Ezekiel 24:25-27. "[O]n the day when I take from them their stronghold, their joy and glory, the delight of their eyes and their heart's desire, and also their sons and daughters, on that day a fugitive will come to report the news to you. On that day your mouth will be opened to the fugitive, and you shall speak and be no longer dumb. So you will be a sign to them; and they will know that I am the Lord."

Prior to these verses, God told Ezekiel he was about to lose the delight of his eyes, his wife, but he was not to mourn or weep. When she died, he was to "make no mourning for the dead." He was to dress as normal and act like nothing was wrong. Ezekiel 24:16-18. When he does this, and the people ask him why he is acting this way, Ezekiel is to respond that they will act the same way when God takes from them His sanctuary, "the pride of [their] power, the delight of [their] eyes", and allows their sons and daughters who are left behind to fall by the sword. Ezekiel 24:21. When that happens, they will not mourn or weep, but shall "pine away in [their] iniquities and groan to one another." Ezekiel 24:23. Finally, as today's verse says, when a fugitive brings news of the destruction of Jerusalem to Ezekiel, then his mouth will be opened and he will no longer be dumb, and this will be a sign to the people.

This reading is a very good follow-up to the one from yesterday, also from Ezekiel, about having idols, and how they lead us away from God's primary importance. What is the delight of our eyes? What is our heart's desire? What would we mourn terribly if it was taken from us? The Jews of Judah had gotten to the point where God could take from them the very thing that made them special, their stronghold, their "pride of power," the place where God himself dwelled with them, His sanctuary, and they wouldn't mourn all that much. Even when their sons and daughters (who they left behind!) die by the sword, they will not mourn or weep, but rather "pine away in their iniquities," moaning to one another, but not grieving, not feeling the loss. The Jewish people did not realize they had become this jaded and so far from God, so Ezekiel's forced lack of mourning was meant to be a sign to them. Once they experienced nothing more than melancholy in the face of such tremendous loss, they would hopefully think back to how Ezekiel acted when his wife died and realize that God was trying to show them how much they had already lost, how far from the true desire of their hearts they had become.

We are, I believe, experiencing a lot of the same thing now - a tremendous lack of appreciation for what God has given us. We had the Eucharist, our very Bread of Life, taken from us for a prolonged period of time. How did we react to that? Did we weep and mourn? Or did we not even feel its loss all that much? (Or, worse yet, were we a bit happy that we could watch Mass from home while drinking our coffee?) I saw people with all attitudes about this, but the fact that so many, including so many clergy and the hierarchy of the Church herself, did not realize the tremendous loss that this was made me see why God had allowed it. We were taking for granted what makes us special, what makes us holy, what sets us apart, our stronghold, and so God took it from us to try to wake us up. If God had been in the primary place of importance in all of our lives, this would never have happened, we would have never allowed it to. It was clear that, to many, the Eucharist was just one more thing in their lives, a good thing, maybe, but not the best thing, not the most important thing. Fear and an over emphasis on avoiding any possible risk to personal health became more important, they became idols that took precedence over even the Body and Blood of Christ. Without His Body and Blood, we did "pine away" and groan to one another, but there was no sign (except among some, speaking in very hushed, almost fearful voices) of the absolute misery we should have felt at being cut off from God, at being deprived of our Bread of Life!

Now we are in the year of Eucharistic Revival. I want to hope that this bears fruit, but I truly worry that until the Church hierarchy recognizes what it did, and firmly and unequivocally states that they were wrong and will never allow it to happen again, there is not a path forward to a true revival. How can they revive belief in something they did not appear to believe in themselves? If the Church does not recognize the message it sent by denying the flock its spiritual nourishment, the people will not recognize they are spiritually malnourished! The people are pining and groaning, but not realizing what the cause of their discontent is! They are running to therapists and doctors, but fail to see that the Divine Physician wants to heal them!

There are, though, priests and people who saw what was happening in real time and truly mourned. They are where my hope lies. I think they will be the ones who will inspire others to have true love and desire for the Eucharist, and a true recognition of its importance. They will be the seeds of the true Eucharistic Revival, and they are being given the chance, by the Holy Spirit, to plant those seeds by working through and within the Church. God will always provide for His Church, sometimes we just have to wait a while for the fruit to grow and ripen!