the real presence

Sitting in the Adoration chapel at Newbridge church.
It's a small plainly furnished room, seating maybe fifteen people.
The communion bread which Catholic teaching insists is really Jesus, rests in a gold monstrance on an elevated plinth before which the faithful kneel or sit.
I am sitting.
There is silence.
My mind drifts.
I am thinking of an idea I have for presenting the gospel story in a theatre production.
I am thinking about the scene where King Herod interrogates Jesus.
I am thinking I could play Herod myself.
He is demanding a miracle.
That's all he wants.
He's heard of Jesus.
He doesn't believe or not believe.
He just wants a bit of sensation.
He reckons he has the power of life or death over his prisoner.
All the power is in his hands.
He is jabbering questions.
Excitedly.
He has waited so long to actually meet this young Gallilean everyone is talking about.
And Jesus doesn't deign to speak to him.
Bear in mind, Jesus did answer questions when being interrogated by Caiphas and Annas the high priests.
Jesus answered questions when the Roman governor Pontious Pilate questioned him.
But he never spoke to Herod.
It was as though Herod who thought himself so important and powerful wasn't worthy of the merest attention.
Herod did not merit the slightest response.
Nothing.
Herod had killed John the Baptist whom he quite liked, merely to impress a girl, and now he wanted to see something spectacular from this other much more famous wonder worker.
And Jesus won't even talk to him.
I'm imagining myself as Herod saying: "Come on. Show us something. Anything We've all heard of you. You fed the multitude on the mountainside, didn't you? Is it true? How did you do that? Oh come on. Just one miracle. Just one wonder. Just one sign, and maybe we'll all worship you."
Yes, I could play this part.
Aprubtly I am propelled from my chair onto my knees.
I find I am sobbing.
I have an awareness that this is not a scene but reality, and that the man Herod sought thusly to humiliate is before me as truly present now as he was in Herod's palace hours before the crucifixion.