Fr. Nate's Letter - August 25, 2024

A few weeks back I was looking for some information in the parish office. I know the secretaries would have been able to tell me right away the information that I needed but the office had already closed and the secretaries had gone home for the day. So I started to look for what I was searching for and found all sorts of things I wasn’t looking for. I suppose we all have those moments. But one of the things that caught my eye and was successful in distracting me was some old photos of days past here at the Basilica. Specifically some portraits of the first Communicants dressed in their finery with Monsignor Dolan present in the middle aisle, and row after row of boys and girls who, I suppose, might even be grandparents by this point in time. You can see how happy the children in these pictures were on that happy day in their lives. Our first Communion day was a day every one of us had, and probably looked forward to, that we would be receiving the Lord in the Holy Eucharist for the first time. 

Having looked forward so much to my own first Communion, I always felt that we owed a particular saint whose feast we celebrated midweek this past week, a debt of gratitude. As I’m sure you know it wasn’t always the practice of the Church that one would have the privilege of receiving the Lord at such young age or with much frequency. You would attend church but not dare to draw near to receive. It was Pope St. Pius X, the little boy who grew up in such simplicity and poverty, that would carry his shoes to school because his family couldn’t afford a second pair, eventually becoming the successor to St. Peter in 1903 who granted us this gift. Encouraging the frequent reception of Holy Communion by the faithful, but also lowering to the age of reason first reception of the Holy Eucharist. I don’t know if you’ve ever had the opportunity to take a good look at some of the windows that we have here in Church, but when the decision was made about which images of the different saints would greet us each week, St. Pius X is one of them, and it reminds us of the gift he gave to us, because you’ll see there accompanying him five young children in their first Communion garb along with an image of the Holy Eucharist.

These last several weeks, as you and I have been coming to church, our readings have certainly been reminding us of the beautiful gift that the Lord has given you and me in the Holy Eucharist. Really how sad life would be and how distant God would seem apart from His presence here. The Eucharist is the source of our life as we’ve been reminded in so many ways. Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life, but whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life.  Hearing these words certainly reminds us of what we believe: That this is Jesus; also, maybe, to go back to our own first Communion day and rekindle that joy, that love that we had for the Lord when we first received him. 

So as we wrap up the Bread of Life discourse in St. John’s Gospel where we’ve been reminded by the Lord of who it is that we come to when we receive the Holy Eucharist, St. Pius has a beautiful reminder in which he says, “my children, Holy Communion is the surest and shortest way to heaven. There are others, innocence for instance, but that is for little children. Penance, but we are afraid of it. Generous endurance of the trials of life, but they come and we weep and ask to be spared. No, my children, the surest, easiest, and shortest way is by the Eucharist. It is so easy to approach the holy table, and there we taste the joys of paradise.” 

Just another reason to keep a priority of coming to Mass. Apart from it we have no life, and here we taste the joys of paradise.  

Wishing you all God’s blessings this week!

Keeping you in prayer, and say one for me!