A fulcrum and a lever; chiefly on Eucharistic adoration. 7QT IV, seriatim.

can tell that it has been some time since I’ve been to Ado­ra­tion. The rea­son I know this is because I am tired. I have lacked patience, which nor­mal­ly is one of my rare—exceedingly rare—virtues. I am out of tem­pera­ment, and morose. As water seeks its own lev­el, so my less fre­quent vis­its to the ado­ra­tion chapel can be gauged by my more fre­quent vis­its to the con­fes­sion­al. I can tell that I have not been to Ado­ra­tion because even the word “water” sounds dry.

But I can­not han­dle myself, or my life, as in my male­ness I do oft imag­ine I can. I need Christ; I need to be with Christ. The best descrip­tion, in the Bible, of what it should mean to be with Christ is of John’s actions at the Last Sup­per (John 13:23): He laid his head on Christ’s breast. We think we are men, but before God we are chil­dren, and we need the com­forter. That’s why we go to Eucharis­tic Ado­ra­tion.

II.

The Greek math­e­mati­cian Archimedes, in a famous quo­ta­tion, said: “Give me a ful­crum and a lever and I can move the world.” Ayn Rand mis­un­der­stood this; or mis­used it, which is the same thing. The shoul­ders of Atlas were the ful­crum. His shrug—the uni­ver­sal ges­ture of “who cares?”—was the lever. He moved the world, but in so doing cast it from his shoul­ders and aban­doned it to itself. Char­i­ty must not be forced, else it is not char­i­ty; but nei­ther may we aban­don the law of char­i­ty, or our broth­er, or God. When John Galt said, “I swear by my life, and my love of it, that I will nev­er live for the sake of anoth­er man, nor ask anoth­er man to live for mine,” he was going fur­ther than aban­don­ing social­ism. He was aban­don­ing Christ, and leav­ing Him at the altar.

(Inci­den­tal­ly, Flan­nery O’Con­nor had it right: “I hope you don’t have friends who rec­om­mend Ayn Rand to you. The fic­tion of Ayn Rand is as low as you can get. … I hope you picked it up off the floor of the sub­way and threw it in the near­est garbage pail. She makes Mick­ey Spillane look like Dos­to­evsky.”

The sex scenes in Atlas Shrugged alone are enough to make me embrace chasti­ty.)

III.

There is a still point. T.S. Eliot knew it:

At the still point of the turn­ing world. Nei­ther flesh nor flesh­less;
Nei­ther from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is
Where past and future are gath­ered. Nei­ther move­ment from nor towards
Nei­ther ascent nor decline.

St. Paul knew it too: “There remaineth there­fore a rest to the peo­ple of God” (Heb. 4:9).

But where is it? Where is this still point, and where this rest, this ful­crum? The world is all too busy.

IV.

I used to won­der what there was to do at Eucharis­tic Ado­ra­tion. I used to think the point was to be pray­ing the whole time, and to fill up the hour with words. As if Christ exist­ed to be talked to and sup­pli­cat­ed, and had noth­ing to say to us.

Then I saw oth­ers read­ing, and odd­ly thought that to read at ado­ra­tion was to ignore Christ. I had not yet con­sid­ered that spir­i­tu­al read­ing—lec­tio—might in fact be a way of lis­ten­ing to Christ.

Or sim­ply a way to rest in His pres­ence. When I was mar­ried, one of my favorite ways to spend time with my wife was to sit on the couch next to her and read; I would rest my feet in her lap. She watched TV; I read; occa­sion­al­ly I looked at her. It made me feel close to her.

V.

When Christ died, the world moved. The ground shook at an earth­quake. The veil of the tem­ple was rent. This was not Atlas, a pagan god, shrug­ging his shoul­ders and cast­ing off the world. This was Christ, God indeed, redeem­ing the world by his sac­ri­fi­cial self-offer­ing to the Father.

You could say that when God dies He no longer holds the world togeth­er and every­thing col­laps­es and there is chaos—earthquakes and rent veils.

Or you could say that, by His death, Christ shook us, who need­ed shak­ing, and thus repaired us. When we are con­crete, His death sends us an earth­quake. When we hide our­selves from Him behind veils, His death rends us in twain.

That’s also why we go to Eucharis­tic Ado­ra­tion.

VI.

I swear by my life, and by my love of it, that because Christ lived for me, so I will live for Him.

At times, we are the world that needs to be moved. We are the ground that needs to be shook, the veil that needs to be torn.

How do you inter­pret the expres­sion on Mary’s face in Gui­do Reni’s paint­ing?

Is it sor­row so deep it can­not be spo­ken?

Is it the sub­lim­i­ty of won­der and awe at the majesty of God?

Or was Mary the first to teach us what Eucharis­tic Ado­ra­tion looks like, and how we should come to Christ?

VII.

I look at Him and He looks at me.

 

You can read more of this week’s quick takes at Con­ver­sion Diary here.