Sacrament - Part three

I have been reflecting on the Last Supper, and what 'do this in memory of me' means to those within traditions of Christianity that have Sacramental tradition and those that do not. I am not seeking to drag up arguments about transubstantiation, although these views drive the way we practice our faith and how we 'do this in memory of me.' What I am seeking to do in these two blogs is simply to offer my heart's reflection during the past week. 
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In my third reflection on the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, I am considering a favorite theme of mine—that is, I should say, a long-standing desire to bring this into my life from the heart of my being: the sacrament to the present moment. To those unfamiliar with this contemplative path, the sacrament of the present moment was taught by Rev Jean Pierre de Caussade in the late 17^th century. To Rev de Caussade, it is only in the present moment that we have the precious ability to engage with the reality of eternity. Our past imagination and future concerns are a part of our mortal mind; eternity is, it does not have a past or future. Therefore, we are privileged to meet with the Eternal, engage with God and the heavenly hosts in our indivisible present. The ‘flipside’ of this understanding, is that instead of railing against the interruptions, tensions, and questions of our day, to truly engage with God, we must abandon ourselves to live in these present contentions of our world in our present moment: “the duties of each moment are the shadows beneath which hides the divine operation” (de Caussade).

 The following is a reflection from the Irish Jesuits who keep the site, Sacred Space (http://sacredspace.ie):

One conviction is central to Christian prayer: that God is active in it. We turn to meditation not so much as an exercise in self-improvement, as an opening ourselves to our heavenly father who is waiting for us. Three hundred years ago de Caussade wrote of the Sacrament of the Present Moment. It is only in the Now that we have access to God. Looking forward or back exercises the mind and imagination, but that distracts us from the true meeting of prayer, with the Lord who is present in my inmost soul. ‘Be still and know that I am God.’ (Psalm 46). There is a stage in prayer where we go beyond words and thoughts: the hard bit is to stop thinking. A mystic is quoted as hearing from God, ‘I will not have thy thoughts instead of thee.’ As we grow older, prayer becomes less wordy, less brainy, more like the peasant whom the Curé of Ars used to see in his church, ‘I look at the good God and the good God looks at me.’

I began to wonder how the ‘sacrament of the present moment’ connects with the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper … I began to think of what is happening in the Mass, and began to realize that the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, is itself a moment of engagement, of meeting with Christ and his Body, suspended in time AND eternity. Thomas Howard, in his book, If your mind wanders at mass, writes of this, saying:

This is the famous ‘communion of the saints’ on which we count so earnestly when we pray. The Church teaches that, in a mystery, the veil hanging between time and eternity is drawn back, as it were, in the liturgy, and that we really are one worshiping body ‘with angels and archangels, and the whole company of heaven’ (Preface for Epiphany)  (p. 38).

Let the Mystery and the Moment begin!