And yet all Christians are called to that life. Contemplation of the Eucharist is a loving and prolonged gaze at the suffering and risen Lord. He bears the marks of our sins. He bears the splendor of God's glory. Like human life, the paschal mystery is both the agony and the ecstasy, the bitter-sweet of life with its ups and downs, its joys and its sorrows, its pain and its glory.
Eucharistic contemplation is the pause in prayer.
It is the sound of silent music. It is the quiet awe before the thing of beauty that is Christ on Calvary and on Tabor. Whatever the length of time or depth of feeling, eucharistic contemplation enters the eternal moment of God in a loving return of presence for presence and loving attention to the saving action of God. The moment of history when Christ died on a cross was the eternal moment when God saved the world. Eucharistic contemplation is our effort to enter into God's eternal moment with Christ.