Seek First the Kingdom - The March of Hope - Chapter 4
The Gateway to the Kingdom
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After my return from the Poconos, my wife announced that she would take her annual summer trip to Mexico to see her relatives. Our son would be going with her. I was now spending two weeks alone, with no job and nothing to do but look for work and, I might add, pray.
Only one or two nights into my solitary stay in our home after the two of them had departed, I sat in my reading chair with our dog on my lap. I had the most compelling feeling come over me, a feeling that animated me and motivated my spirit. I recall thinking to myself, "I should go and visit the Blessed Sacrament."
It was eleven o'clock at night when I would typically be trudging up the stairs to get some sleep. But that would be delayed for a few more hours. I immediately stood up (leaving my poor four-legged companion scrambling), retrieved my car keys, and visited the local twenty-four-hour adoration chapel. There, I began what would end up being the most important activity of my newly rejuvenated journey in Catholicism; I would start daily (as much as possible) adoration of Jesus in the Eucharist.
I have no doubt that the Holy Spirit, through the heart and spirit of the Virgin Mary, animated and led me that night to the foundation of all of our hope in the worship of Jesus Christ in his Eucharistic. I did not realize it at the time, but I was receiving my first instruction for making a successful journey to that Kingdom of God, which I was to seek. This was and continues to be the basis for every step I take toward Christendom. In the Eucharist, we come face to face with the real, substantial presence of Jesus, whereby we allow him to teach us, mold us according to his will, and ultimately, unite ourselves with him.
While others see evil in the Church and refuse to come inside her land, I refuse to leave despite this evil. And I refer to this evil in the more correct and realistic terminology known as "sins." Yes, sin exists in the Church. The Church is full of sinners and has never claimed not to be so filled in its two-thousand-year history. Outsiders hold her to a standard to which she does not hold herself. She makes no claim her members are perfect or sinless. They taunt and ridicule the Church outside her walls while refusing to venture in to see what her land beyond those borders holds. As I stated in my introduction, that is one of the fundamental reasons I am writing this book. I want to ensure that the beauty of her interior land is known to a world that only judges and condemns her. There is a reason that I refuse to leave despite her sins, and I shall use this current point in my journey to explain it.
The Church, you see, is unspeakably holy. How might anyone make such a statement in the face of contrary and completely contradictory evidence? Is the Church unspeakably holy yet full of sinners? Welcome to Catholicism.
The Church is holy because Christ founded her, therefore making her, as a historical point in fact, a divinely established institution. She is also sacred because Jesus remains in her, guides her with his Holy Spirit, and, even as St. Paul puts it in his writings, makes her his own body and bride. Just as Eve was created as "flesh of Adam's flesh," the Church is born of the person of Jesus Christ through the blood and water flowing from his crucified side on Calvary and then animated by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. But most significantly, the Church's holiness is derived from the pure and real presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. The obvious point here is that the Church is holy because of him who created her, Jesus Christ.
Then we have us, the sinners who are called to make up the Church, to be the visible presence of Christ ourselves through the active company of the Church on earth. Despite our sinful nature, we are to be the hands and feet, the tongue and spirit of Christ for the world. The Church is to be the visible sacrament of Christ on earth through us and our participation in the life of Christ. Amidst the magnificent saints such as St. Francis of Assisi, St. Patrick of Ireland, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, St. Joan of Arc, and so on, we have members of the body of Christ like you and me. Saints and sinners are we. But the Church is genuinely holy as she is in Jesus Christ. No sinner, no matter how vile, can walk into a Catholic Church and take even one iota of holiness away from the Blessed Sacrament. This is Catholicism. And this is the most reasonable and intelligent worldview that brings everything into an intellectual and spiritual focus.
I conclude this chapter with the all-important observation that the very first activity Our Lady demanded of me on my revitalized spiritual path was to worship the Lord in the Eucharist. I can only emphasize the importance of this step in the March of Hope. For those who doubt the benefit of devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary or think that Mary will detract us from Jesus, our faithful savior, ponder on her instructions for a moment. True devotion to Mary will always lead us directly and swiftly to Jesus. Consecrate yourself to Mary, and you will find Jesus. When you find Jesus, you will find the glorious kingdom I speak about in this book. The Eucharist is the gateway to that kingdom.