Las vidas de San Alfonso de Ligorio y Santa Isabel Ana Seton ilustran una verdad eterna que a veces puede parecer abstracta: la Eucarist\u00eda hace la Iglesia.<\/p>\n
En 2003, San Juan Pablo II escribi\u00f3 una enc\u00edclica titulada Ecclesia de Eucharistia<\/em>. The title can be translated \u201cthe Church of the Eucharist,\u201d or \u201cthe Church from the Eucharist.\u201d Its first sentence is \u201cThe Church draws her life from the Eucharist.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s a difficult concept to grasp, but it becomes clearer when you understand how it was lived by St. Alphonsus and Mother Seton.<\/p>\n En primer lugar, la Eucarist\u00eda los sac\u00f3 del mundo y los introdujo en una nueva relaci\u00f3n con Cristo.<\/strong><\/p>\n Alfonso de Ligorio naci\u00f3 en N\u00e1poles a principios del siglo XVIII. Su familia era de linaje noble, pero no acomodada. Al crecer, se sumergi\u00f3 en la vida de sociedad, aprendiendo a esgrimir y disparar, y se convirti\u00f3 en un abogado de \u00e9xito.<\/p>\n But his devotion to the Eucharist led him to change. He left his law career and entered the seminary. He eventually founded his own religious community\u2014the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, known as the Redemptorists.<\/p>\n \u201cLet the grace of knowing your vocation and of faithfully corresponding to it be an intention in your prayers and Communions,\u201d he wrote in his advice for discerning vocations.<\/p>\n Mother Seton was born Elizabeth Bayley nearly 100 years later, before the turn of the 19th century, and shortly after St. Alphonsus\u2014a prolific writer\u2014was declared a Doctor of the Church.<\/p>\n Al igual que San Alfonso, Isabel hab\u00eda nacido en la alta sociedad, pero no era muy rica. Y, como \u00e9l, tambi\u00e9n el Sant\u00edsimo Sacramento la llam\u00f3 a alejarse del mundo.<\/p>\n Elizabeth married and had five children who she raised in her Episcopalian faith. She discovered the Eucharist while she was in Italy with her husband seeking a cure for his tuberculosis. She entered the Catholic Church in 1804, then moved her family to Baltimore in 1808 to open a school. In 1809 she became a professed religious and moved to Emmitsburg, Maryland, where, like St. Alphonsus, she would found a religious congregation\u2014the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph\u2019s.<\/p>\n Elizabeth\u2019s conversion to the Catholic Church was controversial, but her sister-in-law Cecilia Seton\u2019s decision to convert in 1806, and join her community afterwards, was more troubling still to her family. But Cecilia found what Elizabeth did: the Blessed Sacrament.<\/p>\n Ironically, Elizabeth described Cecilia\u2019s devotion by quoting St. Alphonsus Liguori, from his book on Eucharistic adoration.<\/p>\n \u201cSt. Marie Madalen de Pazzi was directed by our Lord to visit him in his holy sacrament 30 times a day\u2014 she faithfully obeyed,\u201d she wrote. \u201cOur Cecilia did the same in spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n Ambos muestran tambi\u00e9n c\u00f3mo la Eucarist\u00eda es el signo de que la Iglesia es el cuerpo de Cristo<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Mother Seton loved St. Alphonsus Liguori\u2019s book on the Eucharist so much she copied out portions of it, adding comments that applied to her own life. In the book, St. Alphonsus describes why the Eucharist is a sign of the whole Church.<\/p>\n The Church was born from Christ\u2019s side on the cross, he wrote, and \u201cit was necessary that this great sacrifice, the only real sacrifice worthy of God, should be consummated in heaven and on earth at the same time, to unite to God the body of Jesus Christ entirely.\u201d<\/p>\n This happens, he says, \u201cby Holy Mass and Communion, in which all the faithful partake of the same victim under the Eucharistic veil.\u201d<\/p>\n Elizabeth experienced this viscerally. She was attending Mass in Italy as a Protestant when a tourist interrupted the elevation of the Blessed Sacrament by commenting to her, \u201cThis is what they call the real presence.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Elizabeth cringed. \u201cInvoluntarily I bent from him to the pavement and thought secretly on the word of Saint Paul with starting tears: \u2018They discern not the Lord\u2019s body\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n Later, she told her family, \u201cHow happy would we be if we believed what these dear souls believe, that they possess God in the sacrament and that he remains in their churches and is carried to them when they are sick. Oh my \u2014 when they carry the Blessed Sacrament under my window while I face the full loneliness and sadness of my case I cannot stop the tears at the thought, \u2018My God. How happy would I be even so far away from all so dear, if I could find you in the church as they do!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Tanto San Alfonso como la Madre Seton descubrieron que la Iglesia no siempre es lo que deber\u00eda ser, pero la Eucarist\u00eda la mantiene unida.<\/strong><\/p>\n St. Alphonsus wrote, \u201cAt present the Church is not persecuted by idolaters, or by heretics, but she is persecuted by scandalous Christians, who are her own children.\u201d He knew such scandal personally, from the beginning of his ministry, when a wealthy donor influenced a bishop to give him a difficult, remote first assignment. Later, for political reasons, the Church left him in the demanding office of bishop long after his health made it a severe trial \u2014 and his own congregation tricked him into signing off on changes to his own rule that he opposed.<\/p>\n En su libro La Sagrada Eucarist\u00eda <\/em>he says the Blessed Sacrament is the source of patience for the Christian because it draws our eyes to \u201cour true country, where God has prepared for us repose in everlasting joy.\u201d But for now, \u201cWe must suffer, and all must suffer, be they just, or be they sinners \u2014 each one must carry his cross. He that carries it with patience is saved; he that carries it with impatience is lost.\u201d<\/p>\n Santa Isabel Ana tambi\u00e9n necesit\u00f3 esa paciencia en sus relaciones con la Iglesia. Tuvo que escribir m\u00e1s de una vez al arzobispo John Carroll para llamar la atenci\u00f3n sobre las deficiencias en la asignaci\u00f3n de sacerdotes a sus Hermanas.<\/p>\n \u201cAccustomed as I am almost habitually to sacrifice everything I most value in this life I should have acquiesced quietly though my heart was torn to pieces but the others could not bear it in the same way, and the idea so difficult to conceal that our Superior was acting like a tyrant \u2014 all this has been the source of a thousand temptations,\u201d she wrote to him.<\/p>\n But she also told him that the sacraments brought peace. \u201cBelieve me, nothing has ever taken place,\u201d she wrote, \u201cbut the Communion or confession of the next day has been sure to mend all again.\u201d<\/p>\n As\u00ed, ambos santos aprendieron lo que m\u00e1s tarde ense\u00f1\u00f3 el Papa Juan Pablo II: La Eucarist\u00eda hace la Iglesia.<\/strong><\/p>\n St. Alphonsus taught that \u201cJesus would hide himself under the form of bread, which costs but little, and can be found everywhere, in order that all in every country might be able to find him and receive him.\u201d<\/p>\n St. Elizabeth Ann saw how this offering united the world, writing: \u201cWhat is distance or separation when our soul plunged in the ocean of infinity sees all in his own bosom? \u2014 there is no Europe or America there.\u201d<\/p>\n The Church transcends time and space precisely because of the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. As St. John Paul II put it: \u201cEven when it is celebrated on the humble altar of a country church, the Eucharist is always in some way celebrated on the altar of the world. It unites heaven and earth. It embraces and permeates all creation.\u201d<\/p>\n TOM HOOPES<\/strong>, autor m\u00e1s reciente de El Rosario de San Juan Pablo II, es escritor residente en el Benedictine College de Kansas, donde imparte clases. Es anfitri\u00f3n de La extraordinaria Stor<\/a>y podcast sobre la vida de Cristo. Su libro Lo que dijo realmente el Papa Francisco<\/a> ya est\u00e1 disponible en Audible<\/a>. Antiguo reportero en la zona de Washington, D.C., fue secretario de prensa del Presidente del Comit\u00e9 de Medios y Arbitrios de la C\u00e1mara de Representantes de los Estados Unidos y pas\u00f3 10 a\u00f1os como editor del peri\u00f3dico National Catholic Register y de la revista Faith & Family. Su trabajo aparece con frecuencia en el Register, Aleteia y Catholic Digest. Vive en Atchison, Kansas, con su esposa, April, y tiene nueve hijos.<\/em>Imagen: Dominio p\u00fablico<\/em><\/p>\n