Benedict XVI on Eucharistic Adoration
Communion only reaches its true depths when it is supported and surrounded by adoration. The Eucharist Presence in the tabernacle does not set another view of the Eucharist alongside or against the Eucharistic celebration, but simply signifies its complete fulfillment. For this Presence has the effect, of course, of keeping the Eucharist forever in church. The church never becomes a lifeless space but is always filled with the presence of the Lord, which comes out of the celebration, leads us into it, and always makes us participants in the cosmic Eucharist. What man of faith has not experienced this? A church without the Eucharistic Presence is somehow dead, even then it invites people to pray. But a church in which the eternal light is burning before the tabernacle is always alive, is always something more than a building made of stones. In this place the Lord is always waiting for me, calling me, wanting to make me ‘eucharistic.’ In this way, he prepared me for the Eucharist, sets me in motion toward His return. (The Spirit of the Liturgy, p. 90).
