Eucharistic Amazement

We speak of the Eucharist in two senses: the Mass and the Sacrament. The first is the re-offering of the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. The second is the Blessed Sacrament, which we adore in the tabernacle or monstrance, and receive in Holy Communion.

The Mass

Our Savior at the Last Supper, on the night when he was betrayed, instituted the Eucharistic sacrifice of his Body and Blood so that he might perpetuate the sacrifice of the cross through the centuries until his coming. He thus entrusted to the Church, his beloved spouse, a memorial of his death and resurrection: a sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a bond of charity, a paschal meal in which Christ is eaten, the mind filled with grace and a pledge of future glory given to us. (CCC 1323)

We should reflect on the sacrificial words as we offer the Mass. The words are particularly clear in the third Eucharistic Prayer:

Father, calling to mind the death your Son endured for our Salvation, his glorious resurrection and ascension into heaven, and ready to greet him when he comes again, we offer you in thanksgiving this holy and living sacrifice. [“Eucharist” means thanksgiving in Greek.] Look with favor on your Church’s offering, and see the Victim whose death has reconciled us to yourself. Grant that we, who are nourished by his body and blood, may be filled with his Holy Spirit, and become one body, one spirit in Christ. . . . May he make us an everlasting gift to you . . . (emphasis added)

From this last line we see that in the Mass we are to offer ourselves on the altar of sacrifice. We too are the victims for the sins of the world. When we say our “Amen” we acknowledge this and agree to that. The Church confirms this in Eucharisticum Mysterium: “The Church, the spouse and minister of Christ, performs together with him the role of priest and victim, offers him to the Father and at the same time makes a total offering of herself together with him” (Para. c). Thus, members of the ministerial priesthood and the priesthood of the laity, we are all called upon to offer ourselves for our sins, and for the sins of the world.

The Eucharist is meant to transform us: “The sharing in the body and blood of Christ has no other effect than to accomplish our transformation into that which we receive.” (Vatican II, Lumen Gentium Const. on Church, para 26) The great miracle of the Eucharist is not only that bread and wine become Christ, but that we become other Christs by the reception of the Holy Eucharist, enabling us to express to the world, through our own unique personalities, the goodness and love of Christ.

The Council of Trent called the Mass the “New Passover.” Just as the Jews offered and partook of the unblemished lamb to celebrate their Passover, the saving act of God, who released them from their slavery in Egypt to journey toward the promised land, so we offer and partake of the unblemished Lamb of God to celebrate the New Passover, the saving act of Christ, who released us from our slavery to sin to journey toward the promised land of Heaven.

Trent also taught that the Mass is “the oblation which was prefigured by various types of sacrifices under the regime of nature and of the Law. For it includes all the good that was signified by those former sacrifices; it is their fulfillment and perfection.” Thus, all the Old Testament sacrifices — the lamb, the scapegoat, and all the animals slain as offerings for sin — were but prefigurements of this one perfect sacrifice of Christ on the cross, as re-presented in the Mass. Furthermore, slaying animals could not bring forgiveness of sins in itself, but only as prefiguring the sacrifice of Jesus.

Vatican II taught:

From the Eucharist, grace is poured forth upon us as from a fountain, and the sanctification of men in Christ and the glorification of God to which all other activities of the Church are directed, as toward their end, are achieved with maximum effectiveness. (Decree on Liturgy, n. 10)

From this we can see why the Mass is described in Vatican II as “the source and summit of the Christian life” (LG 11). What could be a more powerful offering than the memorial celebration of Jesus’ death on the cross? Even more powerful is the fact that the Mass makes present that unique sacrifice which saved us. It is not a new sacrifice offered each time, as our critics suggest, but the one unique sacrifice of Christ made present and re-offered by us.

St. John Vianney taught, “If we really understood the Mass, we would die of joy . . . All good works taken together cannot have the value of one Holy Mass, because they are the works of men, whereas the Holy Mass is the work of God.”

Nothing could bring us more grace, nothing could better prepare us to live with God in His Kingdom, nothing could wipe away more purgatorial punishment than our prayerful participation in the holy Mass. This is why we should all consider attending Mass daily, knowing the depth of love God expects of us (loving Him with all our heart soul, and mind) to enter the Kingdom.

St. Joseph Cottolengo recommended daily Mass for everyone and said that those who do not go to daily Mass practice “bad time management.” Even if we find it difficult to go to daily Mass because of work schedules, or whatever, we might simply pray, “Lord, if you would like me to attend daily Mass, please arrange my life so I can.” I have seen God answer this prayer in so many lives, including my own.

Long before I entered the seminary I thought about attending Mass every day for several years. In retrospect, I don’t know why I hesitated as I often went to daily Mass during Lent. One night it hit me. “Tomorrow I will start and go for three months. If the early hours don’t kill me I will keep going for life.” Three weeks into my new regimen I actually felt better! I resolved to never stop, and never have. (Of course, it’s a good deal easier for me to make Mass every day now than before I was ordained!)

Two days a year we priests are permitted to say three Masses even without a pastoral need: All Souls Day and Christmas Day. Knowing how important these Masses are to the souls in Purgatory, I have often moved mountains to get these Masses said on those days.

The Real Presence

It seems that we need to re-convince Catholics on the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. There have been 126 Church-approved Eucharistic miracles in the history of the Church, pointing to the real presence, including three since the year 2000. Time and again the Host from Mass turned into human flesh, the Eucharistic blood into human blood.

One such miracle involved a monk in Lanciano, Italy, in the eighth century who doubted the Real Presence as he said Mass one day. Then, just after the consecration, he noticed that the host had been transformed into a circle of flesh and the wine was changed into visible blood. As he began to weep with joy he announced to the congregation:

Oh fortunate witnesses to whom the Blessed God, to confound my unbelief, has wished to reveal Himself visible to our eyes! Come, brethren, and marvel at our God, so close to us. Behold the flesh and blood of our most Beloved Christ.¹

The congregation quickly came forward to see the miracle and after Mass, went out to spread the news. The flesh stayed intact and the blood coagulated into five unequal parts. The five parts together were found to weigh the same as each part separately. The relics were kept in the cathedral for the next several hundred years.

In 1970 the Archbishop of Lanciano, along with the Conventual Franciscan Provincial at Abruzzo, with Vatican permission, commissioned Dr. Edward Linoli, director of the hospital in Arezzo and professor of anatomy, histology, chemistry, and clinical microscopy, to perform a thorough examination of the relics. He presented his report on March 4, 1971. The results, in summary, included the following:

1. The “miraculous Flesh” is authentic flesh consisting of muscular striated tissue of the myocardium [heart].
2. The “miraculous Blood” is truly blood. The chromatographic analysis indicated this with absolute and indisputable certainty.
3. The immunological study shows with certitude that the flesh and the blood are human, and the immuno-hematological test allows us to affirm with complete objectivity and certitude that both belong to the same blood type AB — the same as that of other Eucharistic miracles and the type most characteristic of Middle Eastern populations.²

Dr. Linoli’s report was published in “Quaderni Sclavo di Diagnostica Clinica e di Laboratori” #3 in 1971. It drew a good deal of attention, including from the World Health Organization (WHO). The WHO named a scientific team to validate Linoli’s results. They pursued this effort for 15 months and performed 500 tests. They discovered the fragment of flesh was live insofar as it responded to their tests as a living organism. Their results were in complete accord with Linoli’s findings. They published their results in 1976 in New York and Geneva. Their conclusion? “Science, aware of its limits, has come to a halt, face to face with the impossibility of giving an explanation.”³

These miraculous relics can still be seen in the church now dedicated to St. Francis of Assisi in Lanciano, Italy.⁴

Another miracle took place in the early thirteenth century in Santarem, Portugal (35 miles south of Fatima). A woman who was concerned about the infidelity of her husband sought the help of a sorceress to rein him in. The sorceress agreed to help the woman if she would bring her a consecrated Host from a Catholic Mass. The woman was hesitant to do that but she finally agreed. She attended Mass at the church of St. Stephen, and after receiving the Host, she took it from her mouth and wrapped it in her scarf. As she was leaving the church, the Host began to bleed and the blood began to drip out from her hand. People who saw this showed concern as it looked like she was bleeding. When she looked down and saw the blood she panicked. She hurried home and hid the scarf with the Host in the bottom drawer of a chest in her house.

That night as she and her husband slept, they were awakened by a bright light emanating from the chest. After that they saw an array of angels adoring the bleeding Host. The woman admitted her sacrilegious theft of the Host from church. Both knelt before the miraculous Host in repentance for the woman’s sin.

The next morning they told the priest. He went to the house and brought back the Host soon after with a procesion which included a good number of priest and parishioners. The Host bled for three more days. They decided to encase it in a beeswax reliquary. The holy Host remained there until a second miracle occurred.

About a hundred years later a priest opened the tabernacle and noticed the beeswax reliquary had fallen apart into small pieces. The Host was in a glass reliquary along with the beeswax. In the centuries that followed, the Host has often bled again and images of the Lord have at times been seen in it. Still today, each year on the second Sunday of April the miraculous Host is brought in procession from the house where it occurred (now a chapel) to the church which is now known a the Church of the Miracle.

During this year of Eucharistic revival, it would seem that our parishioners should have the benefit of hearing from us of one or more of these miracles. For a comprehensive list of Eucharistic miracles, go to www.carloacutis.com.

Adoration of the Eucharist

Thomas Aquinas wrote, “The Eucharist is the greatest of all the sacraments . . . because it contains Christ Himself substantially: whereas the other sacraments contain a certain instrumental power which is a share of Christ’s power” (Summa, III, q 65, a3). St. Catherine of Genoa said, “The time I have spent before the tabernacle is the best spent time of my life.”

Pope John Paul II wrote in 1980 (Dominicae cenae, n. 3):

The encouragement and the deepening of Eucharistic worship are proofs of that authentic renewal which the council set itself as an aim and of which they are the central point. And this, venerable and dear brothers, deserves separate reflection. The Church and the world have a great need of Eucharistic worship. Jesus waits for us in this sacrament of love. Let us be generous with our time in going to meet Him in adoration and in contemplation that is full of faith and ready to make reparation for the great faults and crimes of the world. May our adoration never cease.

How important it is that we make use of every opportunity to pray before the Blessed Sacrament either in the tabernacle, or exposed in the monstrance. What a precious gift!

Archbishop Sheen spoke glowingly of his daily holy hour before the Blessed Sacrament, which he made for almost 60 years. One mother of six, after hearing Sheen, made a holy hour daily for more than 30 years. It dramatically changed her life and saved her marriage. She went from manic-depressive to serenely peaceful through the holy hour. As a priest, I have followed their example, making a daily holy hour, and it has been the strength of my life for over 40 years. Many priests — and laity — do the same.

John Paul II wrote, “Let us take the time to kneel before Jesus present in the Eucharist in order to make reparation by our faith and love for the acts of carelessness and neglect, and even the insults which our Savior must endure in many parts of the world.”⁵

Receiving the Eucharist

Receiving the Eucharist is both a crown and source. It is a crown for making a commitment of unconditional love for Jesus Christ and of faith in his teachings as they come to us through his Church. It is a source of grace to help us keep that commitment.

The Council of Trent taught on the Eucharist:

[Christ] wished that this sacrament should be received as the spiritual food of souls, whereby they may be nourished and strengthened, living by the life of him who said: “He that eateth me, the same also shall live by me,” and as an antidote whereby we may be freed from daily faults and preserved from mortal sins. He wished it furthermore to be a pledge of our future glory and everlasting happiness, and thus be a symbol of that one body of which he is the head . . . (Decree on The Eucharist, Chapter 2)

Without food, the body dies; without the Eucharist the soul dies (barring invincible ignorance): “Amen, I say to you, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you” (Jn. 6:53). Without this life, we cannot live in the Kingdom.

The Eucharist is meant to transform us: “The sharing in the body and blood of Christ has no other effect than to accomplish our transformation into that which we receive.” (Vatican II, Lumen Gentium Constitution on the Church, para 26)

After receiving the Eucharist, we should devote all our attention to thanking God for so great a gift:

The faithful are to be recommended not to omit to make a proper thanksgiving after Communion. They may do this during the celebration, with a period of silence, with a hymn, Psalm or other song of praise, or also after the celebration, if possible by staying behind to pray for a suitable time. (Inaestimabile donum 1980, para 17)

And how important that we make a good thanksgiving to God! St. Teresa of Avila wrote, “After communion let us be careful not to lose so good an opportunity of negotiating with God. His divine majesty is not accustomed to pay badly for his lodging, if he meets with a good reception.”

It is recommended that we close our eyes upon returning to our pew after receiving. This will allow us to focus on God alone for those few minutes to thank him for so great a gift. To that end my own mother would cover her face with her hands to close out all distractions after receiving the Lord.

What a treasure we have in the Eucharist, as the Mass, the source and summit of our Christian life, as the object of our grateful adoration, and as our precious food, the Bread of Life, which transforms us into images of Christ by an intimate “kiss of love.” It is no wonder that St. Augustine wrote of the Eucharist, “God in His Omnipotence could not give more, in his wisdom he knew not how to give more, in his riches he had not more to give, than the Eucharist.”