He's Missing Us, Too

I’ve gone into our church to pray several times over the last few weeks. Sometimes there have been one or two other people there -- often I find myself all alone. A vibrant parish of 8,000 and I sit in the big, empty church pondering our new circumstances.

I sit there before the tabernacle wrestling with all the feelings. The fear of financial hardship. The worry of becoming ill. The anxiety of every trip to the store. The wondering if anything will ever return to the way it was before.

But mostly I just feel great loss. I feel the grief of loneliness and the sadness of having everything so suddenly stripped away.

And then I look up at the tabernacle sitting in the shadow of the crucifix. The space between us is so small, and yet the Eucharist seems so far away.

And I feel Him aching for me, too.

He is with me in my loss. My longing for the Eucharist is nothing compared to His longing for me. He has experienced the human desires that are now magnified by His divine love. He left us the gift of the Eucharist because He loved His time on earth with us so much that he couldn’t bear the thought of being physically apart from us.

But now, He has allowed that joy to be taken, not only from us, but from Himself. The tabernacle sits below the crucifix as a reminder of how quickly He will surrender His own joy for us.

[tweet "God knows that we need to remember what it is to long for Him."]

Because He knows that we need to remember what it is to long for Him. He knows that we need to recognize what a great gift the Eucharist is -- but also understand that it is only a fraction of the eternal bliss we will encounter in our heavenly union with Him.

I’m trying not to fight these feelings, but to allow myself to rest in them. To acknowledge their presence and see the contrast between what is here now and that which He promises is to come.

I lay all of this at the foot of the cross. I hand it to Him as He waits for me in the tabernacle.

And I find comfort in His longing. My heart is filled with the anticipation of one day being reunited with the One who can truly complete me.