Transcript:
Praise be our Lord, Jesus Christ. I thank you very much for the presentation, and I also thank the organizers of this conference for the invitation to speak to you today in this gathering. I hope that this gathering will deepen our faith and that we will grow in our holy Catholic faith. The theme of my talk is “The Ancient Norm of the Holy Fathers as a Criterion for an Authentic Renewal of the Sacred Liturgy.”
From apostolic times until this very day, the Holy Mother Church has shown a deep concern to offer a form of worship worthy of God’s great holiness. Hence, she prays to God the Father, through Christ Jesus, in the Holy Spirit. As Jesus told the Samaritan woman, “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” Only in the Holy Spirit can one truly adore Jesus as Lord, meaning God. For, according to Saint Paul, “No one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.”
The first petition in the Lord’s Prayer is “Hallowed be thy name.” Hence, one who wishes to worship God in spirit and in truth must be aware that He is the all-holy God and must manifest reverence even in outward comportment. In his high priestly prayer, Jesus refers to his father as “Holy Father.” Hence, he prays to the Father, “Give glory to your Son so that Your Son may glorify You.” Our Lord Jesus Christ is the true adorer of the Father. His words and his example are the ultimate foundation for the true comprehension and reform of the liturgy.
The Church of the apostolic times and the fathers of the first centuries faithfully received and implemented the true liturgical spirit, as it was realized by our Divine Master, Jesus Christ. The Church must always measure her liturgical practices by the liturgical spirit or norm of the Holy Fathers, especially in historical periods of a liturgical crisis, as it is in our days. No one can deny that the Church in our time is suffering a deep liturgical crisis which touches in a special manner the mystery of the Holy Eucharist. In the following reflections, we would like to illustrate the principle of the ancient norm of the Holy Fathers, Pristina sanctorum Patrum Norma, emphasizing some themes like this.
The awareness of God’s holiness is a primary attitude in Christian worship. Christian liturgy, having its model in the liturgy of heaven, as witnessed by the Holy Scripture and church fathers, shows us that concrete gestures of a true liturgical reform are in adequacy with the liturgical spirit and norm of the Holy Fathers. This certainly does not mean we should copy specific, transitory historical practices. That would mean liturgical archaeologism. But that we should understand more profoundly the content of the liturgical teaching and the law of the organic development of the Christian worship. The awareness of God’s deep holiness must be the first attitude in Christian worship. From it, there ought to flow quite naturally, external gestures of adoration, such as bows, prostrations, and silence, expressive of deep awe and reverence. The most authoritative witness to these fundamental attitudes of Christian worship is found in the Book of Revelation, which portrays the heavenly liturgy as the real model for worship on Earth. This is the principle and constant characteristic of the liturgy throughout the two millennia, from the Apostolic Fathers right up to the Second Vatican Council.
Among the multiple witnesses to this attitude, we will cite only Pope Saint Clement, first century, who reflects the liturgical tradition of the church in Rome. Then, the passion of saints, Perpetua and Felicity, and Tertullian, second and third centuries, who reflect the liturgical tradition of the church in North Africa. Then, the anaphora of Saint James and the mystagogical catechesis, fourth century, which bear witness to the liturgical tradition of Jerusalem, while Saint John Chrysostom, fourth and fifth centuries, is a witness to the liturgical tradition of Antioch and Constantinople. The church liturgy is to be modeled on the heavenly liturgy. Therefore, when the Church on Earth worships the divine majesty, especially in the Eucharistic liturgy, she is duty-bound to imitate the angels in their inner disposition of purity of heart, as well as in their gestures. The following witnesses from patristic times demonstrate that this was the awareness of the universal church, whether in Rome, Carthage, Jerusalem, Antioch, or Constantinople. Consequently, this is an indispensable and constant criterion for an authentic liturgical tradition.
The following words of Pope Clement the first certainly reflect the liturgical tradition of the Roman Church of his time. I am citing, “Let us consider the whole multitude of the angels worshiping. Let us begin in Greek, to him the will of God in His presence, for as scriptures truly say, ‘Thousands upon thousands were ministering to him, and myriads of myriads attended him and cried out, Holy, holy.'”
“Holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole creation is full of his glory, and may we, likewise, as we assemble together, cry out instantly in the same manner, with willing hearts and with one voice, so that we may have a part in his great and glorious promises.”
This is the citation from Pope Clement. Here, the holy pontiff teaches that the synaxis, or liturgical assembly, should imitate the manner of worship of the holy angels in heaven, citing the divinely revealed angelic hymn, Sanctus, or Trishagion, as it was revealed by the prophet Isaiah. He is convinced that adoration of the divine majesty and of His Holy Will will lead to spiritual unity among the faithful. This description of the heavenly liturgy teaches that worship should be totally oriented to the Triune God, to give glory to Him alone in loving obedience to His Holy Will. This is done by such sacred gestures as bowing down, covering one’s face, and also by effacing oneself so as to make the holy countenance of God shine brightly, giving God the first place in one’s heart, and imitating the angels in worshiping God’s will, which will result in true spiritual union with Him and in harmony of soul.
In chapters 40 and 41 of his letter, Pope Clement states that the Christian liturgy has its model, likewise, in the liturgy of the old covenant, which was modeled on the heavenly liturgy. The liturgy of the Christian community must be based on an order, Latin Ordo, established by God.
The fact that Clement stresses the “Ordo” in the Christian liturgy shows that he depends on the biblical priestly mentality, as demonstrated, especially in the Letter to the Hebrews. It is significant that the present Roman liturgy still uses the word “Ordo” in the expression “Ordo mise,” which regulates in detail the manner of celebrating the Eucharistic liturgy.
Pope Clement states that the bishops and priests, presbyters of the church in Corinth, presented their gifts in a pious and irreproachable manner. He describes the church’s Eucharistic sacrifice in terminology reminiscent of the Old Testament sacrifices. In the awareness of the Roman church in the first century, there is a parallelism between the sacrificial functions of the Old and New Testaments. The same will be found in such liturgical texts as the Didache, or “Teaching of the 12 Apostles” from the first or second centuries, and in the Apostolic Constitutions from the fourth and fifth centuries.
Awareness of the eminently sacred character of the functions of the Christian liturgy is reflected precisely in the use of the typical sacred language which had been handed down in a process of continuity from Moses’ exodus to the prophets, Isaiah, and to the apostles, especially in the Letter to the Hebrews, up to the time of Clement the First, who uses the word “all holy” in Greek, “panhagios,” as a title for God. This is the first attestation of such a title for God in all Christian literature.
Our next witness is from the second century in North Africa. The narrative of the martyrdom of saints Perpetua and Felicity relates that when these two glorious women martyrs of the ancient church entered into heavenly glory, they heard the holy angels singing, “Holy, holy, holy,” “Hagios, hagios, hagios, sine cessatione.” It is significant that a Greek formula of a prayer is used in the Latin text, indicating perhaps that it was a liturgical formula in a Latin liturgy, similar to the “curiae Eleison” in our liturgy.
In Tertullian’s “Treatise on the Lord’s Prayer,” which is the oldest commentary on the Lord’s Prayer, we find a similar reference to the imitation of angels in the liturgy of the church on Earth. I will cite Tertullian, “The angels who surround the throne of God incessantly exclaim, ‘Holy, holy, holy.'”
Therefore, if we are to be companions of the angels one day, we must learn to sing to God already here on earth with their heavenly voice and to engage in the worship of future glory. The so-called anaphora of Saint James represents an ancient liturgical tradition of Jerusalem, the mother of all Christian communities. It must date back at least to the fourth century because of the references to it in the mystical catechesis of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, who was a bishop in the fourth century.
Rephrasing the preface of the anaphora, Saint Cyril says that by singing the angelic prayer of the “Sanctus,” the faithful enter into spiritual communion with the angels. All creation, even the visible cosmos, is to be included in this common act of worship. And I am citing him now, “We have remembered heaven, the earth and sea, the sun, moon, and stars, all rational and irrational creatures, the angels, archangels, virtues, dominations, principalities, powers, Thrones and cherubim, who have many faces and who powerfully proclaim David’s invitation, ‘Magnify the Lord with me.’ We also recall the seraphim, which Isaiah contemplated in the Holy Spirit as they surround the throne of God. Each of them had six wings, with two they veiled their faces, with two they veiled their feet, and with two they flew aloft.”
This is from this we can infer that the doxology was transmitted to us by the seraphim so that by our participation in this hymn, we might enter into communion with the choirs who are above the world. The anaphora of Saint James indicates that the mouth of the seraphim incessantly sings a theology which will never become a silent theology. In this context, theology signifies thinking and speaking about God and especially rendering to him praise and adoration. Hereby, we discover the profound meaning of Christian worship, whereby all acts of worship, in words or gestures, are meant to glorify and magnify the Triune God. External forms of praise and adoration should correspond to the inner truths about God. Doxology must always be theology. In other words, external worship, like doxology, should be performed in such a manner as to express true faith in the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Every word and gesture of the Christian liturgy should be strictly theological, which means it must express the purity of our faith and aim to render glory, “doxa,” to the Triune God. One can say that liturgy must, in the deepest sense of the word, be theocentric. A purely anthropocentric manner of worship would be in direct contrast to the biblical and patristic understanding of worship.
Participation in the angelic hymn of the “Sanctus” enables worshippers here on Earth to nurture the inner attitude and outward posture of the angels and saints, which is totally theocentric and hence Christocentric. This is the case in the Eucharistic liturgy of Holy Mass, where Jesus Christ is really and substantially present through the sacrament, an act of actualizing His sacrifice on Calvary under the species of bread and wine.
Some details in the description of the angels in the anaphora of Saint James, as well as in the mystagogical catechesis, illustrate even more clearly the true meaning of liturgy. The angels cover their faces when proclaiming God’s holiness and glory. There is a corresponding gesture of adoration in the form of prostration, named in the Bible as “proskynesis.” When adoring God in this way, the face of the person can hardly be seen. Prostrating, a profound bow of the head, or bowing one’s head while genuflecting, and even more, the prostration of the body reflect the angelic gesture of veiling the face in the presence of the divine majesty.
Some reflections on the veiling of the faith, as described in Isaiah chapter six and in the anaphora of Saint James, may be seen in the liturgical custom of the Roman Rite, where the priest or deacon veils his hands when blessing the people with the monstrance containing the Eucharistic Christ. Or when the subdeacon veils his hands while holding the paten during Mass, in the more ancient use of the Roman Rite. Or when the bishop uses gloves to cover his hands while celebrating a solemn pontifical mass. The anointing of hands during the rite of priestly ordination might likewise be understood as a kind of covering or veiling of the hands.
In oriental liturgies, the gesture of veiling is expressed in the curtain, or “ichanostasis,” which veils the sanctuary during the Eucharistic Prayer. Likewise, the curtain veiling the altar was, for several centuries in the first millennium, a part of the liturgical tradition of the Roman church. Liturgical gestures such as prostration, genuflection, the profound bow of the body, and the turning of one’s face toward the Lord represented in the crucifix on the altar are all gestures similar to the gestures of the worshiping angels, as described in Sacred Scripture. The signs of veiling, for example, the sanctuary and liturgical objects during the liturgy, are also an impressive and profound sign of the interior act of adoration of the divine majesty. A true act of adoration during the liturgy must focus attention not on the celebrant but on Christ. Hence, he must veil himself.
That means, he turns his face away from the gaze of the people and, in some way, effaces himself in all humility before the ineffable presence of God during the Holy Mass. This is especially important in the celebration of Mass. Some liturgical practices apparently contradict the biblical and patristic understanding of the liturgy, as well as the liturgical tradition of the first centuries. This is the case when the celebrant occupies such a position in the sanctuary so that the people constantly focus their attention during the celebration more on his face than on Christ.
When during the liturgical celebration there are very few gestures of bowing, of kneeling, of veiling, when lay people are permitted to touch the Eucharistic bread with unveiled hands, that means with hands that are not anointed, does this really correspond to the true spirit of liturgy as it is witnessed by the Holy Scripture and by the Holy Fathers of the first centuries? A question. The witnesses to the liturgical tradition of the early church in Jerusalem teach that in an authentic Christian liturgy, the vertical, transcendent, theocentric, Christocentric, and Eucharist-centered elements are to be prominent.
Saint John Chrysostom, also known as the Eucharistic Doctor, is considered the author of the Divine Liturgy, or anaphora, which bears his name in his sermons. He repeatedly stresses the presence of angels in the earthly liturgy and invites the faithful to worship God in spiritual union with them. He calls the angels “sindouloi,” Greek for fellow servants of the faithful who joyfully celebrate the Easter Eucharistic liturgy. The expression goes back to the book of Revelation. In his homily on Isaiah, the Eucharistic doctor describes the spiritual union of the faithful with the angels who worship. Thus, as if there were no distinction between the voice of the faithful and the voice of the angels, as if their voice were one. Now, with that of the angels, in singing the angelic hymn, “Holy, holy, holy.”
Let us see what this saint is saying. I am citing Saint John Chrysostom. “Have you recognized this voice? Is this voice our voice, or is it the voice of the seraphim? This voice is at the same time our voice and the voice of the seraphim, thanks to Christ, who has broken down the wall of division and has reconciled Heaven and Earth, making them one. It is true that this hymn was sung previously only in heaven, but when the Lord deigned to come down on Earth, he brought this hymn to us as well. Therefore, the high priest standing at this sacred table to offer spiritual worship, to offer the bloodless sacrifice, invites us not only to listen devoutly, but after having made remembrance, first of the cherubim and then of the seraphim, He exhorts us all to lift up to heaven this tremendous hymn.”
Since we are members of their choir, we are members of the choir of the angels. Afterwards, he invites us to lift our thoughts above the earth, and he makes us rejoice with these similar words, “Sing together with the seraphim. Stand upright together with the seraphim, spread the wings of your mind together with them, and surround the throne of the King together with them.” This is a citation of Saint John Chrysostom.
God’s unfathomable holiness is, per se, inaccessible and invisible to our human eyes, but God admits the angels to adore his immense holiness in heaven. In the presence of the unfathomable holiness of God, we find the model and example of all holy realities and of all holy gestures which the Church on Earth possesses and practices. The most holy reality in the Church on Earth is the Eucharistic Body and Blood of Christ. And only after this, the altar upon which his body and blood become really and substantially present through the act of the Eucharistic sacrifice, through the act of the sacramental consecration.
The Eucharistic Body and Blood of Christ are united to his divinity in the person of the eternal Son of God. This divine person is therefore the ultimate foundation of the holiness of the Eucharistic species. Christ’s redemptive sacrifice upon the cross is the sublime revelation of God’s philanthropy. It means the love for man. His immense, unending love towards man is symbolized in Scripture by fire. Consequently, the ultimate model and example of the sacrifice of Christ on the altar of the cross and of his continual sacrifice on the Eucharistic altar is the eternal fire of divine love in heaven. Thus, in the Holy Eucharist, considered first as a sacrifice and then, secondly, as the sacred banquet of the body and blood of Christ in Holy Communion, this eternal, heavenly divine fire becomes visible to our very eyes, really and truly present, even in a tangible manner. None of the angels, not even the highest of Seraphim, dares to touch the divine fire of the Eucharistic Body of Christ directly. In the prophet Isaiah’s vision, we find the reason for this in the symbol of the tongs with which the angel took the burning coal from the altar. And yet, weak and sinful man can take the burning coal of the Eucharistic Body of Christ with their bare hands, without tongs.
This refers primarily to the priest. The priest can directly touch the body of Christ without tongs, this fire. Why? Because his hands were consecrated, creating, empowering them in “Persona Christi,” and empowering him to touch and distribute the Eucharistic body. In his masterly work on the priesthood, Saint John Chrysostom says that the hands of the priest must be sacred. Why? Because they touch the body of Christ.
Listen to him, I am citing him. “Consider, my faithful, how sacred ought to be the hands which touch such a sacred thing, how sacred ought to be the tongue which pronounces the words of consecration, and what great purity and holiness ought to have the soul which welcomes so great a spirit.” This is a citation of Saint John Chrysostom. “Wondrous is the fact that you stand together with the seraphim in the liturgy,” still the words of Saint John, “Nonetheless, God permitted you to touch those things which the seraphim dare not touch.”
The more the faithful recognize that the Eucharistic Body of Christ is the greatest sign of the sanctity and the love of God, the more they have to answer to this gift in an interior attitude of gratitude, of humility, and of love. From this interior act illuminated by the faith, flows naturally an exterior behavior which expresses adoration and loving reverence. Therefore, the exterior gestures of adoration and reverence in the liturgy cannot be considered secondary. The very suggestive examples of the behavior of the worshiping angels, as described in the Bible, remain a point of reference for the manner in which the Church on earth must worship when she desires to worship God in truth, in Christ, and in the Spirit.
According to the teaching of the Fathers of the Church, these angelic examples are given in order to be imitated by the faithful, and these examples are very concrete and accessible to man. The first thing is this: to be interiorly oriented toward God and his glory, toward his face. His face is ultimately seen in Jesus Christ on the cross, and in the sacrament of Eucharist, there you see the face of God. Then follows this: to recognize God’s majesty, God’s holiness, and His love. And then comes this important condition: to ask the merciful God for the grace of interior purity.
From this flows the exterior act, that means to make oneself also exteriorly small, to bow, to genuflect, to prostrate. Then follow other typical exterior acts of loving reverence, such as to pronounce worthy words of praise and adoration, like the “Sanctus” of the angels, to protect the sacred with a veil, or behind the steps or behind the communion rails, to kiss the holy objects, first the altar, to keep silence during the liturgy, to touch the most sacred reality, the Eucharistic body, only with consecrated, anointed hands, veiled hands.
The faithful have the unique privilege of seeing and touching God incarnate. Please reflect God incarnate in the Eucharistic mystery. Therefore, they should show special reverence toward this unfathomable mystery. Once again, they can find in the angels an example to imitate. This brief overview of patristic witnesses from the first to the fifth centuries, not the Middle Ages, not the dark Middle Ages, as someone says, the first five centuries, reflects the universal theology of the liturgy, universal, and the common manner of worship of those times, from Rome, North Africa, Jerusalem, Antioch, Syria, and Constantinople.
They unequivocally manifest the truth that the first and fundamental characteristic of Christian worship is adoration of the majesty of the Triune God. In the Eucharistic liturgy, full of faith and deep reverence, such adoration finds its concrete expression at Holy Mass when Christ, the Lamb of God, is immolated upon the altar at the moment of the consecration, and when the faithful receive him in Holy Communion. The revealed word of God itself, and the Sacred Scripture, presents us with this characteristic as the indispensable norm of true worship, as it is particularly evident in Isaiah, chapter six, and in the book of Revelation.
The church of the apostles and of the fathers implemented faithfully and clearly this first and basic characteristic of the liturgy, and this is the vertical, transcendent, Christocentric dimension, which is expressed through the acts of adoration, of the “proskynesis,” with all the variety of their exterior manifestation. The angels, as first creatures, realized such worship in a most perfect and exemplary manner. Both Scripture and Church fathers, when stressing the sacred and the transcendent dimension of worship, inevitably refer to the angels as models for imitation.
Vatican Two in its constitution, “Sacrosanctum Concilium,” number two, states, I am making the citation, “Liturgy by means of which, especially in the divine sacrifice of the Eucharist, divine sacrifice of the Eucharist, in the language of Vatican Two there is actualized, the work of our redemption enables the faithful in the highest degree, to express in their life and to manifest to others the mystery of Christ and the genuine nature of the true Church, which has the characteristic of being at the same time human and divine, visible and endowed with an invisible reality, fervent in action and directed to contemplation, present in the world and nevertheless a pilgrim. But all these in such a fashion, so that the human in her might be ordered and subordinated to the divine. The action must be subordinated to the contemplation.”
The present reality must be subordinated to the future city towards which we seek.” This is a citation of the Second Vatican Council. This primary liturgical principle of “lex orandi,” rooted in the word of God, was not only faithfully transmitted by the teachings of the Fathers of the Church, but was concretely realized in the manner in which the liturgy was celebrated in their times. Hence, whenever Holy Mother Church attempted liturgical reforms due to current practices that seemed unaligned or even contrary to the very nature of divine worship, she applied as a criterion the ancient norm of the holy fathers.
The liturgical reform as described by the Council of Trent and the Vatican Council Two was based on this Vedic criterion. Pope and Pius the Fifth, when he published in the Roman Missal in 1570, referred in his bull, “Varium,” he referred to the ancient norm of the holy fathers. And the same phrase was used by Vatican Council Two in establishing norms for the reform of the Roman Missal, “Sacrosanctum Concilium,” 50. And the same criterion is mentioned in the general institution of the Roman Missal, number seven.
The ancient norm of the Holy Fathers is precisely the norm that emphasizes the sacred, the divine, the heavenly, and eternal by acts of adoration and their exterior expressions. All practical norms in the liturgy, and even more, those which should be revised or changed, must have this aim, to express more clearly the sacred as demanded by Vatican Two. I cite Vatican Two, “In the renewal of the liturgy, the text and rites have to be ordered in such a manner that they express more clearly the sacred,” a citation from “Sacrosanctum Concilium,” 21.
Now we come to our conclusion. This phrase was also cited by Pope Paul the sixth in the apostolic constitution, “Messale Romanum,” of the third of April 1969, whereby the pope approved the new Roman Missal. A return to the fathers without a doubt should not bring about an impoverishment of the sacrament and transcendent in liturgical celebrations, not bring about reducing gestures of reverence and adoration, but rather should add more. This is the true reform of Vatican Two, not reducing. To reduce such gestures and acts and to justify such a reducing reform as a return to the norm of the fathers would not only be an evident contradiction of the patristic witnesses, but would also demonstrate an attitude which the church magisterium condemned as liturgical archaeologism in the encyclical “Mediator Dei” of Pope Pius 12, two decades prior to the liturgical reform that followed Vatican Two. The famous French liturgist, Louis Bouyer, rightly observed that we must understand the witnesses of the fathers correctly. I am citing Louis Bouyer, “In order not to confuse our perception of its permanent value with an attempt to mimic and copy childishly what they had and what they did that was peculiar to their time alone.
It is probably safer not to consider the fathers in isolation. What we should do rather is to take an all-inclusive view of the development of the people of God, from the first beginnings of this development to its final achievement in those lasting institutions and living ideas which constitute the father’s legacy to us as to all ages. This is a citation of Bouyer.
Now, my final conclusion. A liturgical renewal which would put a greater stress on the Christocentric and transcendent character of the liturgy, and on concrete gestures of adoration, as shown by the examples in angelic worship, would certainly come much closer to the spirit of Sacred Scripture and the ancient norm of the holy fathers. And this ancient norm of the Holy Fathers was the point of reference of the church magisterium from the Councils of Trent up to Vatican Two, inasmuch as both councils are in substantial agreement on the nature of the Sacred Liturgy.
Let us conclude with these words of a great Eucharistic saint, Saint Peter Julian Eymard, who gives us a luminous witness to the authentic spirit of the liturgy, and I conclude my talk with the words of Saint Peter Julian Eymard. “Ever since the last supper, the church has been proclaiming his belief down through the ages. Her apostles have had but one voice, her teachers but one doctrine, her children but one belief, one love for the God of the Eucharist. How majestic is the voice of the whole Christian people! How passing and beautiful is the harmony of their praise and their love. To the testimony of her word, the church adds the testimony of her example and practical faith. As John the Baptist, after having pointed out the Messiah, cast himself at his feet to prove the loveliness of his face, so the church devotes a solemn worship, her entire worship, to the adorable Person of Jesus, whom she manifests to you in the Most Blessed Sacrament. She adores Jesus Christ as God, present and hidden in the divine host. She pays him the honor due to God alone. She prostrates herself before the Most Blessed Sacrament, like the Heavenly Court, before the majesty of God. Distinctions of rank are not in order here. Great and small, kings and subjects, priests and people instinctively fall to their knees before the God of the Eucharist. It is the good God.
The church is not content to attest her faith by adoration alone. To that, she adds public and magnificent honors. The splendid basilicas are the expression of her faith in the Most Blessed Sacrament. She did not wish to build tombs, but temples, a heaven on earth in which her savior and God might find a throne, worthy of him. With a delicate and jealous attention, the church has regulated Eucharistic worship to its minute details. She does not rely on anyone to take in hand the manner of honoring her divine bridegroom, for everything is important, significant, and divine when there is a question of the Real Presence of Jesus Christ. I repeat this: everything is important, significant, and divine when there is a question of the Real Presence of Jesus Christ. She wants to consecrate to the royal service of Jesus all the most genuine and precious things in the world. In her liturgy, everything is related to this mystery. Everything takes on a spiritual and heavenly meaning. Everything has a property of its own and contains some special grace. How easy it is for the soul to recollect herself in the solitude and silence of a church. A gathering of saints on their knees before the tabernacle causes us to exclaim, ‘There is more than Solomon, more than an angel here. Jesus Christ is here, before whom every knee bends on those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth.’ In the presence of Jesus Christ, in the Most Blessed Sacrament, all greatness disappears, all holiness humbles itself and comes to nothing. Jesus Christ is here. Thank you very much.