third part
[19:08] Speaker 1: of his great Summa Theologia, his theological masterpiece, and the
[19:12] Speaker 1: section he was working on was the one on the Eucharist,
[19:17] Speaker 1: greatest of the sacraments. And now this is the greatest
[19:20] Speaker 1: mind in the history of the church, trying to make sense,
[19:24] Speaker 1: trying to theologize about the greatest sacrament. So Thomas finished
[19:29] Speaker 1: his text, which today we recognize as an unsurpassed masterpiece.
[19:37] Speaker 1: But he wasn't satisfied. He thought he hadn't done justice
[19:41] Speaker 1: to the blessed sacrament, and so he took the text
[19:46] Speaker 1: and they say he literally put it at the foot
[19:48] Speaker 1: of the cross, as if asking for judgment. And there
[19:53] Speaker 1: was a little icon of the cross, and that's what
[19:56] Speaker 1: he saw, and that's where he put the text. And
[20:00] Speaker 1: the story maybe you know, and this was witnessed by
[20:04] Speaker 1: Dominican brothers of his. The story is that from the
[20:07] Speaker 1: cross came a voice Toma Benny's scripticity they made. Of course,
[20:15] Speaker 1: Jesus spoke Latin to Thomas aquinas, Thomas, you've written well
[20:21] Speaker 1: of me, what would you have as a reward, to
[20:27] Speaker 1: which the great acquitas respond, non NeSy tay domine, I'll
[20:33] Speaker 1: have nothing except you, Lord. I went to that chapel
[20:39] Speaker 1: because I wanted to be there and I wanted to
[20:41] Speaker 1: pray there, And so Father Paul and I and some
[20:43] Speaker 1: friends said mass at that side chapel where the Lord
[20:47] Speaker 1: spoke to Thomas acquaintance, and where he responded, By the way,
[20:51] Speaker 1: if the Lord ever asked you that question, that's the
[20:54] Speaker 1: right answer. Don't say you want a maserani or something
[20:58] Speaker 1: you know, but you know, I love so many things
[21:02] Speaker 1: about it that I made that my episcopal motto. So
[21:05] Speaker 1: when you become a bishop, you choose a motto, and
[21:07] Speaker 1: I chose that non neez ta domine because I think
[21:13] Speaker 1: that's the way we feel in the presence of the
[21:16] Speaker 1: blessed sacrament, isn't it? Lord? There's no place I'd rather be.
[21:22] Speaker 1: There's nothing else I want. I'm not looking for wealth
[21:26] Speaker 1: and power and honor, and I'm not looking for that
[21:30] Speaker 1: non nezy ta dominee. I'm looking for nothing except you, Lord.
[21:36] Speaker 1: Think of Thomas's lying there when you're in the presence
[21:39] Speaker 1: of the blessed Sacrament. Now go back ten years earlier
[21:45] Speaker 1: in the life of Aquitas. We're now back in the
[21:47] Speaker 1: twelve sixties and Thomas finds himself not in Naples, but
[21:53] Speaker 1: in the beautiful little town of Orvieto. I'm not sure
[21:57] Speaker 1: anyone that's been a European traveler. If you go to Rome,
[22:01] Speaker 1: it's only about an hour north of Rome by car
[22:04] Speaker 1: train and it's a lovely town. One of the most
[22:07] Speaker 1: beautiful cathedrals period in Europe, I think is an Orvieto.
[22:11] Speaker 1: But Thomas Aquinas was there in the twelve to sixties
[22:14] Speaker 1: because he was traveling in the entourage of the Pope
[22:18] Speaker 1: Urban Fourth. The popes to kind of move around the
[22:21] Speaker 1: towns around Rome in those days, So Thomas finds himself
[22:24] Speaker 1: in Orvieto. Well, right at this time, there's a figure
[22:31] Speaker 1: named Peter of Prague. He's a priest. He's on pilgrimage
[22:36] Speaker 1: from Prague to Rome. Why because he's going through a
[22:40] Speaker 1: spiritual crisis. He's entertaining doubts about the real presence of
[22:47] Speaker 1: the Lord in the Eucharist, and he wants to go
[22:49] Speaker 1: to Rome on pilgrimage to try to resolve these doubts.
[22:54] Speaker 1: So Peter Prague is saying Mass in Bolsena, it's a
[22:57] Speaker 1: little town not far from Orvieto, and at the consecration
[23:03] Speaker 1: he elevates the host. This is the man again, entertaining
[23:07] Speaker 1: doubts about the real presence, and blood ran from the
[23:12] Speaker 1: host copiously onto his hands, and from his hands onto
[23:17] Speaker 1: the corporal. Well, of course he was overwhelmed, and those
[23:21] Speaker 1: with him were overwhelmed. So they gathered up the corporal
[23:25] Speaker 1: and they raced to Orvieto, where the Pope was, because
[23:30] Speaker 1: they wanted to show him this remarkable relic, this remarkable miracle.
[23:35] Speaker 1: By the way, you can still see it when you
[23:37] Speaker 1: go to Orvieto, they'll show you the corporal of Bolsena.
[23:40] Speaker 1: It's still there, stained with blood. Well, Paul Urban fourth,
[23:45] Speaker 1: who was so impressed, he was so moved by the story,
[23:49] Speaker 1: he decides to initiate inaugurate a feast in the church
[23:55] Speaker 1: which we still celebrate to this day called Corpus Christie,
[24:01] Speaker 1: the Feast of the Body and the Blood of Christ.
[24:05] Speaker 1: This eucharistic miracle gave rise to this eucharistic celebration. Well,
[24:12] Speaker 1: Urban the fourth decides to celebrate this feast, we need
[24:16] Speaker 1: a liturgical office, I mean antiphons and hymns and texts
[24:21] Speaker 1: and poems and so on, And so he turns to
[24:25] Speaker 1: this brilliant mystical Dominican Thomas Aquinas, and he says, I'd
[24:30] Speaker 1: like you to write the Office for Corpus Christians. And
[24:35] Speaker 1: so Thomas, accustomed to writing theological literature, writes a poetic
[24:43] Speaker 1: and spiritual masterpiece. And we still pray and sing these
[24:49] Speaker 1: words to the present day. At the close of this evening,
[24:53] Speaker 1: we will pray and sing some of them. The great
[24:58] Speaker 1: central hymn, the great central text of the Office is
[25:02] Speaker 1: called the Pange Lingua. What I want to do, just
[25:06] Speaker 1: very briefly, is look at a few lines from the
[25:09] Speaker 1: Panje Lingua, because it beautifully expresses Thomas's eucharistic theology, and
[25:15] Speaker 1: I think tells us why, like him, we want to
[25:18] Speaker 1: spend time before the fire. Here's how it starts, Panje
[25:26] Speaker 1: Lingua gorriosi corporismi stadium. That means sing my tongue of
[25:32] Speaker 1: the mystery of the glorious body. Now here's what I
[25:36] Speaker 1: love is that poem begins. Here's Thomas Aquinas, the greatest
[25:39] Speaker 1: intellectual in the history of the church. Nobody used words
[25:45] Speaker 1: more more effectively than a Quinas, no one, no one
[25:49] Speaker 1: could articulate the mysteries more fully than Aquinas. And yet
[25:53] Speaker 1: this great song begins sing, sing my tongue. Why is it, friends,
[26:02] Speaker 1: in up and down the centuries, in the presence of
[26:04] Speaker 1: the bus sacrament, we still sing, and we gest yearned,
[26:11] Speaker 1: and we genuflect on one knee, sometimes on two, that
[26:16] Speaker 1: we put ourselves like Carol Voitia, spread eagle on the ground.
[26:20] Speaker 1: Why do we send incense billowing upward? Because we know
[26:24] Speaker 1: that our puny words, yes, even the great words of A.
[26:28] Speaker 1: Thomas Aquinas, can't begin to articulate the depth of this mysterium,
[26:34] Speaker 1: this mystery. We have to search for a kind of
[26:39] Speaker 1: language beyond language, sort of poetry beyond poetry, as we
[26:46] Speaker 1: honor this mystery. How beautiful in a way that in
[26:49] Speaker 1: the presence of the sacrament, during our holy hour, we
[26:53] Speaker 1: fall silent. Finally, here's how the second verse of the
[27:00] Speaker 1: Ponchi Linguer begins, Nobi's doctus Nobi's noatus exintacta virgine that
[27:08] Speaker 1: means given to us, born for us, from the immaculate
[27:16] Speaker 1: Virgin who loves Mary. In this room. Here's something tom
[27:26] Speaker 1: As a quintessaw and all the great mystics see it too.
[27:30] Speaker 1: When the second person of the Blessed Trinity took to
[27:33] Speaker 1: himself a human nature. He took his flesh from the
[27:37] Speaker 1: virgin Mary, which is why there's a connection between the Eucharist,
[27:44] Speaker 1: which is the body of Christ sacramentally present, and Mary,
[27:48] Speaker 1: the Mother of God. You can't approach Mary without being
[27:54] Speaker 1: led to the Eucharist. You can't be in the presence
[27:58] Speaker 1: of the Eucharist without being led back to there. Now
[28:03] Speaker 1: that's that's talk for another night. We could do a
[28:05] Speaker 1: whole thing on that relationship, but I just want you
[28:07] Speaker 1: to see that there's always a merriological connection when we're
[28:12] Speaker 1: talking about the flesh of Jesus, which we are inescapably
[28:17] Speaker 1: doing when we talk about the Euchras. Here's how the
[28:23] Speaker 1: next verse begins. In supreme nokte chene. That means in
[28:32] Speaker 1: the night of that last Supper. But there's a kind
[28:36] Speaker 1: of delicious ambiguity in Latin. When you say suprema china,
[28:41] Speaker 1: it means last, but also means supreme, greatest, in the
[28:48] Speaker 1: night of that last and greatest Supper. What does Jesus do,
[28:54] Speaker 1: Thomasen says kumba AND's kum fratribus recline with his brothers.
[29:02] Speaker 1: Stay with that image, everybody, It's beautiful. I think the
[29:05] Speaker 1: last Supper, the Passover meal, Jesus reclining an intimate connection
[29:13] Speaker 1: with his brothers. That's the Mass, everybody, that's the mass.
[29:19] Speaker 1: That's Jesus in the first priest, but in that beautiful
[29:23] Speaker 1: intimacy of the last Supper. That's what we're meant to
[29:26] Speaker 1: experience at the Mass. What's happening at the Passover Supper,
[29:32] Speaker 1: Thomas says, observing all of the appropriate legalities, what's meant
[29:38] Speaker 1: here is he's a good Jew following the demands of
[29:43] Speaker 1: the Passover Supper, all of the demands of the passover ritual.
[29:48] Speaker 1: What was that the lamb whose blood poured out provided
[29:55] Speaker 1: protection from death, The lamb who's flesh is sacrificed and
[30:03] Speaker 1: then consumed Christ is the lamb. Christ is the passover.
[30:15] Speaker 1: The blood not just of a of an animal, but
[30:19] Speaker 1: now his own blood, providing protection for us from sin
[30:24] Speaker 1: and death. Not just the flesh of this animal sacrificed,
[30:30] Speaker 1: but his own flesh sacrificed on the cross. Not just
[30:36] Speaker 1: the flesh of this animal given to us to eat.
[30:39] Speaker 1: But listen to how he puts it in this very
[30:43] Speaker 1: simple but direct Latin.
[30:44] Speaker 2: At say, dot suis manibus, So on this on this
[30:54] Speaker 2: night of the Last Supper, reclining with his with his brothers,
[30:58] Speaker 2: performing the passover virtually.
[31:01] Speaker 1: Now say, dot suis maniboos, he gives himself by his
[31:09] Speaker 1: own hands. What do we consume everybody of the mass,
[31:15] Speaker 1: but the flesh of Christ. We eat and drink his
[31:20] Speaker 1: body and his blood. We incorporate him. You wonder now,
[31:28] Speaker 1: as Thomas Aquinas did, as all the great theologians have. Okay,
[31:33] Speaker 1: I get it, But what does that mean? And how
[31:38] Speaker 1: does that work? Look how the next verse begins vertebum
[31:46] Speaker 1: kado panmichi. It's gorgeous Latin, by the way, because Latin
[31:52] Speaker 1: has that quality of expressing things very succinctly and just
[31:56] Speaker 1: a handful of words. It means word made flesh m
[32:04] Speaker 1: caro panum verum true bread. Veri chis becomes by his
[32:15] Speaker 1: word flesh. That's the whole Euchurstic theology expressed in beautiful, pithy,
[32:23] Speaker 1: poetic Latin. Let's take it step by steps. Who is
[32:28] Speaker 1: Jesus Oh a great teacher? Heck with that, who's Jesus
[32:34] Speaker 1: Oh a great spiritual master? Yeah? A thousand of those?
[32:37] Speaker 1: Who's Jesus Oh a guru? He's like a Sufi mystic
[32:40] Speaker 1: who cares, that's all he is. Who cares? Go on, Oprah,
[32:44] Speaker 1: read the latest book on spirituality. If that's what you want.
[32:47] Speaker 1: That's not who he is. Vedebum caro, verdebum caro. He's
[32:54] Speaker 1: the Word made flesh. He's the Word made flesh, God
[33:00] Speaker 1: from God, Light from Light, true God from true God.
[33:03] Speaker 1: Not one more human figure among many who cares? If
[33:07] Speaker 1: that's all he is. But he's the very Word of
[33:10] Speaker 1: God made flesh. What does the Word of God do?
[33:20] Speaker 1: In the beginning, was the Word, and the Word was
[33:23] Speaker 1: with God, and the Word was God, and through that
[33:27] Speaker 1: word all things came to be. Go back now to
[33:31] Speaker 1: the beginning of the Bible. In the beginning, God says,
[33:36] Speaker 1: let there be light, and there was light. God says,
[33:40] Speaker 1: let the earth come forth, and so it happened. God said,
[33:44] Speaker 1: let the animals multiply upon the earth, and so it happened.
[33:48] Speaker 1: The point is in that beautiful poetry from Genesis that
[33:51] Speaker 1: God by his speech makes things real. See. Look, if
[34:00] Speaker 1: someone asked me tomorrow, hey, how did it go with Bimidgi,
[34:02] Speaker 1: And I say, oh, it's terrific. There were, like, you know,
[34:04] Speaker 1: three thousand people in this arena, and well, my speech
[34:07] Speaker 1: isn't changing reality. It's just describing reality, right. But sometimes
[34:16] Speaker 1: even our puny speech can change reality. The baseball players
[34:24] Speaker 1: running is you know, rounding second base and slides into
[34:27] Speaker 1: third base, and the umpire properly, you know, delegated says safe. Well,
[34:34] Speaker 1: he's safe. Whether you like it or not, whether you
[34:38] Speaker 1: disagree or not, he's safe. The umpire's words have changed
[34:44] Speaker 1: the game. Or if you say to somebody you know,
[34:48] Speaker 1: some some wounding word that can change them forever, or
[34:55] Speaker 1: turn that around, you say some wonderfully encouraging word that
[34:58] Speaker 1: can set their life on a different path. So even
[35:02] Speaker 1: our words can change reality. But think of God's word.
[35:10] Speaker 1: God's word makes things what they are. God speaks and
[35:18] Speaker 1: soul things are. That's why verbuncarro the word become flesh
[35:26] Speaker 1: when he says talita kumi, one of those three beautiful
[35:33] Speaker 1: times the Gospel has. Remember his Arama talita kumi, little
[35:38] Speaker 1: girl get up. Well, by God, she gets up. When
[35:43] Speaker 1: he says Lazarus come out, the dead man comes out.
[35:50] Speaker 1: My son, your sins are forgiven, and by God they're forgiven.
[35:56] Speaker 1: What God says is What God says is vedimum caro.
[36:05] Speaker 1: The word made flesh takes panem verum true bread verible
[36:13] Speaker 1: by his word karnem efichi makes it flesh. Why do
[36:20] Speaker 1: we say after the conseqution, this is not bread anymore,
[36:24] Speaker 1: this is not wine anymore, because Jesus said so. And
[36:31] Speaker 1: I don't mean that in some trivial way. I mean
[36:33] Speaker 1: it in this deeply biblical sense. God speaks things into being.
[36:40] Speaker 1: And therefore Thomas Aquinas, who wrote this great, beautiful poem,
[36:44] Speaker 1: speaks in that marvelous section of the Summa Theologia of transsubstantiation,
[36:53] Speaker 1: that the very substance of the bread and wine, that
[36:57] Speaker 1: is to say, their deepest reality changes, changes into the
[37:04] Speaker 1: deepest reality of the body and blood of Jesus. That's
[37:08] Speaker 1: our great eochistic mystery. Everybody Jesus reclining with his brothers,
[37:15] Speaker 1: identifying himself as the passover land, but now gives himself
[37:22] Speaker 1: to them by his own hands. And so he does
[37:27] Speaker 1: at every mans, so he does at every man's. Just
[37:32] Speaker 1: one more then I'll stop. I've got eight minutes. Okay,
[37:36] Speaker 1: the ones we're gonna sing tonight, the very familiar ones
[37:41] Speaker 1: tantum ergo sacramentum vein chernui. Therefore, such a sacrament tantum sacramentum,
[37:55] Speaker 1: such a sacrament venea more chernui we venerate like Carl
[38:04] Speaker 1: voitiwa share them bowling down. Think about something here, fellow Catholics,
[38:13] Speaker 1: I just a few weeks ago blessed the chrism oil,
[38:18] Speaker 1: and the oils were in the oil of catechumens right
[38:21] Speaker 1: at the Chrism Mass. And those oils go out to
[38:23] Speaker 1: our various parishes, and they're used at baptisms and conformations,
[38:27] Speaker 1: et cetera. The anointing of the sick. Those sacramental signs
[38:35] Speaker 1: do indeed carry Thomas aquinas said the virtus Christie's that
[38:41] Speaker 1: means the power of Christ. So when you're baptizing, when
[38:44] Speaker 1: you're confirming, when you're anointing the sick, indeed, the power
[38:48] Speaker 1: of Christ is communicated by these sacramental signs. But fellow Catholics,
[38:53] Speaker 1: you know this, I wouldn't think. I wouldn't never think
[38:57] Speaker 1: of bowing down and worship being the baptismal water. What
[39:02] Speaker 1: I what I ever think of going to the ambry
[39:05] Speaker 1: at my parish and bowing down and worshiping the oils. Well, no,
[39:10] Speaker 1: of course not. There are sacramental bearers of the Virtus Christie,
[39:14] Speaker 1: the power of Christ. But Thomas Aquinas says, the Eucharist
[39:21] Speaker 1: alone is not just the virtus Christians. It's ipse Christus,
[39:30] Speaker 1: that means Christ himself, Christ himself, Christ himself. Which is why, Yes, indeed,
[39:39] Speaker 1: vendere muchly, Yes, indeed we bow down to worship this sacrament.
[39:50] Speaker 1: Do you see why, everybody, we're having this eucharistic revival?
[39:54] Speaker 1: I was chair of the committee and then and then
[39:56] Speaker 1: Bishop Drew followed me the chair of the Evangelization Committee.
[40:00] Speaker 1: When I read that Pure Forum study that said only
[40:03] Speaker 1: thirty percent or so of Catholics believe in the real presence,
[40:07] Speaker 1: That's when I said, hey, brothers, I think we got
[40:10] Speaker 1: to do something about this. We've got to remind our
[40:13] Speaker 1: own people of the power of this sacrament, of the
[40:17] Speaker 1: centrality of the sacrament. We got to call them back
[40:21] Speaker 1: to a worship indeed of this sacrament. Think about that,
[40:26] Speaker 1: everybody tonight now, as we bring this evening to its
[40:29] Speaker 1: prayerful conclusion, and we focus ourselves around this great sacrament
[40:35] Speaker 1: that all the saints have loved. Think of kravoitiwa spread
[40:40] Speaker 1: eagle on the ground before the sacrament, bowing down to
[40:45] Speaker 1: worshiping In that we find what Vatican two called the
[40:52] Speaker 1: source and summit of the Christian life. In its light
[40:59] Speaker 1: and it's heat, we find the direction we need. We
[41:05] Speaker 1: find the warmth that we need. We find the protection
[41:08] Speaker 1: for enemies. Stay close to that fire, everybody, Thank God,
[41:13] Speaker 1: bless you.

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