They Took Him
March 29, 2020
They took Him.
Day after day, night after night, the candle burned, the wax waned, but a new candle was always placed beside the tabernacle again. Because He was there. He was always there. I passed by with a glance, a nod, a slight bow if I felt I had time, entangled in the daily web of missed calls and pressing deadlines and unread emails. Yet the candle burned and the wax waned because He was there. He was always there.
Until He wasn’t.
They took Him on a dreary Thursday afternoon, when the sky was dark and misty rain clouded the windows. And as I watched my Jesus leave me, a deep heaviness enveloped my heart as the darkness from the sky and the fog hanging in the air seemed to seep through the windows, surrounding me and wrapping around my throat until I couldn’t breathe. And a deep ache invaded my heart as I felt the emptiness in the most inner part of me: the lack of His presence. Tears sprang from my eyes as I threw myself before the empty tabernacle, the golden doors flung open and showed only darkness within its walls that were once filled with the brightest light. And the candle beside it was not burning. The ever present reminder: He isn’t here.
Why had I not thrown myself before Him when He was present, waiting for my love? Why do I only weep when I feel the ache? A deep emptiness in a part of me that I didn’t even realize was once being filled. I mourned His absence, but I wept mostly for my own indifference, my own irreverence toward the greatest gift God has ever given us. It wasn’t until total darkness surrounded me that I noticed the Light that had always been there. It wasn’t until He left me that I ached for the love He so graciously poured out through His physical presence.
In this time of great uncertainty, of great change and monumental shifts in our lives, I think we are all feeling the ache of things that once were. I think we are all yearning for things to go back to what they used to be. And it's in these aches that we realize what we always had, what we took for granted: getting coffee with friends, going to social gatherings, eating at our favorite restaurants, attending church services. And for Catholics, being able to come together as a community and receive our sweet Jesus in the Eucharist. Unfortunately, we often only realize what we have after it's gone.
In this ache for normalcy, for what once was, let it carve in our hearts a deeper, richer love for the beauty in our lives. For the abundance of gifts our Father has so graciously given us, the greatest being the gift of His Son in the Eucharist. In the parched desert of our souls, the Living Water will be that much sweeter, that much richer, when we can receive our Bridegroom again.
Lord, Jesus have mercy on my indifference, on my ungratefulness. Create a clean heart in me, oh Lord.