The Eucharistic Miracle of Love

The Bishop of the Abandoned Tabernacle: Selected writings of St Manuel Gonzalez Garcia
Rev. Sean Davidson (ed)
Scepter (2018)              

As Fr Manuel Gonzalez Garcia made his way to his first assignment, he could never have imagined what was awaiting him! The young priest discovered that the church to which he was posted was run down, shabby and deserted. He was tempted to run away, but instead he sat down quietly before the filthy tabernacle. What happened next changed everything! It led to his eventual canonisation and gave us all a timely reminder of the miracle of love that is the Real Presence.

While Fr Manuel contemplated that dusty tabernacle covered with cobwebs, he suddenly realised that Jesus was gazing back at him; “so silent, so patient, so good”. The sadness of the abandoned tabernacle was “oppressing and crushing the sweet heart of Jesus and drawing bitter tears from his eyes”. Following that profound experience, he devoted his priestly ministry to spreading devotion to the Blessed Sacrament.

St Manuel assures us each one of us that we are invited to “Come and see” (John 1:46) what great love awaits us in the tabernacle. Jesus is there for us night and day. He wishes to listen to us, to talk to us, to direct and help us on our journey.

“The Heart of Jesus in the tabernacle looks at me. He looks at me  always …. He looks at me as if he doesn’t have anyone else to look at but me…. because he loves me…. yes, he follows me with his gaze, as my mother would do if she could.”

We can however reject that invitation. St Manuel explains how we can all abandon our tabernacles:

• if we do not receive him in Holy Communion, or visit him or act in accordance with our beliefs;
• if we do not prepare ourselves to receive him with a clean heart (perhaps by neglect of the Sacrament of Reconciliation), and
• if we do not take the time to listen to and talk to this Loving Guest.

But Jesus endures the ignominy of the abandoned tabernacles in order to enflame and dwell within our poor, ungrateful hearts. “As the water in the stream gives off freshness and moisture although nobody approaches its banks, or as the rose breathes forth perfume although nobody gets close enough to smell it, in the same way, the Heart of Jesus in the tabernacle, abandoned and alone, is always exhaling healing power”.  This is a book to which we can return again and again, least we ever get complacent about the Blessed Sacrament; least we ever become lukewarm in response to our invitation from “The Tremendous Lover”.

None of St Manuel’s writings about the Mother of God is included in this collection; so I will conclude with a quotation from St Josemaria Escriva:

“Our Lady teaches us to come to Jesus, to recognise him and to find him in all the different situations of our day. And nowhere is she more a teacher than in the supreme moment of the holy sacrifice of the Mass, where time blends with eternity” (Christ is Passing By 94).