By Jacqueline Kelly –
In the kingdom of Our Father we shall be for ever united with Christ in the celebration of the heavenly marriage feast. A guarantee and a foretaste of this heavenly marriage feast is the celebration of the Holy Eucharist. In His great love for us, the Lord Jesus gave us a great miracle of mercy: the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist.
At first, the Holy Eucharist used to be called “the breaking of the bread”. But because praise and thanks are offered to the Father through its celebration, the early Christians soon gave it the name of “Eucharist” [which means “praise” or “thanks”]. The celebration of the Eucharist is also called “the Holy Sacrifice” or “the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass” or “Holy Mass”. And because in this sacrament Christ is really present in a special way, and because it is celebrated on an altar, we call it also “The most Holy Sacrament of the Altar”.
At the celebration of the Eucharist, Christ himself is our High Priest, sacrificial gift and food. The Priest at the altar is his visible representative and his living instrument. The sacrifice of the Cross is made present and we receive the Bread of Eternal Life. In Holy Communion Christ, who is our Lord in heaven, even now unites Himself with us in the most intimate manner. The Holy Eucharist is the family meal of God’s children.
The Eucharist is the centre of our relationship with God the father, Son and Holy Spirit. It unites us on earth as a community committed to Christ and to one another. As Christians, we are a Eucharistic community. “The Eucharist makes the Church” because it is the centre towards which all other sacraments are celebrated, and the source from which they derive their power. The Eucharist is both a sacrifice and a sacrament. The Eucharist is a share not only in Christ’s death but also in his resurrection. [John 6: 54-56]
In 1964, the Year of the Eucharist, Pope John Paul II in the “Ecclesia de Eucharistia”, Ch, 6 explored the depths of the Eucharistic spirituality through the witness of the life of the
Blessed Virgin Mary. He wrote: “If we wish to rediscover in all its richness the profound relationship between the Church and the Eucharist, we cannot neglect Mary, Mother and model of the Church.”. Mary is a “woman of the Eucharist” in her whole life. The Church, which looks to Mary as a model, is also called to imitate her in her relationship with this most holy mystery.
The Eucharistic celebration inculcates in us the yearning to listen to the Word of God. This yearning implies a total, trustful surrender to obey the Word of God, convinced that it is indeed the “Word of eternal life”. The Scripture also assures us that God is our rock, our protector, our stronghold and deliverer. We need to claim this during the Eucharist especially when the prayer of protection is being said. Similarly, compulsive habits disappear when prayed for at the Eucharist.
Each time the Mass is celebrated the Eucharistic miracle takes place. When incidences of Eucharistic miracles arise, we discover that the Host turns into “Human flesh and blood”.
Through these miracles Jesus manifests His Presence in a clear and definite way.
Miracles are phenomena which interrupt the laws of nature and surpass the force of all natural causes.
Saint Augustine has said, “All nature is full of miracles. We are not astonished at them, because we are used to seeing them, their repetition makes them familiar to our eyes. Behold why God has reserved to Himself others out of the course of nature, that they may strike us by their novelty”.
Can God communicate to saints the power to work miracles?
Yes, since He is all powerful. In fact, when a miracle is performed, it is always God who performs it at the request of a saint.
For a Christian, the possibility of a miracle is not a question, it is a point of Faith which he professes every day when he says: “I believe in God, the Father Almighty”, and from the Words of the Gospel: “Nothing is impossible to God”. [Luke 1:37] and from these words: “He that believeth in me, the works that I do he also shall do, and greater than these shall he do” [John 14:12]. Faith is a gift of God.
In the Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Eastern Orthodox, Methodist, Anglican and Oriental Orthodox Churches, the fact that Christ is really and truly manifest in the Eucharist is deemed a Eucharistic Miracle.
Eucharistic Miracles and the Saints:
Saint Mary of Egypt: [Born in 344 A.D]. She left her parent’s house at the age of twelve and moved to the city of Alexandria and worked as a prostitute. On the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, she joined the crowd as it was headed to the Church in order to venerate the relic of the True Cross. She was unable to enter. A miraculous force pulled her away from the door. She tried desperately to get in three or four times but failed. She moved to the corner of the Churchyard and began to cry tears of remorse.
She saw a statue of the Blessed Mother and prayed to the Holy Mother for permission to enter the Church to venerate the relic. She promised Mother Mary if she was allowed to enter the Church, she would renounce the worldly ways.
Mary entered the Church, venerated the relic and returned to the statue to pray for guidance. She heard a voice telling her to cross the Jordan River. She arrived in Jordan and received Holy Communion and the following day crossed the river and wandered eastward into the desert that stretches towards Arabia. She lived alone for forty-seven years. A monk named Zosimus met her. They prayed together, she requested Zosimus to meet her at the Jordan on Holy Thursday evening of the following year and bring with him Holy Communion.
On the appointed evening, Zosimus met at the spot that had been indicated. Mary made the Sign of the Cross and received Holy Communion. She then told Zosimus to come back again the next year to the spot where he had first met her. He came, but only to find the poor saint’s corpse and written beside it on the ground a request that he should bury her, and a statement that she had died a year before, on the very evening she had received Holy Communion.
Saint Anthony of Padua: [born in Lisbon, Portugal; much honoured in Padua, Italy]. He lived in the early 13th century. When heretics poked fun at him, he spoke to the fishes, who raised their bodies out of the water to listen to hm. A heretic challenges St. Anthony to likewise influence his donkey. The heretic was to starve the donkey for three days, after which the donkey would be set free to either go to a pail of his favourite fodder held by his heretical owner, or to go to St. Anthony holding the Eucharist. While the donkey fasted for three days, St. Anthony fasted and prayed for three days. On the appointed day of the challenge, St. Anthony spoke to the donkey: “I command you to come here to adore God, so that it will give truth to all of the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist”. The donkey ignored the pail of tempting fodder and walked over to St. Anthony holding the Body of the Christ; he knelt down on both legs and lowered his head in reverence. St. Anthony blessed the donkey, which then arose and went across and ate all the fodder.
Saint Clare of Assisi, Italy: Sarasen mercenaries threatened the nuns in the Convent of San Damiano, where St. Claire lay ill. St. Claire took the Monstrance and pleaded with Our Lord to protect the nuns and also the city. A sweet voice told her that it would be done. The mercenaries just turned away from the convent gates.
Saint Catherine of Sienna, Italy: She was a special friend of Jesus. She was not formally educated, but is yet one of the women doctors of the Church. She was given the gift of holding the Baby Jesus in her arms, presented to her by Our Lady. She was given the gift of ecstasies of the levitation many times. She was given the special gift of drinking the Blood of Jesus from His side, after this she couldn’t eat any more.
She was neither hungry nor could she retain anything other than the Sacred Species in her stomach, yet she was full of energy and very active.
Saint Nicholas of Flue, Switzerland: He was a soldier and statesman and the father of ten children. At 50 years of age he set his house in order and leaving his home and family, became a religious hermit. At the very start of his ministry, one night, he suffered severe cramps in his stomach while sleeping beneath a tree. Praying intently, he accepted whatever the Lord’s will would be. After a while, the pain subsided, but from that time till the end of his life, he lost all desire for food or drink. He could retain nothing except the Body and Blood of Jesus in the Eucharist.
Saint Anthony Mary Claret, Spain : In his autobiography we read: “On 26th of August, 1861, while I prayed in the Church of the Rosary, in Granja, at seven o’clock, the Lord granted me the great grace of the conservation of the Sacramental Species and of always having, day and night, the Blessed Sacrament within my breast.”