Children have a marvelous way of revealing things. Some time back, a young child in my parish clearly developed an attachment to me. It is never quite clear what such attachments mean—though at her age it generally means a fascination with God and even a confusion between who the priest is and who God is. On one Sunday, illness kept me away from the Sunday liturgy. My second priest took charge of the service. Throughout the service (we learned later) the child kept looking for me. As this door and that door would open, she would strain to see me. When, at the end of the service, it was clear that I was not there, she burst into tears. “Where is Father Stephen?”
Some weeks later, after a less stressful Sunday liturgy, this same child came to me and pointed into the altar: “That is where you live,” she said. My first reaction was to want to say, “No. I live in a house down the street.” But a very deep part of me could not bring myself to say that I do not live in the altar. It is certainly wrong to say I merely work in the altar. My relationship with this child and her childlike perceptions forced me to rethink where I live.
My child friend was correct in saying, “You live in the altar,” though she said far more than she knew. The material world is declared by the life of the Church to be a holy place, a place whose true character is revealed only in reference to God. “The whole earth is full of His glory,” is the testimony sung before God by the angels (Isaiah 6:3). We do not live in a world of mere matter. We live in a world filled with holy matter. We live in an altar.
Excerpt From: Fr Stephen Freeman. “Everywhere Present.”
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