It is so easy to mindlessly receive Christ in Communion. We know he is there, but we don’t think about it. We often mechanically approach his person as if he were just a wafer and not God! One day I knelt down to receive him at the sanctuary step in our seminary chapel, and as I stood up after receiving him, this thought struck me: I imagined the roof opening and God the Father looking down at me. He didn’t say anything, but I tried to read into those paternal eyes. He was entrusting to me what was most precious to him, his Son! I wondered if he was proud of how I receive this treasure. Does he trust that in me Jesus will find a warm welcome, or is my love unsure? What does he see when he looks down on me in that most overpowering moment of Communion? This poem was my attempt to capture that gaze:
What do you see, Father,
When I receive the One
Who lived with you before the world,
Eternal God the Son.
You both looked down from Heaven
And saw us lost in sin.
Then he for love of you said, “I
Will bring them home again.”
With tears you watched him come down
To earth, and for us die,
To take upon himself that guilt
Which on our souls did lie.
It’s he who dwells within me,
Upon my tongue received,
The Sacrificial Lamb, Your Son,
In Virgin’s womb conceived.
Now looking down upon me,
What, Father, do you see?
When I receive your Only Son,
Do you see him or me?
Beautiful poem!