Easter Triduum 2020 will go down in history. It is almost surreal to know that the Church is not going to be able to celebrate the Triduum with Her faithful. I do not know if there has ever been a Triduum like this since the beginning of Christianity except for maybe during the time of the Roman persecutions.
Even though we do have the Blessed Sacrament here with us in the monastery, and for this I am so grateful (and feel so unworthy!), my heart is pierced for all of you who on this sacred night as we celebrate the Eucharist, cannot tangibly draw near to the beautiful and intimate mystery of his Body and Blood. I want to assure you that every time I go before Him, I am taking you all with me. While I was praying for you before him, the Lord put on my heart a desire to share an experience of a time in my life where I could not go to His Eucharistic presence due to illness and how hard, yet powerful that was for me.
In 2010 I began to have vertigo attacks and by 2011 they were 2-3 times a day each lasting 2-3 hours. I would go weeks without ever being able to leave my room because I was too sick. Noise and light exacerbated the attacks. I spent much time alone in my room in silence and darkness - feeling so powerless. As I tried to pray while feeling this way the Lord gave me a profound realization that what I was experiencing was similar to the powerlessness and suffering He experiences as He is confined in the tabernacle. He is trapped in tabernacles everywhere, in darkness and silence. And He is there out of love, not illness.
In my mind, I started to visit Him in tabernacles that were never visited, where He was left alone and forgotten. I would go to Him in my heart and be with Him and console His Heart. Spending time with Him in the darkness and silence and in His weakness and powerlessness was deeply intimate and these times of prayer were some of the most profound of my life.
This Holy Thursday offers us a unique opportunity. We are under quarantine; we are trapped in our homes, unable to go adore Him in his True Presence. Yet His True Presence is always locked by love in the silence, hiddenness and the darkness of the tabernacle. He who is all-powerful has chosen powerlessness as a way of life, choosing to not be able to go where he wants to go. What a suffering!
Instead of adoring Him in the Eucharist on this day you are being given the opportunity to live His Eucharistic life! By bearing the powerlessness of life right now, the hiddenness of isolation and the darkness of uncertainty, for love of Him, you are entering into His Eucharistic experience. That is a privilege. You are able to be with Him in His isolation and His suffering.
One of the things I learned from my own physical suffering is that there is no human person who can really understand what I am going through, no matter how wonderful and empathetic they are. But the Lord can. And that is why suffering is such an opportunity for intimacy. No one can go into the depths of suffering with us except Him. He suffers WITH US and WITHIN US, from the inside out. He lives our experience with us. We are now being given the opportunity to know His suffering and understand His life in the tabernacle from the inside out, a profound opportunity for intimacy.
So I encourage you to enter wholeheartedly into this Eucharistic experience and go to Him in your heart. Find Him in a deserted Church where He is rarely visited (right now there are plenty!). Spend time with him. Wait with him in the darkness, silence, and solitude. Console His Heart and let him know that he is not alone. You will find Him waiting for you!
I will leave you with a quote from In Sinu Jesu: When Heart Speaks to Heart--The Journal of a Priest at Prayer:
One who desires to seek My Eucharist Face, one who desires to draw near to My open Heart, is never far from the tabernacle. I transport his spirit there where I am. I welcome his desire to abide in My presence. I give him the grace of My presence in the most secret part of his soul. There he will find Me, and there he will be able to adore Me.
Sr. Thérèse Marie Iglesias, T.O.R.
