You Will See Me

I will not leave you desolate; I will come to you.  Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more, but you will see me; because I live, you will live also.  In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.  He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me; and he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”  Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?”  Jesus answered him, “If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.

John 14:18-23

In what is known as the “Last Supper Discourses” we have some of the most beautiful verses in all of Scripture.  These are the words Jesus spoke to His apostles the night before He died.  They are recorded only by St. John’s Gospel.  The one above is of particular significance and beauty.

Jesus is describing something to the apostles that can best be interpreted as the Eucharist.  Our Lord tells them that He “will not leave [them] desolate”.  He explains that the secular world, which is ruled by Satan, will not see Him, however, the apostles will see Him.  He tells them that He will be alive, and because He is alive, we will also be alive.  This is how the Eucharist was described earlier, in John 6:57,  when Jesus said, “As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me.”

Jesus goes on to explain that He will be in us.  He also tells us we need to obey His commandments, so He can manifest Himself to us in the Eucharist. This is a reminder to us that we need to stay in the state of grace – avoiding serious sin – in order to be disposed to receive the Blessed Sacrament.

Then, in answering to a question by St. Jude Thaddeus, Jesus tells us that He and His Father will come to us and make Their home with us.

This is all so fantastic!  But I’d like to focus on the beginning of the passage where Jesus says, “I will not leave you desolate; I will come to you… you will see me.”  Jesus is speaking to all of us.  He has not left us alone – desolate.  He comes to us – in the Eucharist.  We see Him.

The origin of Eucharistic Adoration is from a particular part of the Mass.  During the consecration, after we know the host is no longer bread, but the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus, the priest holds up the Eucharist for all the kneeling congregation to see.  The priest does this because the Sacramentary (a book which holds the instructions on how a priest is to celebrate the Mass) says that the priest is to “show” the people the consecrated host.

When the Mass was in all Latin, bells were rung at this time to remind people to look up, so they could catch a glimpse of our Precious Lord.  In her wisdom, and moved by the Holy Spirit, the Church wanted to take that moment in the Mass and make it last longer, as long as we wanted, so people could worship Jesus in the Eucharist as long as they wanted.

This is why the monstrance has it’s name.  Monstrance means “to show” and that is exactly what it does.  It is the beautiful gold repository which holds the Eucharist during adoration so everyone can see Jesus.

Through the monstrance in adoration, the words of Jesus ring true.  “I will not leave you desolate; I will come to you… you will see me.”  All you have to do is come to see Him too.