Sometimes when I think of
some of the different things that people of different faiths believe,
and how strange they seem to me, it also makes me think of the
Eucharist. For those who do not believe as we do, it must seem like
the craziest notion of all; that God makes himself present through
the hands of a priest, in a tiny piece of bread and some wine. What
could be more bizarre than that? And we don’t just believe that it
is a reminder of Jesus or that it represents Jesus, but that it
really and truly is the body and blood of Christ. I also think that
it is a teaching so extreme that only God could come up with it and
get away with it, so to speak. What human being would try to convince
others that a piece of bread actually becomes the body of Christ when
a priest says certain prayers over it?
To help us believe, the
Lord has also given a great number of Eucharistic miracles, to date
143 all over the world and they are the ones that have been
officially recognized. In many of those miracles, the host has
miraculously turned into a piece of bloody flesh. And with modern
technology many have been studied by scientists and it has always
shown that is the real flesh and blood of a man’s heart.
The first time that Jesus
gave the people this teaching— “Unless you eat my flesh and drink
my blood you cannot have life within you”—it says that many of
the people who had followed him up to that point left him. They said
“This is madness. Who could accept it?” It is interesting how
Jesus responded to them. He didn’t say anything. He just let them
walk away. He then turned to the disciples and said, “What about
you, are you going to go away too?” In other words, “This is my
teaching. Take it or leave it.”
In his first letter to the
Christians in Corinth (1 Cor 11:23-26)—which is the oldest account
of the mass that we have, written about 54 or 55AD—St. Paul says,
“This is what I received from the Lord and in turn passed on to
you…” He doesn’t say that he received it from the other
Apostles, but from the Lord himself. Jesus, as you probably remember,
appeared to St. Paul while he was persecuting Christians and the
event turned his life around. Jesus appeared to him several other
times as well and Paul was so affected by what happened to him that
he dedicated the rest of his life to preaching about this man Jesus,
but the line that always strikes me is where he says, “This is what
I received from the Lord…” He is saying, “I didn’t
make this up and neither did any other person. Jesus himself taught
us this and taught us to do this in his memory.” So, every time an
ordained priest says the words of consecration at mass, “This is my
Body… This is the chalice of my Blood…” Jesus becomes present
in the form of bread and wine. How are we supposed to understand
this? We aren’t! I do not understand it at all, but I
believe it. That is why we are meant to fast for an hour before
receiving Holy Communion and why we don’t eat or drink, or smoke in
the church, to remind us that this is something unlike anything else
in the world. It is also a beautiful sign of how close God is to us,
that He would continually come to us in the middle of our lives, each
week, each day, to help and encourage us. He comes to us as we are,
not as we should be, but as we are. It is also God himself who makes
it possible to receive him, because we could never be ready or worthy
enough to even come close to the divine presence, not to mention
receive him. That is also why we always say the prayer: “Lord I am
not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word
and my soul shall be healed” (just as the Roman soldier said when
Jesus offered to come to his house to heal his servant). It is also
why we begin every mass by acknowledging that we are sinners and
asking God’s forgiveness.
There are two extremes that
I come across with regard to the Eucharist. One is where someone will
say to me, “Father, I don’t receive the Eucharist because I
really am not worthy enough.” Correct! No one is worthy enough, nor
ever could be, but since the Lord himself is happy to come to us this
way, we should not be afraid to receive him. The other extreme is
where people feel they have a ‘right’ to receive the Eucharist
without any kind of repentance, or need to confess their sins, or
change a lifestyle that is sinful. That is also wrong. There is no
question of this being a ‘right’ on our part. The Eucharist is
pure gift from God and for our part we must try to approach it as
worthily as we can, especially by confessing our sins every so often.
But the most important thing to remember is that Jesus wants to give
himself to us, and so we should not be afraid to come to him.
Remember that ultimately it is God himself who makes it possible for
us to receive him. “Lord I am not worthy that you should enter
under my roof, but only say the word and I shall be healed.”
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St. Pius of Pietrelcina (Padre Pio) |
St. Paul also warns us to
be careful not to receive unworthily, or we will bring condemnation
on ourselves.
Each
person must examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of
the cup. Anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body,
eats and drinks condemnation on himself. That is why many among you
are weak and sick and some have fallen asleep (1 Cor 11:28-30).
If we are living in any way
that is not in line with God’s teachings, we need to address it.
Several years ago, after I spoke about this, a couple came to me who
were 48 years married. They said they had both been previously
married, but never got an annulment, so they were never married in
the Church. They realized that since they wanted to receive
Communion, they really needed to put this right. So, after 48 years,
they both applied for annulments, got them and were then married here
in the church. I found that so inspiring. And that is the right
approach. If you find yourself in a second union, without having got
an annulment, then you should try and put it right. Come and talk to
me and I will help you sort it out. All of us need to make every
effort to do what the Lord asks. Receiving the Eucharist casually is
a big mistake and it is sacrilegious, that is, a sin against what is
holy.
Margaret Clithero:
Martyr for the Eucharist
In the late 1500s there
lived a woman named Margaret Clithero in the town of York in England.
She was a convert to Catholicism at a time when it was against the
law to be a Catholic. Priests used to come to her disguised as cloth
sellers, bringing her the Eucharist and she would hide them. She
never saw mass in a public church or heard a Catholic hymn being sung
even though she lived next to York Minster Cathedral. It was an
Anglican (Episcopal) church at the time.
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York Minster Cathedral, England |
She was eventually found
out and she was dragged from the butcher shop where she worked and
brought before magistrates and ordered to plead guilty or not guilty,
so that she could go on trial. She refused as she didn’t want her
innocent blood to be on the head of twelve jurors. She said, “If
you want to condemn me, condemn me yourself.” The judge said,
“Because you are a woman I will let you go free, but you must
promise never to hide these priests again.” He then handed her the
bible and told her to swear on it. So she took the bible in
open court and held it up in the air and said, “I swear by the
Gospel of Jesus Christ, if you let me go free, I will hide priests
again, because they are the only ones who can bring us the body and
blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ.”
So just over 400 years ago,
she was brought to St. Michael’s bridge in York and given the
punishment, worse than being hung, drawn and quartered. It was called
in English law, ‘the punishment most severe’. She was pressed to
death under heavy weights. It was to take three days and she was to
receive only a little muddy water to drink to keep her alive. The
executioner was bribed and he put a stone under her head so that she
died within an hour as her neck was broken. She was the mother of
eight children, and some of them were there when she was executed.
In the little chapel that
is there to her memory in York today, there is an inscription over
the door, which is a message for our times. It says ‘She died for
the mass.’
So the next time that you
find yourself bored with the mass, or just not too bothered to go
because you are tired, think of her and think of the many priests and
men and women who have been executed for carrying the Eucharist or
for saying mass. God has given us an extraordinary treasure in the
Eucharist. May He give us new eyes to see what is here before us.
“I swear
by the Gospel of Jesus Christ, if you let me go free, I will hide
priests again, because they are the only ones who can bring us the
body and blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ.” – St. Margaret
Clithero.
Eucharistic
Miracle in Buenos Aires
At seven
o’clock in the evening on August 18, 1996, Fr. Alejandro Pezet was
saying Holy Mass at a Catholic church in the commercial center of
Buenos Aires. As he was finishing distributing Holy Communion, a
woman came up to tell him that she had found a discarded host on a
candleholder at the back of the church. Ongoing to the spot
indicated, Fr. Alejandro saw the defiled Host. Since he was unable to
consume it, he placed it in a container of water and put it away in
the tabernacle of the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament.
On Monday,
August 26, upon opening the tabernacle, he saw to his amazement that
the Host had turned into a bloody substance. He informed Cardinal
Jorge
Bergoglio (Auxiliary Bishop at that time, now Pope Francis),
who gave instructions that the Host be professionally photographed.
The photos were taken on September 6, 1996. They clearly show that
the Host, which had become a fragment of bloodied flesh, had grown
significantly in size. For three years the Host remained in the
tabernacle, the whole affair being kept a strict secret. Since the
Host suffered no visible decomposition, Cardinal Bergoglio decided to
have it scientifically analyzed.
On October 5,
1999, in the presence of the Cardinal’s representatives, Dr.
Castanon took a sample of the bloody fragment and sent it to New York
for analysis. Since he did not wish to prejudice the study, he
purposely did not inform the team of scientists of its provenance.
One of these scientists was Dr. Frederic Zugiba, the well-known
cardiologist and forensic pathologist. He determined that the
analyzed substance was real flesh and blood containing human DNA.
‘For my flesh
is real food and my blood is real drink.’ (John 6:55)
Zugiba
testified that, “The analyzed material is a fragment of the heart
muscle found in the wall of the left ventricle close to the valves.
This muscle is responsible for the contraction of the heart. It
should be borne in mind that the left cardiac ventricle pumps blood
to all parts of the body. In other words, it is the action that keeps
the body alive. ‘Unless
you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you cannot
have life within you’ (John 6:53).
Dr. Zugiba
also said that the heart muscle was in an inflammatory condition and
contained a large number of white blood cells. This indicates that
the heart was alive at the time the sample was taken. It is my
contention that the heart was alive, since white blood cells die
outside a living organism. They require a living organism to sustain
them. Thus, their presence indicates that the heart was alive when
the sample was taken. What is more, these white blood cells had
penetrated the tissue, which further indicates that the heart had
been under severe stress, as if the owner had been beaten severely
about the chest.” ‘I
am the living bread, that comes down from heaven.’ (John
6:51)
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Dr. Federic Zugiba |
Two
Australians, journalist Mike Willesee and lawyer Ron Tesoriero,
witnessed these tests. Knowing where sample had come from, they were
dumbfounded by Dr. Zugiba’s testimony. Mike Willesee asked the
scientist how long the white blood cells would have remained alive if
they had come from a piece of human tissue, which had been kept in
water. They would have ceased to exist in a matter of minutes, Dr.
Zugiba replied. The journalist then told the doctor that the source
of the sample had first been kept in ordinary water for a month and
then for another three years in a container of distilled water; only
then had the sample been taken for analysis. Dr. Zugiba’s was at a
loss to account for this fact. There was no way of explaining it
scientifically, he stated. Only then did Mike Willesee inform Dr.
Zugiba that the analyzed sample came from a consecrated Host (white,
unleavened bread) that had mysteriously turned into bloody human
flesh. Amazed by this information, Dr. Zugiba replied, “How and why
a consecrated Host would change its character and become living human
flesh and blood will remain an inexplicable mystery to science—a
mystery totally beyond her competence.”
Only faith in
the extraordinary action of a God provides the reasonable
answer—faith in a God, who wants to make us aware that He is truly
present in the mystery of the Eucharist.
The
Eucharistic miracle in Buenos Aires is an extraordinary sign attested
to by science. Through it Jesus desires to arouse in us a lively
faith in His real presence in the Eucharist. He reminds us that His
presence is real, and not symbolic. Only with the eyes of faith do we
see Him under appearance of the consecrated bread and wine. We do not
see Him with our bodily eyes, since He is present in His glorified
humanity. In the Eucharist Jesus sees and loves us and desires to
save us.
In
collaboration with Ron Tesoriero, Mike Willesee, one of Australia’s
best-known journalists (he converted to Catholicism after working on
the documents of another Eucharistic miracle) wrote a book entitled
Reason to Believe. In it they present documented facts of Eucharistic
miracles and other signs calling people to faith in Christ who abides
and teaches in the Catholic Church. They have also made a documentary
film on the Eucharist—based largely on the scientific discoveries
associated with the miraculous Host in Buenos Aires. Their aim was to
give a clear presentation of the Catholic Church’s teaching on the
subject of the Eucharist. They screened the film in numerous
Australian cities. The showing at Adelaide drew a crowd of two
thousand viewers. During the commentary and question period that
followed a visibly moved man stood up announcing that he was blind.
Having learned that this was an exceptional film, he had very much
wanted to see it. Just before the screening, he prayed fervently to
Jesus for the grace to see the film. At once his sight was restored
to him, but only for the thirty-minute duration of the film. Upon its
conclusion, he again lost the ability to see. He confirmed this by
describing in minute detail certain scenes of the film. It was an
incredible event that moved those present to the core of their being.
‘I
am the living bread come down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread
will live forever and the bread that I will give for the life of the
world is my flesh’ (John 6:51)