January 4, 2025
We may never know the effect that seeing Christ can have. In 1803, Elizabeth Ann Seton, an Episcopalian mother of five children, went to Italy for her husband to recuperate from tuberculosis, and on the Feast of Corpus Christi, she came upon a Eucharistic procession. Seeing the Blessed Sacrament, she immediately fell to her knees, because she realized that she had seen God.
She prayed, “If I am right, Thy grace impart still in the right to stay. If I am wrong, oh, teach my heart to find the better way.”
Jesus answered her prayer. After her husband died, she stayed in Italy and later converted to Catholicism because of her love for the Eucharist. St. Elizabeth Ann Seton eventually founded the Sisters of Charity … inspired by that encounter with Christ on a street in Italy.
St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, the first native-born American saint, is the patron of widows, and we celebrate her feast on January 4, the day she died in 1821.
St. Teresa of Calcutta, who understood the centrality of the Eucharist to our faith and spiritual life, said: “The time you spend with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is the best time you will spend on Earth. The good news is Jesus is here with us TODAY — Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity – in the Holy Eucharist. Although Jesus comes to us under the appearance of bread and wine, his presence is as real to us now as he was flesh-and-blood-real to his disciples when he walked this Earth. He can perform miracles, heal us, teach us, and love us. We can talk to him and he can speak to us.”
So every day, celebrate the true and enduring treasure of the Blessed Sacrament. It will change your life.
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