Dominic Tang, a Jesuit priest in China and a native of Hong Kong, was named as
a bishop in China by the Vatican in 1951. He knew
that this was a dangerous assignment for him, since the Church was being oppressed by
the Communist regime that had taken control in that country. He
was arrested in 1958 for refusing to recant his loyalty to the Holy Catholic
Church and to our Lord Jesus Christ, for refusing to pledge his full support to
the Chinese communist state. Although he was never brought to trial and never convicted of any crime, he
served 22 years in prison. Cardinal Timothy Dolan recounts in his book, The Priests for the Third
Millennium, how after 5 straight years of confinement in a small windowless
prison cell, Bishop Tang was given a couple of hours to do anything he wanted
to do. He was offered to take shower,
something that been denied him all that time.
He could make a phone call to his family. He could have gone for a long walk outside in
nature. But, when the jailer asked him
for his choice, he responded: “I would like to celebrate mass.” I
remember the rector of my seminary tell all of us seminarians time and time
again: As a priest, if you do not develop a love of the mass and a love for the
Jesus you encounter in the mass, there is no way you are going to make it
through the difficult times you will encounter in your priesthood. Bishop Tang’s encounter with Jesus in the mass helped him survive his 2 years
in prison. When
he was released, he never showed any bitterness or resentment, even though he
never received any type of apology from the Chinese government. Bishop Tang stated: In prison, I always asked God to help me to progress in
virtue, in humility and obedience. I
tried to be kind and gentle to others, without resisting ill-treatment from
others. When controlled and walked upon, I did not complain. There are many opportunities for practicing
virtue in prison.
The
miraculous presence of Christ in the Eucharist is there to help our to live out
the Christian virtues and the values of the Gospel, even when we cannot do so
through our own means.
Today’s solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ has a two-fold focus: recognizing
the true presence of Jesus’s body and blood that we receive in the Eucharist
and recognizing the true Body of Christ in his holy Church. In
many ways, we can say that the miracle of the loaves and the fish that feeds
the crowds in the Gospel prefigures the way Christ nourishes those who believe
in him in the Eucharist. The
taking of the loaves, the breaking of them, and the giving of them to crowd, prefigures
the taking of Jesus in the garden, the breaking of Jesus in his passion and on his crucifixion on the cross, and
the giving of him as a sacrifice for our sins. In
the Gospel, the people share what they have as they gather for the Lord’s
supper. As
Jesus is the sacrifice and the servant in the Eucharistic, that is what the
Eucharist demands of us, to sacrifice and to serve.
Statistics
show that a lot of Catholics don’t believe in the real presence of Christ in
the Eucharist, that a lot of Catholics don’t even know that the Church teaches
that Christ is truly present in his body and blood in the Eucharist. Believing in Christ in the Eucharist is a grace we receive from God. It is an act of faith. Like
Jesus says in the Gospel, we need to have the heart of a child to truly
understand what the Kingdom of God is all about. I
look into the hearts and faces of the children who just received their first
communion less than a month ago – their joy, their enthusiasm, their pure
belief that this is truly Jesus who is entering their lives in a very special
way. That
joy and enthusiasm and generosity of heart of these second graders who just received first holy communion really
touches my own heart as I contemplate the presence of Christ in the
Eucharist.
Earlier this week, I was feeling under the weather. I spent a couple of days in bed with this bad virus and am still
not up to 100% strength. I
remember a time when I was really sick with a tropical fever, a long time ago
in the mission field, with my head feeling like a hammer was pounding against
it, with my fever so high that I felt like I was burning up, with every bone in
my body aching, and without an ounce of energy. It
was late one evening, 10 minutes before mass was starting. I had been sick for a long time. I was struggling with my missionary
experience, both mentally and physically.
I went to mass at the mission site every evening after a long day’s
work. The Eucharist was a shining light
for me in the midst of darkness and struggle.
The Eucharist fed me and sustained me, helping me make it to another day
no matter how difficult things were. Yet, as I was lying in bed, I knew that I
didn’t have the energy to get up and go down to the church. I felt so alone and helpless. Christ in Eucharist was so close, yet so far
away. I so
desired the Eucharist in that moment. We
all should have a longing for the Eucharist in our lives, a longing that never
goes away.
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