Living Tabernacles

One time after Holy Communion, as usual, the Deacon gathered the leftover Hosts in a Ciboria and placed them in the Tabernacle.

As our custom, we all face the Tabernacle and before the Deacon closes it, he kneels down, and we all bow or genuflect towards it. 

But one time, as I turned toward the Tabernacle to genuflect, I felt the Lord was speaking to me.  It's like he is saying: "Why are you facing the Tabernacle?  You have just received me.  I now reside within you.  You have become my tabernacle."  

Lord, but what about the leftover hosts?  Aren't they just important, too?  

Yes, traditionally, they are reserved for adoration and also for the home bound who can't make it to church.  It is so that they too are in communion with us. 

But it seems that the Lord wants me to focus on what had just happened at Holy Communion.  We have just received him at Eucharist.  He now resides within us.  We are his tabernacles.  

It's kind of like an insight that a priest once shared with us at a conference: "Do you think you that we could lock Jesus up in the tabernacle, and put away the key, and then go about our daily business?"

Certainly not, especially if we reflect on the action of having touched the Lord, and receive his body and blood at Eucharist.  It is a marriage of Christ the Bridegroom to our soul as his bride.

It's not that the presence of Christ in the leftover hosts is less important, or anything like that.  But it is equally important to see that we are living tabernacles for Christ. We carry him everywhere we go.