IN LOVE WITH THE MOST HOLY EUCHARIST

Many congratulations to Heidi Hess Saxton for her book, Eucharistic Stories: A Family Treasury of Saints and Seekers. With tenderness and warmth she conveyed the story of the Christ Child appearing over the consecrated Host in Peru during the mid 1600s. Reading it causes the heart to soar; a Franciscan monk, Fr. Jerome was about to return the Host to the tabernacle when he and his congregation beheld the charming Divine Child appear before their very eyes with 3 white dots over His Heart to signify the Trinity. 

Then with motherly compassion, Hess Saxton includes the story of London-born Blessed Carlo Acutis, "the Millennial Saint" who used his pocket money to buy a sleeping bag for a homeless fellow. He developed such an appreciation for the Real Presence that when he was diagnosed with leukemia, he asked his parents if he could spend his last days visiting shrines devoted to Eucharistic miracles. Carlo died at 15. He died of blood cancer but he is our model for how to adore the Precious Blood.

Showing her own tremendous faith in the Body and Blood of Christ, there is the miracle that took place in the German city of Ratisbonne during the 1200s. A priest was in a terrible hurry, he was bringing the Eucharist to someone in their death throes and he scampered across a plank of wood that was a makeshift bride over a rushing stream. In his haste, the priest slipped and the ciborium containing the Sacred Species was dashed into the swells. 

Beside himself with guilt, the priest couldn't forgive himself, and even though his faithful, hard-working German parishioners sought to build a chapel over the stream where the Host  had dissolved in water would always be worshipped at that exact site, this conscientious priest could not believe the Lord had pardoned his carelessness. Years later the priest was offering Mass and the wooden crucifix above the alter suddenly became real, the Flesh and Blood Jesus appeared with His arms outstretched lovingly as though to cuddle all of them. But specifically, all the congregation saw Jesus as the Merciful Savior who was taking the guilt-ridden priest into his embrace.

The reader has a palpable sense of how much Hess Saxton has a joy in the great consolation that the priest received by this miracle of Jesus embracing him and turning the doubt in himself to total faith in Him.

These are only 3 snapshots of 40 stories that happened all over the globe, down through the ages each with a twist as unique as the saint whose insatiable hunger for the Eucharist and reliance on the Sacred Species gave them the sanctity that made them our intercessors in Heaven. Oh, that we would have their zeal for the Body and Blood of Christ! It may be cultivated if we read Hess Saxton's book and give it to others that they may feast at the banquet of the Divine Savior in this life. The wondrous thing about giving a gift of this book is that you may be helping make others saints like the ones who are profiled, and who populate Heaven as we speak.

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This post was based on Heidi Hess Saxton's book, Eucharistic Stories: A Family Treasury of Saints and Seekers. It can be read by all the family and was written with the intention that parents could read it with their children of all ages.