"Imagine a life without the Eucharist" said the priest on the Feast of the Body and Blood of the Lord. In my opinion the most wonderful thing about being a Catholic is the reservation of the Eucharist in the many tabernacles of the world. Truly, God is with us. We are not alone with our weakness, our fears, our guilt. Jesus is there waiting for us to pour our hearts out and ready to comfort us. There was a time when the neighborhood churches could be left open and people would "stop in for a visit" at lunch time, on the way home from work or school, at times when they needed comfort in sorrows so deep and lonely that only God could help.
Over many centuries the farmer in the field would hear the Angelus sounded from the village Church. Beside a call to prayer celebrating the Incarnation, it signalled at noon a break to go into the shade of a tree and take the brought along lunch. In the evening it was a call to put the hoe and fork on the wagon and head home. This often included a visit to Jesus, the Lord of the earth they worked, as He waited to bless their weariness.
The town church was a destination for the mother or baby sitter taking her charge for a walk. So Jesus was a companion to us in our daily life.
There are wonderful stories of a consecrated host being smuggled to an imprisoned Bishop in Communist China. There is the missionary priest consoled in a desolate prison when his mother sent a package with hosts in an Alka seltzer tube and wine in a cough medicine bottle so that he could celebrate Mass under the noses of his atheistic captors.
There are the seemingly ordinary factory workers and nurses sharing a home in Communist Slovakia who gathered strength for their secretly consecrated lives from the Host hidden in a hollowed out crucifix in a hallway of their house.
Blessed are those parishes and convents that have the possibility for 24-7 adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. The spiritual riches flowing from this practice will only be fully known in the future life where all things will be revealed. Most Catholics must take from the Sunday Mass the strength that must last the week. May the "last blessing" of every Mass be truly a light on the path of God's children.
