"Who do you say that I am?"

This is from my reflection at Friday Night Adoration:

In this Sunday's Gospel, we will hear Jesus ask the Apostles, "who do people say that I am?"...and then, "who do you say that I am?" I like to transfer this question to the Eucharist. As we gaze upon our Lord tonight, we hear his words, "who do people say that I am?" Some say you are a symbol only, Lord, others say a representation, and still other say you are just a wafer. "Who do you say that I am?" We say to the Eucharist what Peter said to him at Caesari Phillippi: "you are the Christ, the Son of the Living God".

You are the Christ, Jesus. You are our God. We come here tonight to gaze upon you, under the sign of bread. When we think about what and who it is our eyes are seeing tonight, it is truly an awesome gift. For thousands of years, people have longed to see God with their own eyes. To hear his voice with their own ears. To taste his sweetness with their lips. This focus on experiencing God through our senses is drawn out in St Paul when he talks about what Heaven will be like: "eye has not seen, ear has not heard, what God has prepared for those who love Him".

But, God is so awesome and glorious that we cannot bear to see Him in all of his glory just yet. So he comes to us now with a veil. We see him in the Eucharist in the forms of bread and wine. The Apostles saw him in the form of a man. It is the same Christ. If we think about all of the things that our eyes look at during the course of our day or week, and then compare them to the Eucharist...there is no comparison.

You are our Peace, Jesus. We come here tonight to be in your presence, in the presence of Peace. There is nothing in our lives that can bring us the peace that Christ brings us. We all have different things that are stressful in our lives, no matter our age or situation. The Eucharist is our great stress release. We should come here and give all of our trials, tribulations, sufferings, stress, and problems to Him. We should just come here, and (exhale deeply) "whewww". Give everything to Him.

You are our Love, Jesus. When we gaze upon the Cross, we see the great love you have for us and all those in the world. You showed us the greatest love by laying down your life for us. You continue to give your life to us in the Eucharist. We come here tonight to see what Love looks like. We want to make Love the center of our lives. We want to make this Eucharist the center of our lives.

Jesus, you are our life. You are our love.