The Continuation of the Incarnation…in the Sacred Host

Neither Advent nor the tomb is Christ's final rest in the world. He rests in the midst of the world now, in the Host. He is as silent, as secret and hidden, in the Host as He was in Advent or in the tomb. He trusts Himself to His creatures in the Host as He trusted Himself to our Lady in Advent; only then He gave Himself into the keeping of the one human creature who was sinless and in whom He could have His will, and now He gives Himself into the keeping of sinners.

In the Host He is immobile, dependent. He rests in the priest's hands, on the paten, in the tabernacle. He remains with us, resting in all the cities and all the lonely and unexpected places of the world, in little tin churches as well as the great cathedrals, in schools and hospitals and prisons and asylums, in concentration camps. Wherever human creatures are, He rests in their midst.

 Just as His sleep in the boat that was threatened by the storm made His Apostles ask Him, "Master, art Thou unconcerned?" so there are those who are puzzled today by what looks like unconcern. It seems to them that once again Christ sleeps unconcerned in Peter's boat, which is threatened with the danger of sinking; but again the same answer comes to us across two thousand years: "Why are you faint-hearted? Have you still no faith?"

Christ could show His power and glory; He could show that the Host is God; He could break down the pride of those who have no fear of God. He does not. While injustice and ar­rogance prevail, He remains silent and helpless, and seems to do nothing at all.

It has always been Christ's way to come first in secret, to come in a hidden way, to be secret even in those in whom He abides, whose life He is, to be known first by His love, gradu­ally becoming known by the quickening of His life within them and only afterwards by His face or by His power, by the word that commands the wind and the water. The Host is resting among us in order that Christ may work the miracle of His love in us, changing us almost impercepti­bly into Himself, in order that through us His love may over­come the world.

Caryll Houselander from "Wood of the Cradle; Wood of the Cross"

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