The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant is capable of generating 7,965 megawatts in an instant. In other words, the Japanese plant’s seven reactors can produce as much energy as 10,681,065 horses, 31,860,000 typically-sized solar panels, 2,342 utility-scale wind turbines, or 3,982 tons of coal.
The potency of the Kashiwazaki plant, and nuclear power in general, comes from the incredible amount of energy released during nuclear fission, which happens when uranium or plutonium atoms are split in two by a neutron crashing into them. The energy released by the resulting chain reaction is used to heat water into steam, which turns turbines to generate electricity.
Even by comparing it to other energy sources, it’s difficult to fathom just how powerful nuclear fission reactors really are –– and they don’t even use the most potent form of nuclear energy. That would be nuclear fusion, which is still in the developmental stage, but could generate as much as three to five times more energy than fission. In other words, if a plant like Kashiwazaki was converted into fusion power, it could power New York City six times over.
And yet, it’s safe to say that nuclear power is not the most potent force in the universe. In fact, although impossible to convert directly into megawatts, the power present in your parish tabernacle and on the altar at every Mass is infinitely more potent than all the world’s nuclear power plants combined.
This isn’t a pious religious platitude. It’s a simple philosophical truth. In the Eucharist, the God who created and sustains the physical universe in which nuclear fission exists is present to us. In other words, each of our parishes is home to something like an infinitely powerful, cosmic energy reactor. The generative power of the cosmos, who is nothing but pure, unadulterated existence, comes to us under the guise of bread and wine.
This cosmic energy doesn’t typically manifest in the overtly physical form of powering our homes and cities. But it’s something that we can still tap into, with powerful effect.
In fact, this is how God, in his providence, seems to prefer to transform the world: by pouring his divine power into human hearts, which are in turn transformed and empowered to be agents and participants in his divine love.
The powerful love that generated the world, that was at the core of Christ’s redemptive self-offering on the cross, and that continues to be poured out on the Church through the Holy Spirit and the chain reaction of Christian love, is present in the Eucharist, made available for both our contemplation and consumption.
During this cold and dark season of Advent, we’re certainly grateful for all our sources of physical energy, nuclear and otherwise.
But perhaps the coming of Christ might also prompt us to reflect upon the absolute, sheer power present to us in the Eucharist: the power to transform our lives, change our hearts, and fill us with the creative dynamism of God’s love. Perhaps this image can change our vision of the tabernacle as we pray in our parish or prepare to go up for Communion; less of a golden box containing something that looks like bread, and more of a divine reactor, home to the most potent force in the universe, that becomes present and available so it can course through each of us.
Liedl lives in South Bend, Indiana, and is senior editor for the National Catholic Register.
