Love Compelled Her

Perhaps you have heard the story of the 90-yr old blind woman, Lola Pedring, who insisted to go to Mass every Sunday. “You are already exempted,” her daughter told her. “Besides you cannot see anymore.”

Lola Pedring answered, “I cannot see but I can hear the proclamation of the Word of God. I cannot see but I can receive communion of the Body of the Lord who I have loved all my life.” 50 years, she served as a catechist, teaching young children that the Holy Eucharist is Jesus Christ himself.

But of course, early on, there were those who did not believe in the presence of our Lord in the Holy Eucharist. Like the Docetists. Jesus is God. He can never be human. The body that he has is only an illusion. So, the Eucharist is an illusion of an illusion.

Another version would be that Jesus was totally human. He can never be divine. At the baptism at the river Jordan, Christ entered into him in the form of a dove, empowering him to make miracles and wonders. When his body died on the cross, Christ left and abandoned the body because it was no longer of any use to him.

Docetism was declared by the first council of Nicea as heretical. This is what we believe in: that Jesus Christ is true God and true man. Integrally one. The mystery of the incarnation. The Son is substantially one with the Father and the Holy Spirit. The Mystery of the Holy Trinity, three persons in one God as biblically revealed.

The Son sacrificed his life on the cross to redeem us. The Father accepts his offering. The Son commands us to repeat this sacrifice in remembrance of him during the Last Supper. The whole Catholic Church obeys. St. Justin testifies in the first century, as recorded in a Roman court: “We eat the flesh of Christ and we drink his blood on a Sunday which is the day of the Lord!”

Studying the early Church Fathers, renowned Protestant historian J. N. D. Kelly, writes: “Eucharistic teaching [during the early church] … is unquestioningly “realist,” – the consecrated bread is “really” the Body of Jesus and the wine is “really” the Blood of our Lord!

So very hard this teaching is, the disciples murmured. More, the law of Moses prohibited them from consuming animal blood. It is not “kosher.” How much more the flesh and blood of a human being?

If you receive his Body, and she also receives his Body and I also receive his Body, the Spirit of Christ will dwell in all of us. Thus, his Spirit will unite us as one family, one people, one Church. “For we, being many, are one bread and one body, for we are all partakers of that one Bread.” [1Cor 10:17]

The Holy Eucharist without any doubt has been the principle of “unity” of all true followers of Jesus [Christians] during the early Church until the present. Prohibited to celebrate the Holy Mass under the pain of death, the early Christians surreptitiously celebrated the Holy Eucharist 5 to 6 stories in the bowels of the catacombs.

For them without any doubt the Holy Eucharist is the “Risen,” the “Glorious” body of the “Living” God! Aye, solemnly and with great reverence, the early Church worshipped him even at the pain of torture and death. Their love for him compelled them.

If you love our Lord, you can never say no to his invitation: “Eat, this is my Body. Drink, this is my Blood.” If you really love the Forever-Living, the All-holy, the ever-Glorious Christ, your love will compel you to receive him every time you attend the Holy Mass.

Lola Pedring knew Jesus in the Holy Eucharist, loved him, served him for most of her life as a catechist, and although old and blind, desired to received him in Holy Communion every Sunday Mass. She was a woman so very in love with the Lord!