When I was a child, my mother told me that when I was in Heaven I could have anything I wanted. Truth be told, I wanted horses and endless rolling hills to run them on. As I became older, my tastes became more sophisticated. I wanted more and more sensual delights when I made it to Heaven.

You can imagine the shock I received when I was informed Heaven was the contemplation of God. Right!—contemplating God while riding horses. No…just the contemplation of God. I wondered how I was supposed to spend eternity doing nothing but adoring God. One winter’s day, a holy monk posed the same question to our Lord. The monk went on a walk and in a beautiful snow covered valley spied a red bird singing a lovely song. The saintly man sat down to listen. As the song ended, the monk gathered his garment around him and walked back to his monastery. Upon arriving, he realized he didn’t recognize anyone. Confused, he asked a young lad, “Where is brother so and so?” The lad looked at him queerly and said, “Well, he’s been buried in the cemetery for 50 years now.” And so the monk discovered that all his brothers in Christ had died a long time before, and that he himself had been gone over 100 years! Reeling in shock, he sat down and realized he had spent 100 years gazing at that lovely bird; yet it had seemed but a moment in time. How much more glorious will it be to adore God in Heaven!

Can we find any red birds that transfix us for years in the snow? Probably not, but God gives us something far better. He has given us Himself to adore in Eucharistic adoration. How can we go to adoration and be consumed with love? Christ, in His benevolent love, wants this world and our love for one another to be steppingstones to His magnificent love for us. The Catholic faith does not contradict what we see as true on earth, it only adds to it. In the sacrament of marriage this is especially true. A spouse’s willingness to sacrifice for and give himself completely to the other may be the closest thing on earth to God’s love for us. When we go to adoration, we can use the experience of this wonderful human love to aid us in our prayer. What is even more glorious is that when we traverse in thought from our love on earth to God’s mystical love, He often rewards us by further blessing our terrestrial loves.

A passionate kiss is one analogy that can be used to understand the love we should have for Christ in the Eucharist. A movie’s rendering of a kiss can convey the ardor we ought to have in our heart for Christ’s Real Presence. In one movie a woman speaks to her lover and describes the intimacy of a kiss: “There is something so romantic about a simple kiss. It is as though when your lips meet he breathes in your soul and you breathe in his soul.” Eucharistic adoration provides an opportunity for the same intimacy with Christ.

The Curé of Ars describes how adoring Christ is like breathing in the Spirit of God:

 

When we are before the Blessed Sacrament, let us open our hearts; our good God will open His. We shall go to him; he will come to us; the one to ask, the other to receive. It will be like a breath from one to the other.

At Adoration, I breathe deeply the soul of Christ. When I consider that He, my beloved, is breathing deeply of my own impoverished soul, I am overwhelmed with a deep sense of awe and humility. Who am I that I should receive such love and devotion from our King? And, yet, He is there, longing for us more intently than any lover on earth.

When I return home and greet my husband with a kiss, I delight in sharing with him not only the depths of my soul but also all of Christ that has managed to seep into my heart. Through such simple acts of affection, my union with Christ intensifies my love and intimacy with my husband.

In Heaven we adore and contemplate God. On earth we go to adoration, or we make an altar within our own hearts and adore God. Take time out and go to Eucharistic adoration. Go and love God and fix your mind on the goal. Go and breathe deeply God’s love, and let His kisses intoxicate your soul.
 

 by Christy Wall

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