Throughout my long religious life, I have loved to stop by the chapel—morning, evening, any hour—to say good morning and good evening to that mysterious Lord who waits for me. With him I can share, linger, give thanks, ask forgiveness. What a beautiful thing God has made: his presence among us. "Take and eat, this is my body; do this in memory of me." I have always tried to listen to him, to follow him, to love him too.
A few days ago, I was talking with my friend Saverio about the joy of my life. I told him of my frustration at no longer being able, as easily as before, to enjoy the presence of Jesus in the Tabernacle. He answered with his enthusiasm and his Spanish sense of balance: "But really, above your head, beside you, in front of you, everywhere—the presence of your disabled brothers and sisters is the truest presence of all!" It is true. Since that day, waking and sleeping, morning and evening, I think of Father Leone, so gravely paralyzed that he lives above me. What is his night like? What has he endured? What can he share? I know that in his own way he speaks to me and saves me.
That sick person, that rejected one, that refugee, that poor person, that disabled person, that old person—"it is I," Jesus says in the Gospel. You, Lord! And I beside you.
Real presence is wherever God has willed himself to be. He willed first of all to be near human beings, with them, for them. God willed nothing else but this presence. Nothing that touches the human heart is separated from the Body of Christ. Heart and body go together. We must have the courage to stop a little longer during the day and find time, moments when each of us can, in our own way, adore him.
The Eucharist, evening or morning, is so comforting. Don't the sick also need real presence—the Eucharist brought to the bedside of their suffering, sometimes even at the moment of their final journey?
Real presence is God present to human beings, and in a certain way, human beings present to God, even if they cannot always understand it or accept it.
Let us find our place before the presence of Christ, and especially before that Christ who willed to be among us.
For this reason it is good that the door of a chapel or church should remain open. So the reality of the Body of Christ passes through locked doors to reach hearts.
Fr. Roberti
(from Alléluia-Arche, October 2008)