THE REAL PRESENCE

CHRIST IN THE EUCHARIST

The Door of Longinus

Copyright © James H. Dobbins

At the crucifixion, a young soldier, Longinus, thrust a spear into the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Water spilled forth, washing Longinus, and Blood followed, giving Longinus the grace of conversion. Having been touched by the healing contents of Our Lord's Sacred Heart, Longinus became a martyr, giving up his own life for the One he helped crucify.

Longinus opened a Door into the Sacred Heart of Jesus. This Door stands open, ready to receive all. We each have many opportunities to cross this threshold, to enter this Door, to be immersed in the Love within. How we respond to that invitation is dependent on how much we love. This Door can be wide, but it is often hard to pass through.

To find the Door of Longinus, we need to care enough, for the colder we are the more the Door will shrink, the less visible it will be. Even if we are lukewarm, the Door will be too indistinct, too small to pass through. The more passionately we burn with love for Jesus, the more visible the Door will be and the wider it will become, until, when we love enough, it glows like a furnace, calling us, and stands wide to receive us with ease.

We cannot buy our way in. There is no sum of money sufficient to accomplish this. Judas found out the value of money. Money, it is said, greases the ways of the world. It acts just the opposite for Jesus. We cannot buy our way through the Door of Longinus. No matter how many philanthropic works we do, no matter how many works of charity we perform, if we do not act out of love, we have accomplished nothing. The Door is still hidden, still too small.

We cannot bribe our way through the Door. We have nothing material Jesus wants. All our worldly attachments must be left behind, for there is no room for them in His Sacred Heart. He wants nothing except our love. Real love can never be used as a bribe. It is always given freely. Nor can we threaten our way through the Door. There is no force in the universe as powerful as the force of God's Love. Nothing can threaten or conquer His Love, or make His Love respond to anything worldly or unholy.

We can each enter this Door of Longinus at will. The key is love. If we love Jesus enough to surrender our will to His, to ask His pardon for our sins, to ask His help to sin no more; if we burn with love for Him, desire Him more than everyone and everything else, with our whole mind and heart; if we give Him all we have, all we are, placing all in His loving hands with trust; if we love our neighbor because we see Him in that neighbor; if we come to Him for all things, and accept His decisions; then the Door of Longinus will open wide, and we can enter and make the Sacred Heart of Jesus our perpetual home.

Jim Dobbins