But there is one focal point all over the world where he is present in his ascended and glorified Body and that focal point is the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar.  For at the Consecration in the Eucharist, the forms of bread and wine on the altar and Our Lord’s Ascended Body become one as he himself emphatically assured us.

For at the Last Supper, when he said – looking ahead to his Resurrection and Ascension – “This is my Body”, he forecast the literal truth, the same truth as he had declared in Capernaum, “I am the living bread which has come down from heaven….and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world….He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me and I live in him” (Jerusalem Bible, John 6: 51,56).

This truth, tremendous both in its sublime significance and in its utter simplicity, means that when devout communicants take and receive the Lord’s Body in the Blessed Sacrament, they become truly part of Our Ascended Lord in his fullness because then Our Ascended Lord in his fullness becomes truly part of them.  That is why to communicate when in a state of serious sin is to commit an act of sacrilege and is, in St Paul’s words of warning, to eat and drink judgement upon oneself (1 Corinthians 11:29).

There is, therefore, no difference between Our Lord’s Ascended Body in Heaven and his Ascended Body in the Blessed Sacrament.  The two are not two but one and the same.  When we genuflect to the Sacrament we are giving our loving adoration to him in Person; when we pray at the place of reservation we pray to him.

For in the most Holy Sacrament of the Altar, as upon his Throne of glory, is his own Body, born of the Virgin Mary, crucified, dead and buried; risen, ascended and for ever glorified.