Harlem Shake and Jesus

I would like to first start off with a Harlem shake video that was made at Steubenville on the Bayou this past weekend.

Now on a more serious note:

This past weekend I witnessed one of the most incredible things in my life. I was in a room that was dead silent with 3,000 teenagers. On top of that, not one teenager had a phone out to text and no one was getting up to go to the bathroom because they were bored. There was no music playing and every teenager was kneeling. Why? To gaze at a simple piece of bread. 3,000 teenagers completely captivated by a piece of bread.

This past week I went to be apart of Mercy Crew which helps with anything and everything in order to make Steubenville on the Bayou run more smoothly. I had the time of my life. I myself spent most of the weekend working to spotlight for the conference. Like every job it had it is a rose but it still has its thorns. I was able to be apart of almost the entire conference but at the same time I was separated from everyone.

He came to Jericho and intended to pass through the town. Now a man there named Zacchaeus, who was a chief tax collector and also a wealthy man, was seeking to see who Jesus was; but he could not see him because of the crowd, for he was short in stature. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree in order to see Jesus, who was about to pass that way. When he reached the place, Jesus looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house.” And he came down quickly and received him with joy. When they all saw this, they began to grumble, saying, “He has gone to stay at the house of a sinner.” But Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Behold, half of my possessions, Lord, I shall give to the poor, and if I have extorted anything from anyone I shall repay it four times over.”And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house because this man too is a descendant of Abraham. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost.”Luke 19:1-10

Here I was up in the tree. I was a spectator, not a participant. I felt disconnected and lonely but God was still with me and I still had purpose. I was separate from everyone yet God used me where I was. In fact I had possibly the most important job of all. My job was to put the spotlight on Jesus, the single most important person in the universe.

What's the point to all of this? I'll tell you. Something cool about the picture of the Eucharist at adoration is that it was in the same place where the penguin had been dancing in the harlem shake video. The Lord grants us the ability to be in his presence through the Eucharist yet so often we blow it off as just a piece of bread. The same goes with anything in our lives. We forget that Jesus is always with us and present in our lives until we meet him in adoration. I did not come to Jesus because I was hanging in a tree. Jesus in his power and love came to the tree and said “Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house.” Let us never forget that even when he is absent he is present and he is coming to be with us.

The Harlem Shake may have seemed silly and unnecessary but when Catholics can do something so normal, so cool, it speaks to teens and they become more intrigued by the Catholic church. That simple act may seem like nothing but to a teen it may have been the only thing to open up their hearts to the Catholic church. Even though Jesus wasn't present in the Eucharist during the Harlem Shake, he was still present desperately calling out to us.