September 25-26

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

We continue our contemplation of the essential and fundamental belief we have in the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist.  These days there in much division among people.  Good intentioned solutions are being offered by well-meaning folks but unfortunately, they have it all wrong.  Unity can only come when we looked to, listen to, and follow Christ.  He is the source of all unity since He made us to be one as He and the Father and the Holy Spirit are One.  All that lives, whether visible or invisible, comes from God the author of life.  We start here.  Since there are those who do not recognize this fact how can there be unity.  Division has already raised its ugly head and will continue its destructive advance until truly enlightened minds are united in this basic principle of life.  Unless we are together in this affirmation, what is there to talk about?

Next, we recognize that there is possible and necessary union with Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist.  As we read in Sacred Scripture: What God is there so close to His People as the God of Israel is to us ?”  How much closer or more united could we be than in the Holy Eucharist?

To better understand this Holy Union let us look the encyclical of Pope Francis entitled Lumen Fidei (June 29, 2013):

 “The truth which faith discloses to us is a truth centered on an encounter with Christ, on the contemplation of His life and on the awareness of His presence!  St. Thomas Aquinas speaks of the Apostles –Faith Which Sees!–in the presence of the Body of the Risen Lord.  With their own eyes, they saw the Risen Jesus and they believed; in word, they were able to peer into the depths of what they were seeing and to confess their faith in the Son of God, seated at the right hand of the Father.

It was only in this way, by taking flesh, by sharing our humanity that the knowledge proper to love could come to fruition.  For the light of love is born when our hearts are touched and we open ourselves to the interior presence of the beloved, who enables us to recognize His mystery.  Thus, we can understand why, together with hearing and seeing, St. John can speak of faith as touch, as he says in his First Letter: ”  What we have seen with our eyes and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life (1 JN 1:1).  By His taking flesh and coming among us, Jesus has touched us and through the Sacraments He continues to touch us even today; transforming our hearts, He increasingly enables us to acknowledge and acclaim Him as Son of God and Lord of Life.

The Sacramental character of faith finds its highest expression in the Holy Eucharist.  The Eucharist is the precious nourishment for faith: an encounter with Christ truly present in the supreme act of His love, the life-giving gift of Himself.”

Is not this, my friends, the most important means by which unity can be effected amongst us?

With Blessings, 

Father Langan