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READ MORESt. Peter Julian Eymard’s Eucharistic love began very young. One day when he was five years old, his parents couldn’t find him and sent out his older sister Marianne to look for him. She found him in the church, where he had used a stool to climb up on the surface of the high altar and was leaning his head upon the tabernacle door. When Marianne, astonished, asked what he was doing, with childlike simplicity he replied, “I am near Jesus and I am listening to him!” Before he was able to receive his first Holy Communion, he used to do something similar with his sister. He would sit next to her at Mass and, after she had returned from the Communion rail, he would put his head on her breast and say with joyful fervor, “I can feel his presence!” When he made his first Communion at 12 years old, he embraced Jesus within and told him, “I shall be a priest, I promise you!”
READ MOREA Christian must bear witness to the truth of the Gospel in every field of his activity, both public and private, and also if necessary, with the sacrifice of his very life. Martyrdom is the supreme witness given to the truth of the faith.
READ MOREIn Alatri’s Cathedral of Saint Paul the Apostle, there is kept even today the reliquary of the Eucharistic miracle that occurred in 1228 and consisted in a fragment of the Host turning into flesh. A young woman, in an effort to regain the love of her sweetheart, consulted a sorceress who ordered her to steal a consecrated Host to make a love potion. During Mass, the young woman hid a Host in a cloth. But when she got home, she realized that the Host had been transformed into bleeding flesh.
READ MOREMost people know St. Teresa of Calcutta, commonly known as Mother Teresa, as the woman who dedicated herself to the love and care of the poor in Calcutta, India. Her desire to serve these people, many of whom were dying on the streets, led to her fame throughout the world. However, most people miss the reason for the initial calling and the continuation of this call until her death. It was Jesus in the Eucharist.
READ MOREOn the international level, all nations and institutions must carry out their work in solidarity and subsidiarity for the purpose of eliminating or at least reducing poverty, the inequality of resources and economic potential, economic and social injustices, the exploitation of persons, the accumulation of debts by poor countries, and the perverse mechanisms that impede the development of the less advanced countries.
READ MOREIn Rimini, there is a church that was built in honor of the Eucharistic miracle performed by Saint Anthony of Padua in 1227. This episode is cited in Begninitas, one of the most ancient sources regarding the life of Saint Anthony. “This saintly man was speaking with a faithless heretic who was opposed to the sacrament of the Eucharist and whom the saint had nearly led to the Catholic faith. But, after numerous arguments, this heretic declared: ‘If you, Anthony, produce a miracle and demonstrate to me that the Body of Christ is truly Communion, I will completely renounce my heresy and immediately convert to the Catholic faith.
READ MOREGemma had the most passionate love for Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. On the day of her first Communion she remarked: "I feel I am burning. I feel there is a fire kindled in my heart." This fire never went out, but in time became a devouring flame, so that one day the saintly girl could exclaim: "I feel love will finally conquer me, and that my soul, unable to love Jesus enough here on earth, will be in danger of being separated from my body. How blessed to love Jesus alone .... Oh father, if you could say in a few days time: 'Gemma was a victim of love and died of love.' What a blessed death! I would wish to be dissolved and that my heart might become ashes so that all could say: 'The heart of Gemma has been consumed by Jesus.' "
READ MOREThe Seventh Commandment: You Shall Not Steal
513. What is the meaning of work?
Work is both a duty and a right through which human beings collaborate with God the Creator. Indeed, by working with commitment and competence we fulfil the potential inscribed in our nature, honor the Creator’s gifts and the talents received from him, provide for ourselves and for our families, and serve the human community. Furthermore, by the grace of God, work can be a means of sanctification and collaboration with Christ for the salvation of others.
READ MORETo this day in Trani, Puglia, the relic of this miracle is housed in the Cathedral of Holy Mary of the Assumption. There are numerous documents which retell this miracle. Brother Bartolomeo Campi describes in his work, “L’Inamorato di Gesù Cristo” (1625), an accurate account: “Pretending to be Christian, the woman received Communion with the others… and took the consecrated Host from her mouth and transferred the Holy Eucharist to a handkerchief. Once home she wanted to experiment with whether or not the Blessed Sacrament was bread and put the consecrated Host into a heated frying pan filled with oil. Upon contact with the boiling oil, the consecrated Host miraculously became Bloody Flesh and a hemorrhage, so to speak, would not stop flowing and went from the pan all over the cursed woman and her house. Terrorized, the woman began to scream… and the neighbors ran over to find out the reasons behind her cries…”.
READ MOREClare was the first woman who followed St. Francis and his way of life. St. Francis appointed Clare as the women’s superior of the first convent they founded in 1215. Her community would soon be known as the Poor Clares. Wearing no shoes, fasting often, perpetually abstaining from meat and sleeping on the hard wood floors the sisters radically embraced a life of poverty and penance. Their embrace of poverty was only equaled by their embrace of prayer. Taking a vow of silence they rarely spoke except to sing God’s praises in the psalms and in prayer. As tough and extreme as their lives were, it did not stop the community from growing in numbers. Some in turn returned home and founded convents of Poor Clares in their own towns and cities.
READ MOREAbove all, the seventh commandment forbids theft, which is the taking or using of another’s property against the reasonable will of the owner. This can be done also by paying unjust wages; by speculation on the value of goods in order to gain an advantage to the detriment of others; or by the forgery of checks or invoices. Also forbidden is tax evasion or business fraud; willfully damaging private or public property; usury; corruption; the private abuse of common goods; work deliberately done poorly; and waste.
READ MOREOn March 28, 1171, Father Pietro da Verona was celebrating Easter Mass with three confreres. At the moment of the breaking of the consecrated Host, Blood gushed forth from the Host and threw large drops on the ceiling of the small crypt above the altar. Histories tell of the “holy fear of the celebrant and of the immense wonder of the people who crowded the tiny church.” There were many eyewitnesses who told of seeing the Host take on a Bloody color and having seen in the Host the figure of a Baby.
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