By Holly Gustafson
Absence makes the heart grow fonder.
This was certainly true for my husband and me. Before we were married, or even engaged, we spent a tumultuous month together in Winnipeg, where I was going to grad school. It was a time of stress and transition for both of us, and we took it out on each other, fighting all the time. By the end of the month, he had taken a job in Toronto, and we would spend the next two years apart.
Those two years apart gave us lots of time to think about why we wanted to be together; the absence made us more aware of how much we enjoyed each other’s presence, and we have a collection of embarrassingly sappy love letters to prove it. At the end of it all, we decided to get married, but I’m not sure it’s a decision we would have arrived at if we hadn’t had the time apart to miss each other. It was a necessary absence, a time needed to soften our hearts and turn them towards each other.
And I’m feeling a bit the same with the Eucharist these days. It’s been ten weeks since our family attended mass in a real live church, ten Sundays of participating in the mass from our living room, ten Sundays without communion. And I miss it, and long for it, and can’t wait, as restrictions on gathering sizes begin to be lifted, to be reunited with the Eucharist again. The absence of the Eucharist has made me long for the Divine Presence in a new and awakened way.
Although St. Thomas Aquinas is perhaps the greatest thinker in Church history, and his philosophical and theological writings form an enormous chunk of our understanding of the Catholic faith (which is why he’s recognized as a Doctor of the Church), he was also a sensitive poet, at least on one particular subject. In 1264, Pope Urban IV instituted a brand new feast day – the Feast of Corpus Christi, or the Body of Christ – and commissioned Thomas Aquinas to write the texts for the Mass and the Office. This included five Eucharistic hymns, written in Latin, which read as love letters to the Sacrament itself:
Godhead here in hiding, Whom I do adore,
Masked by these bare shadows, shape and nothing more.
See, Lord, at Thy service, low lies here a heart,
Lost, all lost in wonder at the God thou art.
(“Adoro te devote,” translation by Gerard Manley Hopkins, SJ)
It’s easy to see this time of quarantine as a curse, and the weeks without the Eucharist as only loss. It’s easy for me to feel sorry for myself and for my kids for all the things we’re missing – the soccer season and ballet recitals, graduations and grade twelve trips, and most of all, the communal Mass. But I think we’d be remiss if we didn’t stop to reflect on how losing what we cherish makes us cherish it even more, and how the absence of the Eucharist during this time might make our hearts just a little fonder for the True Presence in our lives once it’s back.
EUCHARISTIC CHALLENGE OF THE MONTH
Join me in a 12-month challenge to grow closer to the Eucharist this year. This month, pray the prayer of St. Thomas Aquinas daily, in anticipation of being reunited with the Eucharist soon.
Grant me, O Lord my God,
a mind to know You,
a heart to seek You,
wisdom to find You,
conduct pleasing to You,
faithful perseverance in waiting for You,
and a hope of finally embracing You.
Amen.
Holly Gustafson lives with her husband, James, and their five children, in Regina, where they attend Christ the King Parish. Holly received her Masters in Linguistics at the University of Manitoba, and now pursues her love of language through art, writing, public speaking, and unsolicited grammatical advice. The best advice she ever received was from her spiritual friend, St. Faustina, who told her that when in doubt, “Always ask Love. It advises best.”
