A Life without the Eucharist

"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.

Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ

The retreat master priest at the youth retreat asked, "Why do you suppose that Jesus gave us the Holy Eucharist?" The teen aged girl replied, "Because He knew that we would need someone to see and touch throughout the ages." With the security needs that mandate locked churches, one of the most beautiful, joyful and consoling things about being a Catholic is gradually disappearing. St. Thomas Aquinal (c.1225-1274) was asked to write the hymns and prayers for the newly declared Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ. Taken from the publication, LIVING WITH CHRIST (see their web site: www.livingwithchrist.us ) comes the beautiful hymn LAUDA SION:

LAUDA SION

Laud, O Zion, your salvation,
Laud with hymns of exultation,
Christ, your king and shepherd true:

Bring him all the praise you know,
He is more than you bestow.
Never can you reach his due.

Special theme for glad thanksgiving
Is the quick’ning and the living
Bread today before you set:

From his hands of old partaken,
As we know, by faith unshaken,
Where the Twelve at supper met.

Full and clear ring out your chanting,
Joy nor sweetest grace be wanting,
From your heart let praises burst:

For today the feast is holden,
When the institution olden
Of that supper was rehearsed.

Here the new law’s new oblation
By the new king’s revelation,
Ends the form of ancient rite:
Now the new the old effaces,
Truth away the shadow chases,
Light dispels the gloom of night.

What he did at supper seated,
Christ ordained to be repeated,
His memorial ne’er to cease:

And his rule for guidance taking,
Bread and wine we hallow,
Making thus our sacrifice of peace.

This the truth each Christian learns,
Bread into his flesh he turns,
To his precious blood the wine:

Sight has fail’d, nor thought conceives,
But a dauntless faith believes,
Resting on a pow’r divine.

Here beneath these signs are hidden
Priceless things to sense forbidden;
Sign, not things are all we see:

Blood is poured and flesh is broken,
Yet in either wondrous token
Christ entire we know to be.

Whoso of this food partakes,
Does not rend the Lord nor breaks;
Christ is whole to all that taste:

Thousands are, as one, receivers,
One, as thousands of believers,
Eats of him who cannot waste.

Bad and good the feast are sharing,
Of what divers dooms preparing,
Endless death or endless life.

Life to these, to those damnation,
See how like participation
Is with unlike issues rife.

When the sacrament is broken,
Doubt not, but believe ‘tis spoken,
That the sever’d outward token
doth the very whole contain.

Nought the precious gift divides,
Breaking but the sign betides
Jesus still the same abides,
still unbroken does remain.

(the following is a shorter form.)

Lo! The angel’s food is given
To the pilgrim who has striven;
See the children’s bread from heaven,
which on dogs may not be spent.

Truth the ancient types fulfilling,
Isaac bound, a victim willing,
Paschal lamb, its lifeblood spilling,
Manna to the fathers sent.

Very bread, good shepherd, tend us
Jesu, of your love befriend us,
You refresh us, you defend us,
Your eternal goodness send us
In the land of life to see.

You who all things can and know,
Who on earth such food besow,
Grant us with your saints, though lowest,
Where the heav’nly feast you show,
Fellow heirs and guests to be.