By: Sister Laetitia Therese, O.C.D.
JM+JT
As we continue these final months of Eucharistic Revival in the United States, let us never grow complacent with the gift of Mass and the Holy Eucharist. I have recently been reading He Leadeth Me, Father Walter Cizek’s powerful account of survival amidst solitary confinement and work in the slave labor camps of Siberia in the Soviet Union. I have been deeply moved by his story of the lengths these prisoners would go to receive Jesus in Holy Communion. These men would work 12-14 hours a day in grueling manual labor tasks subsisting on barely enough food to keep them alive and yet they would fast without eating anything until lunch or even dinner if it meant being able to receive Our Lord. At the time, the Eucharistic fast was to be kept from rising in the morning until receiving Holy Communion. How great did they treasure the gift of Our Lord!
This has been a powerful examination of conscience for me. How much do I take for granted that I am daily able to receive Jesus without any obstacle? What sacrifices am I willing to make for the gift of receiving Jesus?
Anticipating the holiest week of the year that we will commemorate at the end of the Lenten journey this month, we hold dear the sacred gifts of Our Lord. On that first Holy Thursday, He established the gift of Himself in the Holy Eucharist so that He would remain with us- Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity until the end of this world. May we thank Him by offering back to Him the gift of our own lives and finding ways to strengthen our devotion to Him in the Holy Eucharist.