Seek First the Kingdom - The March of Hope - Chapter 4

The Gateway to the Kingdom

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Our Lady of the Sign, Ark of Mercy at the church of St. Stanislaus Kostka in Chicago. Photo by Walter Emerson.

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.