And There is God

The Christian life is a pilgrimage. It begins with the ascent of Mt. Sinai, that first moment when we come to an awareness of the voice of God—grand, humbling, consoling. But even with this consoling grandeur, God does not yet reveal his face (Ex 33:20). As we progress in the Christian life, consolations often fade, and we try to recover through our own efforts an image of what was lost. We seek to stand with the apostles on Mt. Tabor, and while “it is well that we are here” (Matt 17:4), we cannot stay. Failing to be sustained on self-fashioned splendor, we must reach out to the whole Christ brought to full glory at Calvary. No longer shying from the whole Christ, it is atop the new Tabor—the altar and monstrance—that we find the still small voice of the Eucharistic Lord. In adoration the focus shifts from our ascent to Jesus’ descent, and we find our rest. While we remain pilgrims, God is made present to us—not in the fire and earthquake of the initial call, not in the luminosity of the transfigured Christ, but in the grandeur of Eucharistic simplicity.

And There is God

Almighty LORD, shall now I pray,
Upon Mount Sinai shall I stand?
For I have found I cannot stay
Beholden to a face unseen.
But in days past, when thunder cast
Me to the ground upon my knees,
I loved in thee a mighty wind,
And found in thee a stunning grace,
And felt in thee a yearning flame,
Though hadn’t there a resting place.

O Brilliant Christ, shall now I pray,
In words made fair beside your light?
I cannot help but wish to stay,
And bear to see thee face to face.
The words I heaped to ease my soul,
That stole a glimpse of heaven’s grace,
Have cast a passing light upon
The face I’ve fawned and longed to see,
A splendor I assent, and miss,
As yet been cleansed at Calvary.
Permit me, then, return and rest
Where simpler Tabor waits for thee.

O Sacred Host, may now I pray,
In silence broken by your praise,
A praise made full in greater kind,
In voices veiled and misaligned?
As creaking footsteps tread a path,
Ascend a greater mountain still,
Of wood and stone
and there—
in gold,
Lo, descends in simple fare
The bread of angels, come to rest.
Yet what remains when beauty bows,
And words escape all praise and laud?
A still small voice, no longer mine,
and there is God.