Hello Dear Reader!
This article has been some time in the making, but due to business of life, I’ve been unable to finish it until now. A little over a month ago our parish celebrated All Saints Day by inviting all of the children to dress up as their favorite saint for church. The week before, my oldest daughter told me which saint she wanted to be and when I asked my middle daughter which saint she wanted to be, she told me that she didn’t want to dress up as a saint. I thought… “okay no problem”. The week went on and I should have seen what was coming…
Of course, the Saturday night before, my middle child tells me that she’s changed her mind and she wants to be a saint! So my wife and I did the only thing we could do at 7:30pm on a Saturday night to try and prevent breaking a 4 y/o’s heart… We ransacked the dress up clothes box in her room and tried to think of a saint she could dress as that would fit with the clothes that she already had that she could wear. We came across my old “Roman Centurion” costume and I started looking for some saint that she could be and “TAH DAH!” I figured it out! Saint Tarcisius! And that is who has inspired me to write this brief article for you.
Now, if none of you know who St. Tarcisius is then I will tell you. He is truly a remarkable example of the love we should have for our Lord as Christians. Our story begins sometime in the mid-3rd century in Rome, Italy. St. Tarcisius was about the age of 12 years old when he volunteered for the dangerous task of transporting the Blessed Sacrament (The Eucharist) to other Christians in the city. While carrying the body of Our Lord he was stopped by a group of boys who wanted to see what he had. Tarcisius would not show them and the boys, equally determined to see what it was this child was hiding, ended up beating him to death… But in the end Tarcisius never gave up his treasure. He instead chose to die rather than give up the precious body of Christ in the sacrament…
We should all take the fervor of this child to heart in our own lives. The mystery of Christ’s Real Presence: Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity are hard to grasp if we limit ourselves and only believe what our physical senses tell us… Remember what Christ said in Matthew about becoming like children? He said “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”
At that time the disciples came to Jesus saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them, and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 18:1-4
Now, obviously Jesus wasn’t meaning Tarcisius as being the actual child he was referring to in this passage of Scripture, but I do think that it bears witness to the example that Tarcisius sets forth in showing us how our faith ought to be. I urge you to give that some thought as we move into the Advent season and prepare for the celebration of the arrival of the King of Kings. Will we have faith as a child like Tarcisius and defend His Real Presence no matter the cost? Are we prepared to give our all for the sake of our Lord? Because He, my dear reader, is prepared to give up His all for you…
Until next time my Dear Reader…
Your Humble Servant in Christ,
William
William's Catholic Journey 