Our century is the age of martyrs. This is true not only in the number of those who have died for the faith since 1900; not only in the hatred of Catholic Christianity for its uncompromising stand on: abortion, sodomy, adultery, sexual promiscuity and euthanasia, but for the Church's exposure of the godless economic and political war on the human family. Nor is this all. As St. Paul is at such pains to tell us, "Where sin abounds, there grace even more abounds. Who would doubt that the enemies of Christ are using the media of communication - as never before - to discredit the Catholic Church in the minds of millions. These anti-Christs have their own demonic agenda, and they are pursuing it to the limit, or better, beyond the limits of all sane morality.

From this sobering fact, our faith comes to the rescue. We believe the 21st century will be the most glorious in the annals of Catholic Christianity. God wants it to be. But we must wake up to reality. It is actually a cluster of realities: We today are to merit miraculous graces for our descendants in the next century. How? By living heroic lives of faith, courage, zeal and superhuman charity. So far from being crushed or silenced by criticism or opposition, we are to thrive on them. They are the channels of moral strength which only God can provide.

In order to obtain these graces for the future - in fact also for the present - we must daily receive Jesus in the Holy Eucharist.  Never, never before in the Church's history have believing Catholics had more need of the superhuman fortitude that only Christ can give, the same Christ Who told us: "Have courage! I have overcome the world"

When St. Peter Julian Eymard wrote: "Give me the Eucharist, or let me die," he was not indulging in pious exaggeration. he was, in effect, saying that without the Holy Eucharist the world would spiritually die. He was also saying that, except for the Holy Eucharist, the world would long ago have morally died. he was finally saying that if the modern world is to be saved from suicidal pride and lust and greed, it will be through the Holy Eucharist.

For our purpose, this means through the daily reception of Holy Communion by a believing Catholic. But they must be believing Catholics. Catholics must believe that when they receive the Holy Eucharist, they receive the same Jesus Christ, Who was conceived by the Virgin Mary at Nazareth. They must believe that the Eucharist they receive is the same Jesus Christ Who worked the miracles of raising a naturally dead Lazarus back to physical life, and a spiritually dead Dismas back to the spiritual life on Calvary. They must believe that daily Holy Communion is not a luxury but a necessity. Why?

Because Jesus told us: "Without Me you can do nothing." We need Jesus Christ every day. That is the first meaning of the petition of the Lord's Prayer. "Give us this day our daily bread." St. Pius X makes this plain when he tells us what is frequent Communion. It is daily Holy Communion. One question still remains: how do we grow in the faith which underlies the daily reception of Holy Communion? We grow in this faith by daily spending some time in adoration before the Most Blessed Sacrament. I see no choice. Jesus Christ is on earth in the Holy Eucharist. In the Tantum Ergo we sing, "Praestet fides supplementum sensuum defectui..." (Let faith supply for what the senses fail to see)

What do the sense fail to see? They fail to see a man Who we believe is the incarnate God. How important is this? Considerably important. To believe in the Real Presence means to believe that God became man; that this Man, conceived and born of Mary, and Who died and rose from the dead, is nevertheless on earth in the Blessed Sacrament. He is with us in the Tabernacle. He is within us when we receive Him in Holy Communion. When we receive Him, He is just as truly, fully, physically in us as He was in Mary's womb during the 9 months She carried Him. Mary believed in the Real Presence of Jesus in her body during the Visitation. That is why the moment Her greeting sounded in Elizabeth's  ears the unborn John was sanctified in his mother's womb.

Mary is our modal of faith in the Real Presence. Except for her faith, we would not have the incarnation or the Eucharist, or the Real Presence. But given Her faith, we know what wonders Jesus will work through us, provided we believe.

 
Excerpts from: Father John A Harden, S.J.  Ave Maria Magazine.