Having taken some time for quiet prayer, after receiving Jesus in the Eucharist, the liturgy brings the Communion Rite to a conclusion with the Prayer after Communion.  This prayer, similar to that of the Opening Collect, though brief in nature, can be a profound prayer to express in words what we desire in our hearts, having just welcomed the Lord anew into ourselves.  The General Instruction of the Roman Missal describes this prayer in this way:

To bring to completion the prayer of the People of God, and also to conclude the whole Communion Rite, the Priest pronounces the Prayer after Communion, in which he prays for the fruits of the mystery just celebrated. (n. 89)

Perhaps the best way to appreciate this prayer is to look at a couple of examples, the first of which I will take from next Sunday’s Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, also known as Corpus Christi.  Here are the words the Church gives us to conclude our prayer on that solemnity, words which I think summarize what we desire every time we receive Holy Communion:

Grant, O Lord, we pray,
that we may delight for all eternity
in that share in your divine life,
which is foreshadowed in the present age
by our reception of your precious Body and Blood.
Who live and reign for ever and ever.

Another example that I find particularly beautiful, and which highlights how this sacrament of charity commits us to greater love of God and neighbor, comes from the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, which will be celebrated the Friday after Corpus Christi.  Here are the words of that prayer:

May this sacrament of charity, O Lord,
make us fervent with the fire of holy love,
so that, drawn always to your Son,
we may learn to see him in our neighbor.
Through Christ our Lord.

In last week’s bulletin article, I encouraged the importance of taking time for silent prayer after receiving the Eucharist.  I provided some examples, but I can also suggest that this Prayer after Communion can also be something we pray personally, before praying it communally, such that having reflected on the words briefly in silence, they will be all the more fruitful when we hear them proclaimed by the celebrant as we bring the Communion Rite to a close.

How beautiful indeed are these prayers that our Mother, the Church gives to us to pray during the Mass!  I want to repeat something I wrote about the Opening Collect, words which I think apply equally as well to the Prayer after Communion.  “In addition to praying with the readings of the Mass as a good way to prepare for Mass, praying with the Prayer after Communion can also be very fruitful, so do not overlook these gems that the Church offers to us as sources of rich reflection and meditation.”

Father Alford     

Bl. Juliana of Liège

First stop: Bolsena, Italy, 1253 AD. A German priest, Peter of Prague, was on his way to Rome. He was almost there, just 60 miles away, and had stopped in that little town to celebrate Mass at a small church dedicated to the martyr St. Christina. The fact was he was on pilgrimage to Rome because he was struggling to believe that the bread and wine became Jesus’ Body and Blood when he spoke the words of consecration. 

It was only a few decades before that the Fourth Lateran Council – among a whole lot of other things – had formally used the word “transubstantiation” to describe the change that happened to the bread and wine at Mass. Of course, even the simplest Christian and dozens of the greatest bishops and fathers of the Church from the earliest days of the Church had believed that when Jesus said “this is my Body”, and when the priest said it, it was true, it happened. But that radical truth is not easy to understand, and so a smattering of theologians over the centuries had tried to rationalize it away, leading to the aforementioned clarification from Lateran IV. In any case, Fr. Peter was no theologian, nor heretic, but as he prayed those perennial words “hoc est enim Corpus Meum” [“this is My Body”], his heart still questioned. 

And then the host began to bleed.

Second stop: Orvieto, Italy, April 27^th, 2015 AD. The bishop of Orvieto, a small city a dozen miles west of Bolsena, was finally receiving the results from a project that experts had been conducting during that entire season of Lent. You see, when Fr. Peter had found his Mass interrupted by the very visible presence of Jesus’ Body and Blood, he had done the sensible thing and humbly gone to the bishop in Orvieto to confess his doubt, and ask what ought to be done with the blood that he dripped from his trembling hands upon the altar and corporal. The bishop, with Pope Urban IV tagging along since he was actually living there at the time, hastened to see the miracle for themselves, and brought it back in great solemnity to the bigger city. Within a year Urban IV would be the first Pope to instate a universal feast day for Holy Roman Church, enlisting St. Thomas Aquinas, to formulate prayers for the Mass and Office of that day, with Tantum Ergo spilling from choir lofts and congregations ever since.

Fast forward 800 years, and Ester Giovacchini, an expert in conservative restoration and ancient fabrics, was concluding her presentation to the modern Bishop of Orvieto, with the results of her microscopic examination of that same corporal. Like his predecessor, his own faith was rekindled. It is not wine stains that spot the ancient square of linen, but plasma and serum of human blood dating back to when Fr. Peter’s shaking hands held that bleeding host. 

But the feast of Corpus Christi predated Lateran IV’s First Canon, Urban IV’s “Transiturus de hoc mundo”, Thomas Aquinas’s “Pange Lingua”, or Peter of Prague’s doubt.

Third stop: Liège, Belgium, 1198 AD. A little girl, Juliana, was orphaned when both her parents died, and so ended up with her sister being raised at the Norbertine convent of Mont-Cornillon. The quiet, bookish, girl loved to read the theology of Augustine and Bernard, but also to care for the sick and lepers – hers was a deep faith, combined with a deep charity. As a young lay woman, she began having visions of the moon, marred by a dark spot, as she prayed to Jesus about its meaning, she came to know that the Church needed to better celebrate the gift of the Blessed Sacrament. Turmoil was all around. In Juliana’s life, a corrupt priest ran her out of town the simple dwelling of a nearby anchoress. But it was that pious woman who convinced Juliana to share her hope with the bishop, to help draft a set of prayers and hymns for such a feast, all of which was also shared with the Archdeacon of Liège, Jacques Pantaléon. 

He went to the Council of Leon I some decades later, impressed Pope Innocent IV, was sent to negotiate various big and important situations in Germany, Jerusalem, and France. And then was elected Pope Urban IV, who found himself on one important afternoon staying with the Bishop of Orvieto.

When St. Thomas Aquinas finished his office for the great feast of Corpus Christi, the first antiphon of vespers for the evening before Corpus Christi – the very first line to be chanted around by every priest and nun and layperson around the Christian world – was not written by the great Dominican. He knew he could do no better than what had been already penned by a little-known pious lay-woman up in Belgium:

Animarum cibus Dei | Food for souls
sapientia nobis | the wisdom of God has offered to us
carnem assumptam proposuit in edulium | for the flesh that He has assumed
ut per cibum humanitatis | so that through the food of humanity
invitaret ad gustum divinitatis | He may invite us to taste of divinity.

– Fr. Dominic can resonate with Peter of Prague. How is it that God would love us so much to become food we can eat … would love me so much as to enter the world in my hands?! Perhaps rather than questioning, we would better to emulate Juliana and simply smile when His Love surpasses our mind’s capacity to understand, and our heart’s capacity to love.

As we receive Holy Communion, we receive the greatest gift possible, the gift of Jesus Christ in His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity.  We are never so close to Him than when we receive the Eucharist.  Some might object, saying that they can experience Jesus better in other ways, such as out in nature or in the quiet of their homes.  “God is everywhere”, so the argument goes.  Regarding Christ’s presence par excellence in the Eucharist, the Catechism explains it this way:

The mode of Christ’s presence under the Eucharistic species is unique. It raises the Eucharist above all the sacraments as “the perfection of the spiritual life and the end to which all the sacraments tend.” In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist “the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained.” “This presence is called ‘real’ – by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be ‘real’ too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present.” (CCC 1374)

Since this is the case, then our quite prayer after receiving Holy Communion should be a very special moment for us, in which we savor His presence within us and speak to Him from the depths of our hearts in thanksgiving for His gift.

Perhaps one of the most helpful ways of entering into this prayer is to close one’s eyes so as to not be distracted.  It can tempting to notice everybody else as they process to the altar and then back to their pews.   We might see friends who we want to catch up with after Mass.  But our focus at this point should really be on the Lord.  Focusing on others at this point is sort of like having somebody talk to us, yet not looking at them.  It is disrespectful.  Our experience of worship at Mass is indeed communal, so there is always a horizontal dimension to it, by which we pray with and for those gathered with us.  We even direct our attention to individuals when making the Sign of Peace.  But at Mass, the primary focus is the vertical dimension.  We are there first and foremost to worship God, to enter more fully into communion with Him, and as we receive the Eucharist, that vertical dimension is our focus.

One of my favorite prayers to pray after receiving Holy Communion comes from a beautiful prayer composed by St. Pio of Pietrelcina, better known as Padre Pio.  There are several petitions that he makes to Jesus, but they all start in a similar way: “Stay with me, Lord”  You can look up the full prayer online, but I find it a powerful prayer to just say over and over: “Stay with me, Lord.”  Another beautiful prayer that many people love to pray after Holy Communion is the Anima Christi, which is Latin for “Soul of Christ”, the first words of the prayer.  Here it is in full:

Soul of Christ, sanctify me.
Body of Christ, save me.
Blood of Christ, inebriate me.
Water from the side of Christ, wash me.
Passion of Christ, strengthen me.
O good Jesus, hear me.
Within Thy Wounds hide me.
Suffer me not to be separated from Thee.
From the malignant enemy, defend me.
In the hour of my death, call me,
And bid me come to Thee.
That with Thy saints, I may praise Thee.
Forever and ever.  Amen.

The words do not need to be complicated or long.  In fact, no words are needed.  Just being quiet, knowing with firm faith that Jesus is with you, is enough and can express more than words ever can.  Whatever you choose to do with this prayer, the most important thing to do is to not omit it.  What a truly special and sacred moment we miss for intimacy with Our Lord if we fail to spend a few moments in recollection with Him.

Father Alford     

Feast Day: May 19^th  

DNF is the acronym for “Did Not Finish” and shows up next to an athlete’s name when they began a race but never cross the finish line. Perhaps they got injured, or gave up half-way through, but for whatever reason they did not complete the course. To fail to finish is never in someone’s plans for the day, but it happens, and their response to it often shows more of the character of the person than those who finish strong and make it seem easy.

Here is the opening line of one of the articles I read about Celestine V in preparing for this article (from Catholicnewsagency.com): “Celestine is a saint who will always be remembered for the unique manner in which he was elected Pope, for his spectacular incompetence in that office, and for the distinction of being the first pontiff ever to have resigned.” I suspect none of us want “spectacular incompetence” next to our name in the record books. But if I may ask an important question: Where is Celestine now? Right now, he is at peace, in heaven, with all the saints in the blessed presence of God, filled with a joy and fulfillment and freedom and glory that all of our hearts yearn for. What matters in life is NOT whether others count it a success but whether Our Lord does! 

Celestine was born Pietro di Murrone, in the Kingdom of Sicily, to a poor family with many siblings whose father, Angelo, died when he was young. His mother, Maria, surely struggling, would still ask her children “which one of you is going to become a saint?” Little Peter piped up “Me, mama! I’ll become a saint!” He worked the fields like his father for a time, but eventually set off to become a Benedictine monk at the age of 17 eventually growing in virtue sufficientlyto retire to a cavern in the Marrone mountains, there gaining a reputation for great holiness and asceticism. He would pray and read the scriptures, model his penances after those of John the Baptist, and keep himself from temptation by working the rest of the time. And, typical for someone seeking radical holiness, others were inspired by his example and followed him into the mountains. 

At first the group was called the Murronites or the Hermits of San Damiano, but as the intense life of his order exploded in popularity Pietro found it necessary to affiliate it with the Benedictines. (The Church, following the Second Council of Lyon, was pruning the number of upstart religious orders, asking that they be connected with longstanding and upstanding communities). With several hundred monks and a few dozen monasteries, Pietro handed the reigns off to one of his disciples and returned to his solitude and sacrifice. 

The decades rolled by, and when Pietro was closing in on his eighth decade the cardinals who were supposed to be electing the next Pope had dallied around for two years with no decision. The Church, as it turns out, is made up of human beings and takes within herself the woundedness and sinfulness and political machinations that we find inside each of our hearts, and so the famous monk pens a letter to the cardinals, warning that re bay operating by worldly standards, failing God, sullying Christ, and risking His judgement. 

The old, ill, dean of the College of Cardinals cried out “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, I elect brother Pietro di Morrone!” The other cardinals followed suit, and so we find ourselves with the hilarious scene of the cardinals and princes trekking out to Pietro’s remote hermitage pleading with him to take on the responsibility of Pope. He eventually agrees, but it turns out hermits are not necessarily great popes! He was saintly, but a disastrous leader. Swayed by the politics that swirled around him, his papal decrees were divisive or impractical. As Advent of 1294 approached, he delegated three cardinals to lead the church since he wanted to fast and prepare for Christmas. (They refused.) Inquiring whether it was permissible, he issued one final decree, declaring that a Pope has the right to resign, which he promptly did after only 5 months as pope. He failed. He did not finish. 

And he didn’t even get to go back to his hermitage. Celestine’s successor was afraid he could become a rival anti-pope, so he imprisoned Celestine where the holy hermit would die several months later. That successor, Boniface VIII, would go on to be one of the strongest political figures of his age, clashing spectacularly with kings and emperors, and establishing the Church’s practice of celebrating Jubilees ever 25 or 50 years in 1300. But while he was celebrating worldy victories, Celestine was simply thanking God in his prison: “You wanted a cell, Peter, and a cell you have.” Celestine is now canonized a saint, Boniface is not. We must ask whether he traded many worldly victories for an eternal loss. Let us pray that he did not! 

– Fr. Dominic recently found himself walking and jogging the final two miles of the Boston Marathon, a personal-best slipping out of his grasp. Failure IS an option. It is the right option if it leads to our greater sanctity.

Having addressed the postures associated with preparing to receive Holy Communion, let us continue to consider the actual act of receiving Holy Communion.  As we know, it is legitimate for one to receive Holy Communion on the tongue or in the hand.  Some have strong feelings on either side about this, and I am not going to really weigh in on that debate.  Since the Church permits either form, we should refrain from uncharitable or presumptuous thoughts on the matter.  With regard to receiving Holy Communion in the hand, the USCCB offers the following helpful instruction:

Those who receive Communion may receive either in the hand or on the tongue, and the decision should be that of the individual receiving, not of the person distributing Communion. If Communion is received in the hand, the hands should first of all be clean. If one is right handed the left hand should rest upon the right. The host will then be laid in the palm of the left hand and then taken by the right hand to the mouth. If one is left-handed this is reversed. It is not appropriate to reach out with the fingers and take the host from the person distributing.

There may be some limited exceptions in how one receives in the hand, such as arthritis, but note that last point that we are never to take the host, grabbing with our fingers.  Rather, in a spirit of humility, we receive in the way described above.  I would also encourage you to ensure that your hands are flat, not tiled, lest the host slide off to the ground.  And avoid making a V shape, which is sort of like a funnel as there is risk again of dropping the host.

When receiving on the tongue, it is important to ensure there is an ample “landing pad” for the Eucharist.  Some people barely open their mouth and it can become a trial of hand-eye coordination to insert the Eucharist into a small slot, sometimes resulting in “missing the mark” and getting poked in the lip (sorry for those I have unintentionally done that to).  Please also avoid biting down as soon as the Eucharist is on your tongue.  Let the host enter into your mouth.  I have had many close calls when I have almost been bit while distributing Holy Communion.

I share these anecdotes and encouragements from the perspective of one who has distributed the Eucharist to many people.  98 percent of the time, there is no issue, but every so often, there is something that makes the exchange a little awkward, so I just invite all of us to examine how we receive the Lord at this important moment.

The next line in the above-referenced resource is also helpful:

The person distributing Communion says audibly to each person approaching, “The Body of Christ.”  This formula should not be altered, as it is a proclamation which calls for a response of faith on the part of the one who receives. The communicant should audibly respond, “Amen,” indicating by that response his or her belief that this small wafer of bread, the wine in this chalice are in reality the body and blood of Christ the Lord.

Perhaps you have encountered the practice of a priest or deacon saying your name, then saying “the Body of Christ.”  While I can appreciate the pastoral gesture behind that action, it is not what the Church is asking of us.  Similarly, there is only really one response that the Church gives to us for receiving Holy Communion, and that is “Amen.”  It is not, “Thank you”, or “I believe”, or anything else.  Again, I can appreciate the intention behind such adaptations, but once again, in all humility, we are called to obedience to what the Church has given to us.  The liturgy is a gift given to us by the Church, a gift which we receive in gratitude as her servants, not her masters, free to adapt as we see fit.

Let me leave this reflection on one point, which, admittedly, is a bit of an annoyance to me.  When we receive Holy Communion, we are consuming Jesus Christ, and as such, we should do so with intentional reverence.  I can sometimes audibly heard people crunching away as they walk away, and it is a bit like fingernails on a chalkboard.  The Eucharist is a gift to savor, not one to hastily devour. 

For your reading pleasure, if you would like to read an article about the proper reception of Holy Communion, I find this one both helpful and somewhat humorous: https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/pastoral-guide-to-receiving-communion Father Alford   

Feast Day: May 12^th

If someday you get the chance to walk the Camino de Santiago and take the most popular “French route” to Compostela when you are about halfway across that northern section of Spain you’ll stop in the picturesque town of Santo Domingo de la Calzada and visit the cathedral in the center of town to get the all-important stamp on your pilgrim passport. But as you try to pray in the cool and dark church, like millions of pilgrims before you, you might get distracted by two hens scratching around the choir loft.

But to explain the hens we must first explain the name of the town. “Santo Domingo de la Calzada” literally means “Saint Dominic of the Causeway”, recalling the bridges and other infrastructure that St. Dominic built for the pilgrims traversing that part of the Camino. Now, the St. Dominic we’re talking about lived about hundred years before the more famous St. Dominic Guzman (of the rosary), though neither of them were the first St. Dominic, because  St. Dominic of Silos, a Spanish abbot, lived some decades before either of them. (And all three of them lived several hundred years after the latest St. Dominic, Savio). Ok, enough St. Dominic’s for now, to explain how this specific Domingo got to that forested stretch of the Camino, and how he found his vocation there, we need to talk bugs.

Probably within a week of this article appearing before you, there will be billions of cicadas emerging around central Illinois. We (happily?) live in one of the few places on the planet where the geographical regions of the two groups of periodical cicadas overlap, AND you and I get to experience both broods, for the first time in over two hundred years, emerge the same summer. The eminent website. CicadaMania.com, has a highlighted line on their information page about these two major groups: “Special note: Brood XIX (19) will also emerge in 2024 [along with Brood XIII]. While the two broods do not overlap, they come closest in the Springfield, Illinois area.” Hurrah! Now, what has this to do with St. Dominic of the Causeway? Well, the reason he began his life’s work of caring for pilgrims on the camino was because of a similar swarm of bugs.

The people of Spain in the 1000s were starving because of a disasterous swarm of locusts. Now, locusts and cicadas are not the same insect, actually a swarm of locusts is far worse than a brood (or two) of cicadas because locusts eat crops (cicadas eat tree sap) and locusts swarm (in large enough numbers they eat every plant in the area and then move to another location to similarly decimate the vegetation there. Cicadas just die off.) Young Domingo, a hundred kilometers from these terrible bugs, was trying to be a hermit. He had turned away by from the Benedictines, but still felt a call to a life consecrated to God, so had not returned to his family’s work as shepherds).

Bishop Gregory IV of Ostia (a Benedictine as Providence would have it) was sent by Pope Leo IX to help the afflicted people there in Spain, and the bishop asked Domingo to join his charitable efforts amid the disaster. His invitation opened Dominic’s heart to the plight of the people around him, and with the bishop he learned how to build roads and bridges, to rebuild farms and infrastructure, and construct shelter for the distraught population. The bishop also ordained Dominic a priest, and send him back towards his hometown, not far from his old hermitage, having discovered how God wanted him to reflect His love into the world: caring for the pilgrims walking the Camino there.

And 300 years later a German family walked across that bridge that St. Dominic had built and stayed at one of the hostels in town. Their teenage son (wisely) rejected the advances of a teenage girl at the hostel they were staying at. She, distraught, angry, vengeful, hid a silver cup in the boy’s bag and then accused him of stealing it. According to the justice of the time, the seeming scoundrel was sentenced to be hung, a ghastly turn of events while on pilgrimage with his family to Compostela. His parents, praying to St. Domingo, buried there in the cathedral, tearfully approached their son’s body dead on the gallows … only to discover him alive again. They ran to the magistrate stammering about a miracle. He, in the middle of eating his chicken dinner, scoffed “Your son is as alive as this rooster and chicken that I was feasting on before you interrupted me.” And the rooster leapt up from his plate and began to sing! And so there are now chickens in the choir loft of Santo Domingo’s cathedral.

– Fr. Dominic takes one more lesson from St. Dominic’s life. Just as he had discovered his vocation because of the invitation of Bp. Gregory, he did the same for another young man, Juan de Ortega, who also was trying his hand at being a hermit, and who Dominic invited to risk a life of charity built on that foundation of contemplation. And so they worked together to care for the little Christ’s on their pilgrimage there, eventually creating the town we now know as Santo Domingo de la Calzada. Who can you invite to the adventure of Christian Love this week?

Having spent the entire Mass listening to the Word of God, increasing our hunger for the Lord, and praying through the Eucharistic Prayer, we now come to the moment of supreme joy, in which we come forward to receive Our Lord in this greatest of all gifts, the Holy Eucharist.

I have actually been thinking about this particular article for some time now, as I have often caught myself thinking, while distributing Holy Communion each day at Mass, noticing various things: “I’ll address that in a future article when I write about receiving Holy Communion.”  Well, now that that point in these reflections has come, I fear that I might not have enough space to put in writing all of the things that have been running through my head, but let me make a few observations.

First of all, please know that receiving Holy Communion at Mass is NOT required.  It is absolutely encouraged, but there may be circumstances when it is not possible to receive Holy Communion.  I could dedicate a full article, or two or three, on this topic, and perhaps that can be an appendix to these articles, but I just want to put that point out there.  The obligation to attend Mass each Sunday and Holy Day is not an obligation to receive the Eucharist.  Again, it is highly encouraged, but not absolutely required, and it is indeed virtuous to refrain from receiving if one is aware that they are not in a position to receive Our Lord.  If you are not able to receive, I highly recommend that you make an Act of Spiritual Communion.  

Next, let me say just a few things about our bodily postures when receiving Holy Communion.  Let me set the context by quoting what the Bishops of the United States have written on this topic:

The General Instruction asks each country’s Conference of Bishops to determine the posture to be used for the reception of Communion and the act of reverence to be made by each person as he or she receives Communion. In the United States, the body of Bishops has determined that “[t]he norm… is that Holy Communion is to be received standing, unless an individual member of the faithful wishes to receive Communion while kneeling” and that a bow is the act of reverence made by those receiving (no. 160).

Working backwards, the normal reverence made before receiving Holy Communion is a bow.  It is not uncommon for some of the faithful to genuflect before receiving Holy Communion.  Although I have no objection to this personally, I am mindful of what the Church is asking of us.  I can assure you, the Lord will not be offended if we put aside our preference for the sake of obedience what the Church asks of us.

Note also that the Church’s norm for receiving Holy Communion is standing, however in this case, there is an explicit permission given for receiving while kneeling if an individual member of the faithful should wish to receive in that way.  Once again, I offer no opinion on preference, for the Church offers both as valid options, but please avoid falling into playing the comparison game that often comes at this point of the Mass.  To presume that you are more reverent by kneeling to receive Holy Communion can be prideful.  If you receive while standing, and presume that those kneeling to receive are overly pious and somehow trying to make a show, that can be uncharitable.  So let us always keep obedience to the Church in mind, practicing humility regarding the legitimate preferences that can be exercised, and in all things, let us have charity in our hearts toward others as we prepare to receive the sacrament of charity in the Eucharist.

Well, this is what I was afraid of – having more to write than can fit in one article.  I will return in our next installment with a few more reflections on how it is we receive Holy Communion at Mass.

Father Alford     

Feast Day: May 5^th  
“God loves a cheerful giver.” – 2 Cor 9:7

When St. Paul writes to his little flock in Corinth he uses a particular word to describe generosity of a Christian – Hilaros / ἱλαρός – a kindness or stewardship that not reluctant, hesitant, forced, or begrudging, but is free, loving, joyous … cheerful! This is the root of the Latin term hilarus holding a similar meaning: lighthearted, merry, lively … cheerful. And that is the name St. Hilarius got when he was born! His surname, entirely pragmatic, would simply be “of Arles”, the diocese that he was bishop of at the end of his life. His life is (helpfully) bookended by an adjective and a location, and now prefaced by the title “Saint”, but there’s a bit more to his story than that.

Hilarius was born in Lorraine, France, around the year 403 A.D. We only know that he gave up a successful career to join St. Honoratus, possibly a relative, who had recently founded an Abbey on one of the islands of Lérin. Today you’d know where this is because it is located on the French Riviera, but back before 400, Roman records use the name “Lerina” to describe the uninhabited island. Caprasius of Lérins, a hermit, was the first person we know to live there, seeking solitude and prayer. Honoratus went on pilgrimage to the Holy Land with him, kindling a friendship, and his own sanctity, going on to become a hermit on the island as well. Honoratus found that his holiness attracted a following, so he established the first Abbey on the island in 410. Hilarius was drawn away from his career by the life and sanctity he saw in the Cistercian community there and joined the abbey when he was in his 20s. (Here’s a twist to the story, these saints may have met St. Patrick around this time, who is said to have spent some time in their abbey and was only 18 years older than Hilarius).

Now, Honoratus was both Abbot at Lérin, but also bishop of the important see of Arles. Hilarius became the natural successor of Honoratus as leader of the monastery when he died, and was also quickly picked to also be bishop of Arles. He was known for his austere life, his generosity to the poor, and for the emphasis he placed on the personal sanctity of his priests, organizing those assigned to his cathedral in Arles into a congregation of their own, committed with him to this life of simplicity and charity. 

But here is where the story takes a twist, and here is where this saint becomes a bit more like you and me. Hilarius, Bishop of Arles, also had responsibility over other sees in the area (perhaps nowadays we would call him the Metropolitan Archbishop, though it seems with greater authority over those regional bishops). He took this to mean that he was primate over the whole of South Gaul, something that an earlier predecessor, Patroclus of Arles had exercised. This, though, led to a power struggle with Bp. Chelidonus, of Besançon, who was claiming a similar authority. Hilarius deposed Chelidonus, who appealed to Rome, where Pope Leo I had recently succeeded to the papal throne. (That would be Pope St. Leo the Great, who was hard at work bringing Pelagians and Manicheans back into the fold, and who’s most famous deed, facing down Atilla the Hun, would not happen for another 7 or 8 years). 

Leo sided against Hilarius. 

Our saintly bishop was deprived of the right to consecrate bishops, call synods, oversee the other dioceses in his province, and his entire claim to be Primate of Gaul was abolished. Leo had this decision officially sanctioned by the Emperor, Valentian III, and we still have the line from his decree that must have so pained Hilarius, “ut episcopis Gallicanis omnibusque pro lege esset quidquid apostolicae sedis auctoritas sanxisset.” “Therefore, whatever the authority of the apostolic see had sanctioned shall be [law] for the Gallican bishops and for all the law.” (Novelae Valent. iii. tit. 16). We have no record of how Hilarius received this news; certainly it overturned his understanding of the responsibility given to him and more than likely it called into question all that he had been working on and all that he thought had been successful and fruitful about his work as a bishop or even a leader in the Church. But success is not a prerequisite for sanctity.

– Fr. Dominic has occasionally had his projects or plans taken away from him. It stings. But St. Hilarius offers an example to all of us that the sadness of seeing many years of work overturned or misunderstood, whether his fault or not, did not overturn the love that God had for him or the example of holiness that he could still give. We do not know exactly how he responded, but five years later when he passed onto his reward, the Church acclaimed him a saint. Whatever conversion was needed had happened; whatever grace Hilarius need to receive, or give, had been found. A cheerful giver, in many ways during his life, and certainly when it counted at the end.

The celebrant of the Mass is always the first person to receive Holy Communion, which is received slightly differently from how the rest of the faithful receive.  There is no minister to say to the priest: “The Body of Christ.”  If you pay close attention, you may see the priest whispering some words before he communicates.  Here is what he says: “May the Body of Christ keep me safe for eternal life.”  He says the same thing when receiving from the Chalice, with the exception of replacing the word “Body” with “Blood.”

In the resource that I mentioned last week, Explanation of Prayers and Ceremonies of Holy Mass, there is a beautiful reflection that helps us in understanding this prayer, not just as it applies to the priest, but as it applies to all who receive Our Lord in the Eucharist:

The Priest speaks as if he were to communicate but once only in his life. One communion would of itself be sufficient to preserve our soul unto Life Eternal, for such is the intrinsic efficacy of this Divine Sacrament, provided for our wants by God.

(Dom Prosper Guéranger, Explanation of Prayers and Ceremonies of Holy Mass, 64)

Although it may be a bit of a sobering thought, this reflection invites us to consider the final time we will receive Holy Communion.  At every Mass, it is quite possible that this may be the very last time we receive Holy Communion.  If we actually knew that to be the case, how differently would we prepare our hearts to receive Jesus in the Eucharist?  Again, this might be a bit of a sobering thought, and I do not mean to strike panic in our hearts by thinking of it, but we also have the rather ominous words that Jesus Himself left us: “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” (Mt 25:13)  So why wouldn’t we want to make every reception of Holy Communion as devout as possible, for it has the power to grant us eternal life!

The Church desires to feed her children with the Bread of Life at the very end of their earthly journey.  One of the so-called “Last Rites” is to receive Holy Communion as viaticum.  Here is what the Catechism of the Catholic Church says: “As the sacrament of Christ’s Passover the Eucharist should always be the last sacrament of the earthly journey, the ‘viaticum’ for ‘passing over’ to eternal life.” (CCC 1517)  There are people who receive viaticum at home or in their hospital beds as they are about to die, and there are those who, unknowingly, receive viaticum at the last Mass they ever attended.  There is actually something very consoling about this, for if the thought of not knowing when the Lord will come to call us home fills us with anxiety, we are given the peace of knowing that the last Eucharist we received is a powerful grace to help us in passing over into the promise of Eternal Life in Heaven.  All the more reason to make sure we are going to Mass every Sunday, if not more frequently, for doing so in the state of grace will be the best means we have of being prepared for that unknown day and unknown hour.

The fact that we do not know when it will be the last time we receive Holy Communion should make every time we receive Holy Communion special.  It reminds me of the words that St. Teresa of Calcutta asked to be printed in the sacristy of every chapel of the Missionaries of Charity for the priests to reflect on: “Priest of Jesus Christ celebrate this Holy Mass as if it were your first Mass, your last Mass, your only Mass.”  We can easily adapt that to our reception of Holy Communion, priest or not:  “Son/Daughter of Jesus Christ, receive this Eucharist as if it were your first Eucharist, your last Eucharist, your only Eucharist.”

Father Alford     

Feast Day: April 28^th 

Luchesio Modestini was far from living up to his surname. 

He grew up in the lovely and abundant region of Tuscany, in Italy (so, around the time, and not far from St. Francis). He had begun life, not unlike the poverello of Assisi, with dreams of being a soldier but had discovered the wealth and privilege that came from outfitting pilgrims on their way to Rome and had thus turned his dreams towards the life of a merchant and moneylender. His name meant “modest”, but he quickly outstripped that adjective, growing prosperous from his sales, marrying a woman we only know as “Buonadonna” [literally “lovely-woman”], and gaining a reputation as unfeeling and greedy. 

But around the age of 30 God’s grace broke into his comfortable life. 

We don’t know exactly what happened.  Did he encounter the newly converted St. Francis (they had known each other before both being merchants)? Did the pilgrims he was fleecing finally show him a joy that he didn’t find in money? Did a fellow merchant question why he was so fixated on wealth and success? We just know that he had the grace to realize the foolishness of striving merely for worldly goods, none of which would matter much in just a few more decades. He discovered that he had a soul. He discovered that eternal joy was more important that the passing delights he had given much of his early life to stockpiling. 

Now, it is always interesting to see how conversions actually play out because often the Lord’s converting our hearts does not happen instantaneously, and so was the case with Luchesio. He began simply, but concretely, but practicing the works of mercy – feeding the poor, going out of his way to help the sick or lonely, learning to love people again. And, alongside of this he resumed the life of a faithful Catholic – going to Mass, repenting of his sins, praying each day. It would not have seemed much to a time when most people lived that kind of life, but for Luchesio these were the small steps that allowed the tremendous gift of God’s joy and freedom to break back into his life. 

Buonadonna discovered a different, much better, person in her husband as he began this journey. Her own heart was moved away from the comforts and avarice that had been her highest goods to that point, and she discovered, like Luchesio, that what she really wanted – what really made her happy – was the life of a disciple, of generosity, piety, hope, and prayer. Together the couple decided to take a much more decisive step after the Lord: they gave away most of their property, retaining only enough land to provide for their daily needs, and leaving their hearts open to whatever God asked of them next. 

Many people in that region were being moved at this time by the example and words of St. Francis, though his only formal followers were the brothers who were forming the fledgling Order of Friars Minor (the First Order Franciscans) and the nuns beginning to collect around St. Clare (Second Order Franciscans). But then Luchesio and Buonadonna hosted the saintly deacon at their home in Poggibonzi, moving him by their story of conversion and penitence, and asking him for instructions on how to continue forward as a couple seeking radical holiness. 

St. Francis’s dream of developing a way of life for lay people to follow the call into simplicity and humility that God had given to him was inspired and concretized by this couple. Out of their friendship came what would become the Third Order of St. Francis, originally called simply the Order of Penance, but honed and expanded over the years to include not only lay people affiliated with the Franciscan Order but also the groups of active religious sisters who also live lives of poverty in the world, examples to all of us of Christ’s own freedom and utter dependency on God. 

Now, it wasn’t as if this couple lived their life as the first Franciscan Tertiaries perfectly for the rest of their days. There were times when Luchesio’s radical generosity was inconsiderate of Buonadonna; though then again, when once she frustratingly exploded when he gave away the last of their food, he gently asked her to look in the pantry again only to find it filled with the best of bread. Would we would see similar miracles if we chose similar confidence in God? They took plague victims into their home, risking their health, and the ridicule of others because they really saw Jesus in each invalid. 

Eventually Luchesio grew sick, and his distraught wife begged that she could die with him. “Implore God, who gave us to each other as companions in life, to permit us also to die together” she asked Luchesio. So they prayed, and so it happened. She died shortly before him, both having received the last sacraments before they passed.

– Fr. Dominic recently ran the Boston Marathon. He successfully discovered his own poverty at mile 24 when he found himself walking instead of setting a new (personal) record for the 26.2 mile race. Sometimes the Lord knows He needs to slow us down to a walk to help us discover what is really important in life, and maybe the path to radical holiness that you couldn’t see till then.