Right now, someone in my church is praying in a little chapel filled with flowers and holding the blessed Sacrament during its absence from our sanctuary. In another hour it will be someone else, in another hour yet another, and on and on. It has been this way since last night’s service when the altar was stripped and the Sacrament removed, and will continue through today until this evening’s service. I have spent an hour there myself already, just sitting in that total silence, reading and praying.
Over the years I have come to understand a bit more why Jesus led the life He did. He was trying to show us, in a way that we would understand, how much more there is to our lives and our souls than what we can experience right now. He paved the way for us to join Him when our time here was over. I had forgotten the cost of leadership.
Leaders make sacrifices for the good of those who follow them. They work harder, prepare more diligently, do things that those who follow might not be willing to do, or might not know how to do on their own. How it must grieve God when this path has been forged for us, however obscure, and yet we choose not to follow. But just what was this path? Do we really know? Can we really understand? And when we do understand, do we really have the courage to believe that we can follow?