Isn’t It Just Bread? (Part I)

Dear Reader,

With this article, I intend to start a series on my favorite topic of discussion, which is what ultimately brought me to see The Catholic Church as Christ’s established church… What is this thing that I refer to? It is The Most Holy Eucharist…

I am SO EXCITED and NERVOUS to write about this… I’ve been wanting to write this series since I started blogging a couple of months ago and I’ve always put it aside out of doubt and fear that I wouldn’t do it well… The Holy Spirit has more or less told me to “suck it up” and let Him guide my words… If I could sum up what my thoughts are on this Sacrament in one sentence, it would be this: If I was in a situation where I could only commit one final act before I die, it would be to partake of this most Blessed Sacrament. That is how powerful and how important this “thing” is… Okie dokie, let’s do it!

At this point you may be saying… “Why is this so important to you?” or you may be thinking something along the lines of “It’s just bread, what’s the big deal? I mean, I know it’s important, but come on, it’s not like it’s anything more than a symbol…”.

“I keep up the Holy Hour to grow more and more into His likeness. Looking at the Eucharistic Lord for an hour transforms the heart in a mysterious way as the face of Moses was transformed after his companionship with God on the mountain.” – Archbishop Fulton Sheen

In or around the year 1900 in China some Chinese soldiers raided and ransacked a small Catholic Church. While the soldiers were in the church, they knocked over the tabernacle and spilled 32 hosts onto the floor of the church, stole sacred vessels and put the priest on house arrest; all the while, a little girl (approximately 12 years old) was watching from the back of the church and went unnoticed by the soldiers.

Late that night, the priest watched as the little girl quietly snuck past the guards at the entrance to the church. The girl went into the church, knelt in adoration before the hosts spilled onto the floor and after about an hour, picked up one of the hosts and consumed it. After that she quietly snuck past the guards again and made her way home. The priest watched as every night the little girl did this until all 32 of the hosts had been consumed. Upon consuming the final host, the little girl accidentally made a noise and the guards rushed into the church and beat her to death with their rifles…

In the 3rd century there was a was a 12 year old boy by the name of Tarsisius who lived at the time of the Roman persecutions of Christians. He loved Jesus in the Eucharist and he volunteered to his Bishop for a dangerous mission… To take the Eucharist to Christians that had been condemned to die. During his trip, he was stopped by a group of Roman boys who had discovered he was a Christian. They wanted to see what it was he was guarding so closely in a cloth but Tarsisius refused to give up the Precious Body of his Lord… The group of boys then proceeded to beat him to death…

In 1967, Father George Weinmann, a 77 year old priest, rushed into his burning parish, St. Philip Neri church, to save the Eucharist, while Sister Lilian Marie McLaughlin, a teacher at the parish school, ran in to rescue a few students she was told were inside. Neither would make it out alive.

There were no students in the church that day, but, inside, Sister Lilian found Father Weinmann and tried to help him escape the building. In the thick black smoke, the old priest and young nun appear to have mistaken the door of a confessional for the main entrance. The firefighters found them near there. Sister Lilian Marie died of smoke inhalation, while Father Weinmann, who had retrieved the Eucharist from the tabernacle, died a few days later.

These men and women died horrific deaths full of suffering and pain and this my dear reader, is one of the reasons that The Eucharist is so important to me… What an inspiration these martyrs and saints should be to us! Every Christian should hear these true stories of lives laid on the line by these and other martyrs and saints of the church…

So the question has to be asked… What did these martyrs, both young and old, die for? Surely it wasn’t for a simple symbolic piece of bread… Was it?

Until next time dear reader… (I can’t wait!!!)

Your Humble Servant in Christ,

William