June 14, 2020

Corpus Christi

The Holy Eucharist: Food of Christian Heroes

[based on the Reflections of Angelo Comastri]

Msgr. Thomas Gervasio

Today, I would like to take you back in history to Kazakhstan when it was under Communist domination in the last century. The regime sought to remove every vestige of religious sentiment from the hearts of the faithful. It wanted to erase the very name of God from the face of the earth. The regime prohibited any external religious display. Churches were destroyed, crosses were smashed, shrines of Our Lady were torn down and icons were burned. Priests, of course were special targets for persecution.
 
The Mass was particularly forbidden. Even the Communists understood that it was the believers’ source of strength and made them courageous in the face of persecution. Those dreadful years were also a time of heroic faith.
 
Some Christians risked their lives, undertook exhausting journeys and bore incredible hardships in order to have the joy of participating at a single Mass and to receive Holy Communion.
 
One of these Christians was Maria Stang who wrote in her memoirs: “They took all our priests away. In the nearby village, there was still a church but unfortunately there were no priests, and consequently, there was no longer the Most Holy Sacrament. Without the priest and without the Blessed Sacrament, the church was empty, terribly empty. What sorrow! I wept because I had a great desire to receive Holy Communion. I prayed, ‘Lord, give us a priest again. Give us Holy Communion. I offer you all my sacrifices to have the joy of being able to receive again Holy Communion.’”
 
Every Sunday, Maria secretly gathered some families in her house, and they prayed before an icon of Our Lady, “Holy Virgin, see how poor we are! We don’t have a priest and for many years we have not received Holy Communion! Pray for us! Obtain for us again the joy of the Mass and Holy Communion! Holy Virgin, you know our aching desire!”
 
In 1965, a Catholic priest in exile, about 1000 km (over 600 miles) away was able to contact this little group of Christians. Maria arranged to meet him. She wrote of how emotional it was to see a priest after 20 years: “Upon arriving, I knocked on the door using the secret signal that had been given to me and on entering the house, I saw the tabernacle. What a joy I felt! I never imagined that I would again see a Tabernacle. I drew closer, fell to my knees and kissed it with great emotion.”
 
The priest entrusted to Maria a container with particles of a consecrated host; the treasure that the Christians so ardently desired, their joy was immense when she returned home with the Holy Eucharist. They all knelt and received the Lord from the hand of this heroic woman of faith.
 
This Eucharistic faith conquered the hate of the persecutors. This Eucharistic faith allowed the Christian community to grow. This Eucharistic faith was the font from which the heroism of the martyrs was born.
 
We can also point to Ven. Francois-Xavier Cardinal Van Thuan, of Vietnam who was placed in solitary confinement for 13 years. There, only with the Eucharist which he consecrated from crumbs of bread, did he conquer the hatred that surrounded him and was able to convert two of his jailers.
 
What of us? Do we have the same faith? Do we adequately appreciate the precious treasure we have in the Holy Mass and our reception of Holy Communion?
 
Years ago, the Italian politician Giorgio La Pira of Florence said: “As the Gospel was just beginning to be proclaimed, the evangelizers had very few means: their feet, their tongues, parchment and a pen. And yet there was an extraordinary transmission of the Gospel. Why? Because people were so imbued with the Gospel, they were the fragrance of Christ, and wherever they went, Christ came with them. At Antioch, the disciples were first called “Christians, i.e. “those of Christ,” because Christ was the center of their life…Today we have many means at our disposal, but evangelization is difficult and often ineffective.
 
Why? There is only one answer: We are not the fragrance of Christ; therefore, every means and method of the apostolate does not bear fruit.”
 
Let us pray on this day dedicated to the Body and Blood of Christ, let us pray:

O Jesus, thank you for the gift of the Eucharist. Forgive us if we are unworthy of it. Give us the enthusiasm of the first disciples and the courage of the martyrs. Help us rediscover this enthusiasm and courage!
 
O Jesus, open our hearts, so that the fire of your love fills us and makes us a light of goodness that shines in the darkness of a sinful world. Lord, Jesus, remove indifference from our hearts so that we can also finally be motivated by the gift of the Holy Mass.
 
Lord Jesus, God with us, increase our faith!