There is a town in Alberta called Cowley. To this town was sent a priest by his bishop. When he arrived, the people were openly hostile to him. They told him, “We don’t want you walking around here looking like a priest and saying your priest things. We don’t need a priest.” His first Sunday there were four people, though he preached one of his best homilies. His collection netted him only enough money to buy one loaf of bread. The priest had to pick dandelions to have enough to eat. He called his bishop up and explained the situation and asked to be moved. The bishop said, “No, I know you will do a great job and bring about conversion in this little town.” In the winter it was worse. The rectory had holes in the walls and often there would be snow on his blankets when he woke up. He asked a few more times to be moved, and still he got a negative response. It got so bad that he started to pray for a good death. He thought that it couldn’t get any worse, except it did. On the feast of Corpus Christi, he woke up and went to pray in the little church and to his surprise the door was ripped off its hinges. When he went into his church, he found it in ramshackle and to his horror the tabernacle had been broken into and the Hosts were scattered on the floor and the ciborium was stolen. He counted the Hosts to find that all were there except the large Benediction Host. He went to the police and asked the people of Cowley to get a search party together to find the Host; they refused. He called the different deaneries of the Crow’s Nest Pass and they were able to assemble a search party of over ten thousand people. And even though they looked along the highway and byway, the search was fruitless. In the evening, the police found two men in a stolen truck and assumed them to be the robbers of the church. The sergeant said to them, “It might mean nothing to you, but you have stolen his God.” The priest explained to them what Catholics believe and told them he did not want to press charges if they would help him get the Host back. They were touched by his faith and told him that they had had it but before they were caught threw it out. It had been raining that day so there was little hope of finding the Consecrated Host intact. Sergeant Parson and the priest, with the two thieves in the back, went to the site where the thieves had thrown the Eucharist out. As they rounded the corner, the sun came out and they saw a Host suspended in mid-air. The priest and the police officer got out of the car and fell to their knees. As they knelt there the Host said, “Father, take me back to Cowley.” After that, there was a conversion of the town, and the first to convert was the police officer and his family.
The Eucharist is the difference in our faith. What makes the saints, what makes us Catholics different it is the power that comes from the Eucharist. Simply that. Otherwise we have the same things as everyone. We have books, we have rules, but only we have the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the solution to all the trouble that we are having in the Church. You might be thinking, “Wait a minute, we have the Eucharist and we still have all this trouble. And the people that have it aren’t doing that great a job.” Yes, it is true, but it is true that the Eucharist will be the difference. We just have to start using the power contained in it to change our lives. And that power is twofold: first asking, very important, and second thanksgiving. Once you have asked Jesus has to do something, you can start by being thankful right away. Why be thankful? Because that is faith. Faith is a belief in things unseen. It is a trust. The word “Eucharist” means thanksgiving. Why? Well there is plenty to be thankful for. For one thing, God does what He says. The Eucharist is the difference. How many times do we take our Lord into our bodies and ask for nothing? We don’t even say that we love Him. If we hire a contractor to come into our house and pay his rate of $100 an hour, we never say “Just hang out.” Yet, we invite our Lord in and expect nothing. This is the man who rose people from the dead, drove out demons, healed the sick, walked on water and we ask Him to do nothing. That is ridiculous when we think of it. We need to start asking for the grace and healing we need or we won’t become saints. Once we ask we must start giving thanks because God starts doing when we ask. I knew a person that told me she had severe vision problems. A priest prayed over her and said, “You are healed,” so she threw away her glasses. She could not see at this point and had a real challenge to get home because she simply could not see, but she still believed. The next day, she was able to see. We do not know the Lord is working because we feel He is working, we know He is working because He says He is working and with faith we will see it. Ask and give thanks. The Eucharist is truly the difference. God wants to do great and miraculous things today in each of our lives. Ask and give thanks because the Eucharist is the difference.