We are all familiar with the threefold question that is put to Peter by Christ after the Resurrection: “Do you love me?” There is a question; the awaited response; and the Lord’s confirmation and demand, in which Peter, representing the whole of the embryonic Church, is given a mission. Obviously, each question must have gone, literally, to the very heart of Peter. As we know, there is a parallel between his threefold denial of Christ in His Passion: Christ is able to heal that sin, to forgive that fault, and to repair the damage done. “Feed My sheep. Tend to My flock. Feed My lambs.” (Just as a slight aside, as the son of a man who raised sheep for many years, the comparison or analogy is not necessarily a happy one, because we are weak and frail, and we can be tossed to and fro with various ideas, and with the influences of a particular culture at a particular time.)
How is Peter to feed the flock? First and foremost, by being faithful to the deposit of the Faith. Peter and his successors are not there to define novel doctrine or “unusual truths” as they have been called; he is there to ensure that what has been given by Christ to the Church is indeed maintained. And so the truths of our Faith need to be fed to the faithful. But there is one particular way, and our Forty Hours Devotion reinforces this important reality: Christ gives Himself — and this is the important phrase — through the Church to the faithful, to believers who are united in Baptism, in one Faith.
For priests as we prepare to receive Our Lord at Mass, it is significant that one of the prayers, composed by S. Thomas Aquinas, reinforces and strengthens one of the great realities and the consequences of Holy Communion: that we are being incorporated into His Mystical Body. To receive Holy Communion, on one level, of course, is something that is individual, and perhaps somewhat private, and in that silent encounter with Christ things are, indeed, hidden, perhaps silent. But at the same time, it is a public act, because we are sharing in a public act of the Church, which is her liturgy, in which Christ is the offering. Christ is the offering, and Christ is the gift that is given to us.
One of the poets has said that “No man is an island,” and indeed this is true. We are interconnected, not simply by membership of the parish, nor simply by communion with the local bishop (which, undoubtedly, is essential); but we are united with that great host of individuals who have gone before us, who now enjoy the fullness of the realities that are presented to us in the Holy Eucharist. We experience and share in the very life of Christ in a veiled manner, but we do indeed receive Him, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity; in Heaven, there will be no need for the Blessed Sacrament, because we will encounter Christ face to face.
Through the Church, we receive Christ Himself; in the Church, we are supported by each other as we unite ourselves to that great sacrificial act which is re-presented on our altars at Holy Mass. Ultimately, Exposition and the Forty Hours Devotion are a continuation of the Mass; and, as S. Thomas teaches, Christ is present for us in the moment of His Passion. And with that in mind, we may use the hours that are before us as we concentrate our prayer, our friendship with Christ, our hopes and desires, our failures and our pauses for sadness — as we bring all of this to the One Who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.