Numquam solus eris

You will never be alone.  We know that God is omnipresent, and that nowhere in His creation can we escape Him.  “The eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good,” (Proverbs 15:3).  From the start of creation, God’s presence is in everything as its creator, we can marvel at the wonders of the world at how God has graced us with such beauty and splendor.  So much, even beyond our own world that we know, all created by God shows us the reach and expanse of His creation.  With all the knowledge we have in the present day, the heavens above us are still an endless marvel we know so little about.  “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have established,” (Psalms 8:3).  Just think at how similarly man has sat in awe looking at the night sky in its expanse for age upon age and yet God’s brilliance in that one mere aspect of creation continues to draw us in.  Every minute aspect of nature is akin to the marks of a craftsman on his work.  Scores in stones left by glaciers are His imprint on creation just as the marks of a chisel on Michelangelo’s Pieta that graces St. Peter’s.  But even more beyond these signs and wonders showing God’s handiwork, we know he is more than with us in what he has made but his active will is with us in the Spirit.  

The Spirit that came to rest upon Christ’s chosen Apostles continues to descend upon us and guide us.  The Bishop says during the sacrament of Confirmation, “Send your Holy Spirit upon them to be their helper and guide.”  While tongues of fire may not appear above the heads of the confirmandi, we know that the Spirit does descent upon those candidates as it did to the Apostles at Pentecost and that with open and willing hearts, the Holy Spirit will guide them and all of us on the right and narrow path that Christ calls us to walk upon.  If we open ourselves to the presence of the Spirit within our hearts God will give us the strength and graces we need to what He desires for us in aligning our will with His.  We read in Ezekiel 36:27, “And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.”  God does not want to control us as one does a puppet but His will desires what is good for us and what will fulfill us.  As our creator, we should ever be giving thanks to the Lord for the gift of life He has granted us and therefore live the entirety of our lives in a posture of thanksgiving.  As we walk on the path of life guided by the Spirit in God’s presence we will ever draw closer to Him and our heavenly homeland for which we are all, at birth, destined to reach.  

Even our Lord was in communion with the Holy Spirit during his life and ministry while on earth.  The Spirit descended upon Him at his baptism in the Jordan by John.  “...and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form, as a dove, and a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased,’” (Luke 3:22).  The Spirit continued to work with and through Our Lord during his earthly ministry from his baptism through his passion, death and resurrection.  When Jesus left his Apostles he left them with the Spirit, “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you forever,” (John 14:16).  Our own Lord also comes to be in our presence in many ways.  The Church teaches that the consecrated host on the altar of sacrifice during Holy Mass is truly the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus.  We hold fast to Christ’s own words spoken at the Last Supper, “... he took bread, and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them, and said, ‘Take; this is my body.’ And he took a chalice, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank of it. And he said to them, ‘This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many,” (Mark 14:22-24).  How dare we call into question the words of Our Lord spoke to his blessed Apostles on the night where he instituted the Eucharist and from which Holy Orders trace their lineage.  The Collect from Thursday of the Lord’s Supper states in part that he, “...entrusted to the Church a sacrifice new for all eternity…”.  St. Paul drives this home in his First Letter to the Corinthians, read during the same Mass, “For I received from the Lord what I also deliver to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, ‘This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way the chalice, after supper, saying, ‘This chalice is the new covenant in my blood.  Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me,’” (1 Corinthians 11:23-25).  Therefore Christ remains physically present with us in the Eucharist on all the altars and in all the tabernacles of the world.  In a prayer before Mass written by St. Thomas Aquinas we pray, “O Father, most loving, I am about to welcome into my own heart Thy own beloved Son, hidden under this sacramental veil.”  Countless martyrs dating back to St. Tarcisius in the 3rd Century have spilled their blood in defense of the faith and protecting the Eucharist.  A Chinese girl at the beginning of the last century gave her life after being caught in adoration and recovering desecrated hosts.  This story had an impact on Ven. Fulton Sheen who stated to the Eucharistic Congress in Philadelphia in 1976, “Everyone, make the Holy Hour, and you will discover as you leave the divine Presence that if you move among people in the world, they will say of you as the maid said of Peter, ‘You have been with Christ.’ And then at the end of a lifetime spent in adoration of the Lord, and in love with the Blessed Mother, of the Blessed Sacrament, when you come before the Lord do you know what He will say to you? He will say, ‘I heard my Mother speak of you.”  Sheen instilled the fervor of the Holy Hour in countless Catholics across the globe and continues to inspire new generations of Catholics.  A few short years ago, Servant of God Jacques Hamel was martyred while saying Mass.  If these and many others believed in the true presence of the Eucharist with their life’s blood, should we not also?  Christ has left us with a physical presence and should we not do all that we can to venerate that at every opportunity and avail ourselves to the Eucharist and Holy Mass whenever we are able?  Apart from this physical presence Our Lord also comes among us when we gather in prayer, whether it be at Holy Mass, living rosary, prayer groups or gathered together in our own homes.  “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” Matthew 18:20.  Jesus gave of himself on the cross and continues to give of himself at each Mass and each moment where we as the Body of Christ on earth, His Church, gather together in prayer and worship of the Father. 

All of this is critical, the presence of God the Father, His Son our Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, the paraclete.  That is why Our Lord instructed the Apostles, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and behold, I am with you always, to the close of the age,” (Matthew 28:19-20).  This is why we can walk in confidence knowing that our God, “The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob…” (Exodus 3:15), is always with us and does not allow us to journey alone.  Hardly anyone of any faith or even lacking is unfamiliar with the words of the Psalmist, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil; for you are with me…” (Psalms 23:4). 

If Christians are nothing else, we should be as strongly as our ancestors in faith were in what we believe.  We should stand confident in our beliefs and in knowing that our triune God is ever present with us in many ways “visible and invisible.”  While we may not necessarily be able to commune with Our Lord as his Apostles did, we can certainly pray and listen and see how both Father and Son direct us through the Spirit.  It is not an easy faith to explain, it is not an easy faith to defend and as evidenced by periods of persecution, martyrdom and strife, it is not an easy faith to follow, but we can be confident that God will provide us with all we need to walk that narrow path and ultimately come to walk through the narrow gate, should we open our hearts and trust in His divine providence.  We will never walk alone so long as the Lord is at our side.