Processing with the Lord
The sun beat down on the street. I walked alongside hundreds of others, following the golden monstrance that caught the light in brilliant flashes. A canopy of white silk moved ahead of us, sheltering the Blessed Sacrament.
Incense rose in visible waves, mingling with the summer air. The priest’s vestments gleamed white and gold. Children scattered flower petals on the pavement. An elderly man beside me sang the Pange Lingua with a voice that trembled but did not waver.
The procession stretched for blocks. People watched from windows and sidewalks. Some knelt as we passed. Others stared, confused. A few snapped photos with their phones.
“What’s happening?” a woman asked her companion.
“Some kind of Catholic thing,” he replied, watching us wind through the streets.
I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. My knees ached from the concrete.
“The Eucharist is not merely symbolic, but a profound reality where we encounter Jesus Himself,” the priest had said before we began. “Today, we process with Him through our streets as a public testimony of our faith.”
The bells rang out, marking our progress through the neighborhood. Someone handed me a Holy card. The procession paused at a makeshift altar on the Church steps. People knelt on the hard pavement.
A Public Witness
I closed my eyes in the bright sunlight.
“We aren’t just walking,” a young mother had told her confused child. “We’re following Jesus.”
The child had nodded solemnly, clutching a small paper banner.
Three days later, I sat alone in the parish adoration chapel. The same monstrance stood on the altar, but without the canopy, without the crowd.
The wooden kneeler creaked under my weight. My breath sounded loud in the silence. A clock ticked somewhere behind me. The single candle flame didn’t waver.
An air conditioner hummed briefly, then quieted. For twenty minutes, nothing moved except the slight rise and fall of my chest.
I checked my watch.
St. Mother Teresa once said, “When you look at the crucifix, you understand how much Jesus loved you then. When you look at the Sacred Host, you understand how much Jesus loves you now.”
Now. Present tense.
My mind wandered to Sunday’s grocery list. I pulled it back.
The silence grew heavier. More substantial. The golden rays of the monstrance caught the light once, then didn’t again. My knees hurt in a different way than they had during the procession.
The Chapel’s Stillness
I shifted on the kneeler.
During Sunday’s procession, the priest had proclaimed, “Christ goes out to meet His people!” His voice had carried over the crowd, amplified by speakers. Here, in the chapel, no voice spoke. The same Christ waited, but in silence.
Saint Alphonsus Liguori wrote, “Of all devotions, that of adoring Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is the greatest after the sacraments, the one dearest to God and the one most helpful to us.”
My breathing slowed.
During the procession, we had moved through space, covering blocks of the city. Here, in adoration, I moved through something else. Not faster or slower—different.
The digital clock on the wall blinked silently: 3:47 PM.
“Know that I am with you always, until the end of the age,” Christ had promised. In the procession, we had demonstrated this truth publicly. Here, in this empty chapel, I experienced it privately.
I closed my eyes, then opened them.
The Host remained unchanged, white against gold. Minutes stretched. A car passed outside, then nothing.
Pope Benedict XVI once emphasized, “In the Eucharist, Christ is always coming to meet us.” During Sunday’s procession, we had walked with Him through the streets. Here, in adoration, He walked through the landscape of my thoughts.
Two Encounters, One Presence
The chair beneath me felt hard after forty minutes.
In the procession, we had been many voices, many steps, moving as one body. Here, I was one voice, silent. One body, still.
I bowed my head.
The same Christ was present in both spaces—under the silken canopy surrounded by hundreds, and here, in an empty chapel on a Wednesday afternoon. The miracle didn’t change. Only the context.
I looked up at the monstrance.
“It is you who have come to me,” a line from St. Elizabeth of the Trinity surfaced in my memory. “I didn’t go looking for you.”
The chapel door opened. A woman entered quietly, genuflected, and took a seat in the back row.
During the procession, our public witness had been powerful—Catholics united, moving through the secular world with our Eucharistic Lord. Here, two strangers sat in silence, united by the same Presence.
I stood to leave.
The mystery remained intact. The same God who had processed through streets now waited in stillness. The same Jesus who had drawn crowds now drew individual hearts, one by one.
I genuflected before the monstrance.
In the procession, we had shown the world our Faith. In Adoration, our Faith showed us the world as it truly was—a place where God waits, where time changes, where silence speaks.
I opened the chapel door.
The woman remained kneeling, her head bowed. The candle flame flickered once, then steadied.
I stepped outside. The chapel door closed behind me with a soft click.
Additional Writings about Eucharistic Adoration
Eucharistic Adoration: He Waits for You in the Silence
7 Reasons You Should Go to Eucharistic Adoration
Reflections on the National Eucharistic Congress: Faith, Healing, and Revival
