not here, but here

This is one of my favorite photos thus far. I had to almost force myself to visit the church and “the star that marks the spot,” as guides will assure you. I was so busy with so many invitations to lunch and dinner, so tired when I finally got back to my hotel, so many times I have already been there – and besides he is “not there” anyway, any more than he is in the shrine of the empty tomb, as the angels told the visitors on Easter morning. But I am glad for this photo and the experience that went with it. Unmoved by visiting the place of the star, unmoved by kneeling in the local parish church from which Christmas Midnight Mass is broadcast, I spotted the sign marking the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament. I knelt there for a moment, “Here he is, just like he is back home in St. Andrew, on the altar at Mass and in the tabernacle after Mass.”