These are not just some books
Meditations on the Eucharist by Father Tadeusz Dajczer - Sacrament of Presence„
This is not a book, this is an experience, this is an invitation to a deep inner renewal and prayer, (…) it is not like other books on the Eucharist at all, it is interactive or should be... it is quite a revelation... but to grow in truth is such a wonderful thing.…” (Eucharistic Renewal Books) – a Welsh nun wrote of the first book in the series “Meditations on the Eucharist” published in English. And now we have six books in the series. After reading the fourth of them I know very well what this nun, unknown to me, wrote about.
It happened not long ago. I came back from Eucharistic adoration, opened Father Dajczer’s Sacrament of Presence and read: “My ‘ego’ disappears, even if for a moment. I am ‘losing’ it for as long as the meeting lasts” (p. 28). – Oh, God! That was the meeting. My meeting with you! And now you are explaining it to me as the author of the book could not possibly know anything of my today’s adoration, that for a moment I would lose myself being with you and that it would turn to be a transforming meeting, placing my whole life in a completely new light.
“We have survived the Nazi occupation and the Soviet occupation, we will survive the European one as well” - a friend of mine has joked. And I was laughing on the other side of my face. People then were at least fighting to survive and now they surrender and change beyond recognition being bought by illusion of the world. What I was fascinated by is of no interest to anyone. My work is becoming meaningless. More and more I feel like an actor performing in front of an empty audience. The sense of meaninglessness in my life is increasing. And here I read: ”If the purposeness of actions disappears, a person is not able to live on. Then, in a natural way, the meaninglessness sets in, depression or even despair or there may appear a different purposeness, a different sense – the living by his grace (p. 105). – Which means that this meaninglessness of mine is only to live by his grace! To meet him in the Eucharist, during Eucharistic adoration and in everyday life! So that he could introduce me into his world and I discern this current world in a completely different way. How much I need this meaninglessness! How well it is to become a music player who, since he became deaf, has been only playing for the King, and not for any other purpose (cf. Father T. Dajczer, The Gift of Faith, p.184). What freedom in it!
So then, are these just some books? These in the series “Meditation on the Eucharist”? The nun from Wales is right. These are not just some books. These are elements of my dialogue with God. They are introducing me into amazement with God and leading to a choice… Yes, they are an experience, a flash of insight.
The author of the series “Meditations on the Eucharist” writes not like theologians do, but the way only the best of the spiritual authors („les spirituelles” – “of the spiritual”) write. So calls them Father Yves Conger O.P. following the sixteenth-century tradition. They wrote with the subjective-like language, metaphorical one, often using hyperboles and paradoxes as well as both philosophical and theological notions beyond their usual range of usage. They wrote to express what they had experienced in relation with God, or they just wrote “for the King only”. They also wrote to attract the reader towards God. For this purpose they used all possible means to shake the reader, to amaze him, to snatch him from self-contentment flowing from satisfying his intellect. With such conduct they irritated some theologians, which lead in 16th and 17th centuries to disputes in result of which „les spirituelles” have secured the right to their own language identity.
Theologians write about something, and „les spirituelles” write first of all for something, for a purpose. Also the books “Meditations on the Eucharist” are not just about something, although they have unusual content as they tell about predisposition to living the Eucharist. But this content is of subordinate meaning. The purpose pushes through to the foreground. They are first of all to amaze the reader with the Eucharistic God, to lead them to his choice. And if it comes to this choice, so that Christ-Eucharist were more adored and cherished.
The sister nun from Wales is right. Such books there have never been so far, although books about the Eucharist are many. „Les spirituelles” wrote about inner life and someone might say that it is not something for everyone. Meanwhile the Eucharist is for everyone with no exception and living the Eucharist is for everyone who follows the path of salvation. Likewise the faith and living the faith is for everyone with no exception. And to living the faith leads the first book by this author -“The Gift of Faith” which is one of its kind summa about living the faith, the mature faith in opposite to the apparent, the superficial one.I wholeheartedly recommend the books in the series “Meditations on the Eucharist” and the book “The Gift of Faith” as a invaluable help for literally everyone who goes the way of salvation.
Fr. Boleslaw Szewc