Text from the Holy Hour, Lourdes, May 21st 2025, led by Fr. Brendan Nolan.
Opening Hymn
The Reserved Blessed Sacrament, either in the Tabernacle or in the Monstrance, calls the faithful to quiet prayer and is held in Catholic consciousness as the great treasure.
Much has been written about the Reserved Blessed Sacrament, perhaps one of the finest interpretations of it is; “The Reserved Blessed Sacrament is “The Mass held in Contemplation” – This phrase is apt to cause us to pause – The Mass held in Contemplation.
To come to terms with this description within this Holy Hour we will revisit The Mass. This we will try to do, in prayer, by taking inspiration from the document of the Second Vatican Council, the one on the Sacred Liturgy, “Sacrosanctum Concilium” .
This Document alerts us to unspeakable richness. It states that Christ is present in four ways in every celebration of Mass:
1. Christ is present in the Sacred Gathering – The Assembly of God’s People
2. Christ is Present in The Priest
3. Christ is present in The Proclaimed Word
4. Christ is Substantially present in the Consecrated Species.
Assembly of God’s People: I now invite all to quietly call to mind your own parish Sunday Assembly……. In they come one by one, The Baptised brothers and sister of Christ, picture where they sit. Some you like, some you might not be so fond of, but by the Grace of Baptism, Christ is present in each one in a singular way. Here, collectively, His presence is potent. “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them”- Matt 18:20.
The Breastplate of St. Patrick seems to gather, in words, the essence and truth of the meaning of our Sacred Assembly: “Christ be beside me, Christ be before me, Christ be behind me, Christ be within me”. The Sacred Assembly gathers in more people than those who are physically present, by our communal empathy and prayer we embrace: the sick, the war weary and broken, those whom we love, especially those who have chosen to be absent, our faithful departed. We Gather them in. Here this night we gather them unto The Mass held in Contemplation. We will look towards the monstrance in Silence……………………………. Let us now sing all verses of “Will you let me be your servant”.
The Priest: As the Bell rings from the sacristy indicating the beginning of Mass the congregation stands. It would present an identity crisis to think that they stand for the personality of a given celebrant. They do so in recognition of the Second Mode of Christ’s presence which is perceived in ministerial priesthood. St. John Chrysostom ( c.347 – 407) has the sense of it in his writing; he says that in the Sacramental moments, the priest lends Christ his voice, speech and actions. As he does, Christ’s presence resounds again and again through the centuries and the faithful are served and accommodated in that moment when their relationship with God touches its source and summit. Pope Francis wrote a very fine document on the Sacred Liturgy entitled Desiderio Desideravi. The title chosen by our late Holy Father pertains to Luke 22: 15 where Jesus says I have longed to eat this Passover with you. This document indicates that Christ continues this longing for intimacy with us in every celebration of Mass which is the new passover. Here Pope Francis writes of what he calls The Ars Celebrandi – the art of celebrating. He asks the entire assembly to note this art, to be alert to Season, Colour, Posture, Gesture, Words, Music and especially Silence. While he invites all to the Art of Celebrating he invites priests to avoid, on the one hand, inflexible rigidity which stifles creativity and on the other, such creativity as to abandon objective liturgical norms. Accommodation of all in their supreme moment of worship is his unobtrusive mission.
Together let us read the first verse of Hymn 25. This verse embraces The Gift and Mystery of Ministerial Priesthood in union with the sacrifice of all the Baptised.
“Lord accept the gifts we offer
At this Eucharistic Feast:
Bread and Wine to be transformed now Through the action of thy priest;
Take us too Lord and transform us,
Be thy grace in us increased”
We will now be still and offer our lives into the Mass held in Contemplation.
The Proclaimed Word : From the very moment the reader announces God’s Word, Christ is present. He exudes from the proclaimed Scriptures: The Opening Hymn of Matins, Tuesday, week three puts in beautifully:
“In the Scriptures by the Spirit,
May we see the Saviours face,
Hear his Word and heed his calling,
Know His will and grow in grace”
If we focus on the readings we will certainly glimpse the face of Christ. We will now, here, in the presence of The Mass held in Contemplation and by the Spirit seek to see His face in tiny pieces of Scripture.
Isaiah 42:- “He will not Crush the Broken Reed nor Quench the Wavering Flame” – In this one phrase we find the kindness of God’s face, particularly as he is revealed in Christ. (Silence)
Ps. 23: -“The Lord is my Shepherd I shall not want” – Why shall I not want? Because the Lord is my Shepherd. – His ongoing Caring presence is here discernible. (Silence)
Mark 4: – Jesus Calms the Storm – “And unto the sea, He said, quiet now be calm and the wind fell and there came a great calm” , He also brings calm to the bewildered mind. (Silence)
Matt 5: – “Think of the Lillies of The Field, they neither weave nor spin and Solomon in all his grandeur was not arrayed as one of these……… how much more does He love you……….Think of the birds of the air. Not one falls to the ground that your Father does not know about and you are worth more than all the sparrows”. –
Carved on the palm of God’s hand we are totally loved by Him. (Silence)
We will sing all verses of “Amazing Grace”.
Presence of Christ in the consecrated Bread and Wine:
In the Gospel of St. John chapter six verse 51, Jesus describes himself as the living bread come from heaven. This is not specifically a reference to the Eucharist. By this phrase He means that he is the Wisdom of the One Eternal God in the midst of humanity. So every manifestation of His presence allows us to be nourished by God’s wisdom – quiet spiritual reading, quiet rosary, walking in the midst of nature, being heartened by sport or uplifted by music or literature, seeing His Glory in the newly born and feeling his call in the broken, experiencing His presence in others by their “little nameless unremembered acts of kindness and of love”. In all of this we find him and are eating of the bread of God’s wisdom. It is in Verse 59 that the reference is specifically Eucharistic. It comes with the term flesh – “and the bread that I shall give is my flesh for the life of the world”. The term Flesh means everything that is me I will give to you in the gift of the Eucharist. The fulness of God comes to us veiled in bread. St. Thomas Aquinas says here we receive His body, blood soul and divinity. St. Pope Paul V1 writes that we can safely give to the Blessed Sacrament the worship that we reserve for the Eternal God alone. The poet and convert to Catholicism Gerard Manley Hopkins recognising the difficulty in this belief writes
“Seeing, touching, tasting are in this deceived.
How says trusty hearing, This shall be believed.
What God’s son has told me take for truth I do,
Truth Himself speaks truly or there’s nothing true.”
Truth himself has spoken in John chapter six and in the Last Supper Room accounts of St Matthew, St. Mark and St. Luke and St. Paul’s account to First Corinthians: “This is my body, This is my blood”. St. Pope John Paul 11, in his encyclical on the Eucharist wrote. “every day, since the second of November 1946 I have raised the Sacred Host and therein I could behold the suffering Lord of Calvary and the Divine Wayfarer who met the two lonely travellers on the road to Emmaus”. If we can absorb this phrase we will be enabled to unite our suffering with the Eucharistic Lord of Calvary and our joy with the Eucharistic Risen Wayfarer who walks the road of life with us.
One more time we look towards the Blessed Sacrament, The Mass Held in Contemplation and surrender all suffering and joy into the Mystery of The Lord’s Death and Resurrection. Silence.
One in THE ONE
In surrendering all into the Silence of the Blessed Sacrament we can sense the connectedness of all humanity and indeed of all creation. Pope Francis underscored this beautifully in Laudato Si. Pope Leo XIV incapsulates this in his beautiful motto; “One in The One”. Our oneness with humanity and all of creation is captured in this profound Papal Motto. Our oneness is in and of the depths and heights of Christ. This approach to creation is not new in Catholicism. The Canticle of Creation by St. Francis is well known. The Fourth Eucharistic Prayer of the Roman Missal calls all creatures into the celebration of Mass. Towards the end of the nineteenth century in a sincere wave of enthusiasm a very ornate altar had been established at the Grotto here at Lourdes. In the early twentieth a different approach emerged. There grew an awareness of the natural ambience of the place; Rock, River, Trees, Mountains. It was in this natural setting that the graced moments had occurred. Very quickly a desire for an altar of rock grew stronger and finally became a reality. Fr. Castillon a renowned botanist living in the area approved. He imagined that the flowers of the Upper Pyrenees rejoiced at the return to the nature of rock at the Grotto and suggested that these tiny Pyrenees flowers had been witnesses to the communication between Our Lady and St. Bernadette. The Sacredness of Creation was always pulsating in Catholicism. In a former time the water which had been used to rinse Altar Linen was not poured down the drain, rather it was poured onto the sacredness of the earth. We will long remember the Easter of 2020. Having blessed Easter Water that year fear of infection for people coming to take it led me to pour it all onto the earth. It seemed appropriate to do so. – Sacred touching the sacred.
Frequently and under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit Architecture blends with nature. The Steeples of Lourdes seem to accord with Psalm 121“I lift up my eyes to the mountains, from where shall come my help, my help shall come from the Lord who made heaven and earth”. One latin term for Steeple is Digitus Dei – Finger of God. As such the steeple points us always into Blessed Connectedness in eternity. One in The One. We will pray for the dead (Silence)
May the Lord support us all the day long, until the evening comes and the shadows lengthen and the busy world is hushed and the fever of life over and our work all done. Then may the Lord grant to us all a kindly welcome, a safe lodging and peace at the last. Amen.
Tantum Ergo
Divine Praises
Benediction
Final Hymn: Hail Queen of Heave