Just as in the Old Testament the promises were kept in the Ark of the Covenant, and treated with awe and reverence, so in the New Testament the womb of the Blessed Virgin would be the ark of the New Covenant and the first tabernacle of the Most High. That presence of the Messiah in his sacred humanity would continue in the Church, eventually in the tabernacle. That is why Pope John Paul II in the same Eucharistic Congress referred to the Blessed Sacrament as "the beating heart of the Church," as indeed Pope Paul VI had done in his "Credo of the People of God" when referring to the tabernacle as the "the living heart of the Church."

This means that the life of Jesus is not just a memory of our Saviour we read about in the Gospels, so that we might say sadly, "If only I had lived then!" As God, the second Person of the Blessed Trinity, he is, of course, everywhere, from the uttermost star of the universe to the depths of the sea, but as God made Man, in his sacred humanity, he is present in the Blessed Sacrament. This means that the very same Jesus who was conceived in the womb of our Blessed Lady, born in the poverty of the manger, who grew up as a young boy "full of grace and truth," who worked in the carpenter's workshop, who preached the gospel to the poor, healed the sick, made the dead to rise again; who suffered and died for us on the cross, who rose again victorious from the dead and ascended in glory and triumph to heaven, is truly present in this mystery of faith and love.

Homiletic & Pastoral Review: October 1994
Fr. Edwin Gordon