During a prayer time the week before Easter, I was amazed by how
much the monstrance seemed to symbolize the Catholic Church. Like many
Protestants, I had been concerned that Mary, the saints and the
sacraments were roadblocks between believers and God so that to get to
God, one would have to go around them. They seemed to complicate life
with God unnecessarily like accretions on the sides of sunken treasures;
they had to be discarded to get to what was important.
But now I could see that the opposite was true. Catholicism was not a
distant religion, but a presence oriented one. Catholics were the ones
who had Jesus physically present in churches and saw themselves as being
tabernacles after receiving the Eucharist. And because Jesus is the
Eucharist, keeping him in the center allows all of the rich doctrines of
the Church to emanate from him just as the beautiful gold rays stream
forth from the Host in the monstrance.
Rome Sweet Home: Our Journey to CatholicismKimberly Hahn
Reprinted from
Witness Ministries,
a lay apostolate dedicated to renewing appreciation for the Mass as the
greatest gift which God has given to His beloved spouse, the Church.
Their mission is to show how, in the Eucharistic Liturgy, Jesus renews
and transforms us–and the world–in His life and love.