![\"real](\"https:\/\/blogs.sjcme.edu\/theology\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2015\/09\/real-presence.jpg\")
<\/a>The seminarian had spent a year in China as a missionary.\u00a0 He heard a true story about the days when the Communists first took over, and how they would go into churches and ransack everything.\u00a0 One day they attacked a Catholic Church.\u00a0 They took down all the statues and broke them to into pieces.\u00a0 They smashed out all of the stain glass windows, and toppled the altar.\u00a0 Then they took the tabernacle and through it out the back door.\u00a0 The priest watched in horror as it hit the ground and all of the consecrated hosts were scattered.\u00a0 There was nothing he could do.\u00a0 The soldiers had arrested him and locked him in a tool shed in back of the church.\u00a0 The priest was in there for days, as three young Chinese soldiers stood guard with rifles.\u00a0 He kept an eye out for the scattered hosts as he prayed, asking that God would somehow send deliverance.<\/p>\nThat evening, once it was dark, he saw a little girl, about 10 years old, outside.\u00a0 She hid behind the trees and bushes so that the guards wouldn’t see her.\u00a0 Then she kneeled down and picked up one of the sacred hosts with her mouth.\u00a0 She slowly and reverently consumed the host and left.\u00a0 The children were taught that they could never touch the Blessed Sacrament, and they could only receive once a day.\u00a0 So she returned each evening.\u00a0 Darting in and out between the shadows.\u00a0 And each night she would kneel down and consume one of the hosts.<\/p>\n
The priest knew how many hosts had been in the tabernacle.\u00a0 And he watch as the girl returned every night until there was only one host left.\u00a0 The priest kept an eye on that host from the window of the shed, and he also kept an eye on the guards.\u00a0 That night he saw the little girl again.\u00a0 She was quiet, fast and very careful not to be noticed by the soldiers.\u00a0 She knelt down and consumed the very last host, and as she got up, she tripped and fell.\u00a0 The guards heard her and rushed over.\u00a0 Then they beat the poor little girl to death with the butts of their rifles.\u00a0 With tears in his eyes, the seminarian said, \u201cThat’s why I do it.\u00a0 That\u2019s why I eat the crumbs off the floor every day.\u00a0 I never forgot that story, and ever since then, there\u2019s nothing more precious to me than the Blessed Sacrament.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the sixth\u00a0chapter of John\u2019s gospel, in what is known as the Bread of Life Discourse, are some of the most profound words in all of scripture. \u201cWhoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.\u201d\u00a0 Jesus told the Jews that he is the living bread that came down from heaven, and that whoever eats this bread will live forever.\u00a0 And the bread that He will give is his flesh for the life of the world.<\/p>\n
The Jews understood this very literally, and that\u2019s why most of them left and went back to their families and former ways of living.\u00a0 They said, \u201cThis is a hard saying, who can accept it?\u201d\u00a0 Jesus didn’t try to explain that he was just speaking symbolically.\u00a0 No, he meant exactly what he said.\u00a0 The Church has understood from the beginning that the Bread of Life refers to the Sacrament of the Eucharist.\u00a0 The New Testament scriptures make this clear, and so does the history and testimony of the early church.<\/p>\n
Saint Justin, around the year 145, explained what the Church believes about the Eucharist: \u201cWe call this food Eucharist, and no one is permitted to partake of it, except one who believes our teaching to be true and who has been washed in the washing which is for the remission of sins and for regeneration, and is hereby living as Christ has enjoined.\u00a0 For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught by his apostles, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic Prayer set down by him, is both the flesh and blood of that incarnated Jesus.\u201d The Eucharist is indeed the \u201cBread of Life,\u201d and by it we are nourished for all eternity.<\/p>\n
At Mass, the King of the universe comes down from heaven, onto the altar and into you and me.\u00a0 When we receive the Bread of Life with the proper disposition, we are changed forever.\u00a0 Disposition is an attitude of mind and heart.\u00a0 Let me share with you an example of someone who had the proper disposition.\u00a0 One Saturday morning, I was at Mass sitting in a pew beside a young boy in the second grade who was receiving his first Holy Communion that day.\u00a0 He had missed receiving his first Holy Communion with his class.\u00a0 His father was sitting on the other side of him\u2026\u2026When the time came, the young boy went up to receive Communion.\u00a0 He bowed reverently, received in his hands and consumed the sacred host.\u00a0 When he returned to his pew, he knelt and prayed.\u00a0 I knelt down next to him.\u00a0 After several minutes his father turned to him and asked, \u201cSon, do you feel any different now that you have received your first Holy Communion?\u201d\u00a0 The boy turned and looked his father in the eye and said, \u201cYes, Dad, I do feel different.\u00a0 I feel very different.\u00a0 I feel God inside.\u201d<\/p>\n
That young man received Communion with the proper disposition, the attitude of mind and heart that leads to eternal life.\u00a0 Saint Cyril, in the 4th<\/sup> century, said that the Christian who consumes the Bread of Life becomes a \u201cChristbearer,\u201d one body and blood with him and the covenant is sealed.\u00a0 Then we are sent out of the church to be what we are called to be \u2013 a sacrament, a visible sign of God\u2019s invisible grace for the whole world to see, and know and draw closer to him.\u00a0 This is the proper disposition.\u00a0 \u201cWhoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.\u201d\u00a0 This is why we do it.<\/p>\n Deacon Greg Ollick<\/strong>\u00a0is a permanent deacon in the Archdiocese of Atlanta and teaches in the Catholic Catechesis Certificate Program for Saint Joseph\u2019s College.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Father Michael Schmitz has one of the most effective campus ministries in the country at the University of Minnesota.\u00a0 He tells a story about back when he was in the seminary in the late 1970s.\u00a0 Though we wouldn’t do it … Continue reading