Prayer and Reflection
June 2023
The Eucharist in the life of St. Vincent
Dear members of the Union of Catholic Apostolate,
In the month of June we continue our journey of reflection and formation. I would like to share with you, through three points; the path lived by Pallotti regarding his Eucharistic experience. At the end of these three points, I leave a question so that it can help us in our personal reflection on our charism, the charism of the Union, and also to make us reflect on our way of celebrating and living the Eucharist today, with the Church.
It all begins in the family.
We know that Pallotti would say, "The Lord gave me holy parents”1 ; the Eucharist was at the center of his family's faith life.
After the death of his mother, Fr. Vincent retired to the Monastery of Camaldoli (Frascati) and there wrote a long letter2 addressed to his spiritual director. In this text, Fr. Vincent "reported that his father heard at least one Mass every morning".3 The Eucharist was the comfort in his father's illness. Every morning priest Vincent brought him Holy Communion. Even on the day of his father's death he had received the Eucharist from Fr. Vincent.
The Priest Pallotti was also close to his brothers. We know that from his visit to his brother John (1805-1869) who was ill and he "...after the administration of the Most Holy Viaticum (...) had an instantaneous recovery”.4
Pallotti was admitted to First Communion in 1805 at the age of 10.5 In the school of the Clerics Regular of the Pious Schools, the students were also taught and encouraged "devotion to the Eucharist"6 and as a young man he was allowed to receive the Eucharist frequently. Our founder would remain in the family until 1837. In his house he had a small chapel to celebrate Mass. His parents, to facilitate the exercise of his ministry, made available to him the third floor at 130 Via del Pellegrino.
Let us ask ourselves: What place is given to the Eucharist in our families?
The Path to Priesthood
In his early writings we find his confident prayer in which he asks, "...I pray to my Jesus that from that Altar of the liveliest, and most wonderful love, where the Sacrament, day and night, dwells for the benefit of souls, he may deign to convert to himself with the odor of his ointments, to enlighten, sanctify, perfect, regulate, tranquilize, and console all these souls."7
Jesus in the Eucharist is for Pallotti the "most beloved Spouse of my Soul." And he proposed himself "in hearing some Bell ring" to raise his mind to God to glorify, praise and bless Him. In his Spiritual Protests and Devotional Exercises he writes: "I intend that all my actions, and of all creatures be immersed in the Most Precious Blood of J.C. and united to his merits, and the Sacrifice of the Holy Mass."8 With all creatures he wanted to be "perpetually occupied in the highest adoration of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament in all places where He is found".9
And he intended that "the Most Holy Trinity and Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament in everything be in my heart and soul”.10
His sense of unworthiness does not turn him away from the Eucharist. He writes "In the days preceding, accompanying, and following Communion I want to procure to excite myself to an interior consolation, and cheerfulness, because my soul is in Feast, and if it shall happen to me to receive Communion every day I will procure from time to time with the grace of God to excite myself to this interior cheerfulness."11 That is why Jesus in the Eucharist is "the more than beloved Spouse of my poor soul".12
We can end with Pallotti's prayer that says, "Jesus in the Sacrament, more than beloved Spouse of my Soul, I beseech You by the merits of Mary Immaculate, my more than loving Mother, and Sorrowful, and by the merits of the Angels, the Saints, and all the Righteous, vibrate from that Sacred Altar of Love most burning darts of charity into all Hearts, that all, all, may love You”.13
Let us ask ourselves: Personally, how do we approach the Eucharist? What are the feelings and thoughts that help me live a Eucharistic spirituality? The Eucharist in the life of the deacon and priest Pallotti We come to the third point: in the years "around the time of diaconal and priestly ordination”. 14 Pallotti, a young deacon, enrolled in the Confraternities "of the Blessed Sacrament in St. Lorenzo in Damaso"15 and "to the Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ”.16
This is between the years 1817-1818. The sacred ministry is close to entering his life; there will always remain in him the desire to educate God's people to celebrate Holy Mass well and to turn away from blasphemy. For this he thought of the Reparatory Lauds that later became customary in the Church after the blessing with the Blessed Sacrament.17
From this period is his writing Method of some Pious Works, where he thought about the spiritual concerns different for men and women and decided that at the end of the practices, "the Holy Blessing with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament will be given”.18
On May 16, 1818, he was ordained a priest and received "the faculty to celebrate Holy Mass in all churches in and around the city of Rome, as well as in the churches of the monasteries and private buildings”.19 This very great gift helped him deepen his unworthiness in the undeserved dignity of having been undeservedly elevated "to the most sublime degree of Priesthood"20 and he added that "it has deigned to raise me to the lofty Order of Priesthood...”.21 Before God he will always be "indignus sum sacrificium perpetuum Deo offerre". 22 And seventeen years later, in 1835, he will be able to say "Ah my God I already since 1818 made a Priest”.23
On May 17 he celebrated his first Mass in the Church of Jesus in Frascati. For the first time the voice of Vincent (alter Christus)said "Hoc est enim Corpus meum" and added "Hic est enim Calix Sánguinis mei, novi et aetérni testaménti: mysterium fídei: qui pro vobis et pro multis effundétur in remissiónem peccatórum."
Let us ask ourselves: As a UAC member, does Pallotti inspire a particular way of celebrating Holy Mass?
Dear members of the UAC, I wanted to share these three points of St. Vincent's life and his close relationship with the Eucharist: they are just three points of a whole life penetrated by the Eucharist; indeed, he was so 'Eucharistic.' We could have seen even more, but I think these three selected points and even the questions can help us in this unending and endless journey to the infinity of God.
P. Fabián Silveira, SAC
___________________________________________
1 Luigi VACCARI, Compendio della vita del Venerabile Servo di Dio Vincenzo Pallotti, Roma, [s.e.], 1888, 11.
2 OOCC XIII, 915-950.
3 TODISCO (a cura di), San Vincenzo Pallotti profeta della spiritualità di comunione, 34.
4 ISTITUTO SAN VINCENZO PALLOTTI, Cronologia della vita di San Vincenzo Pallotti, Società dell’Apostolato Cattolico, Roma, 2018, 47.
5 Cfr. TODISCO (a cura di), San Vincenzo Pallotti profeta della spiritualità di comunione, 48.
6 Idem, 53.
7 OOCC X, 23, 102-103.
8 OOCC X, 76.
9 OOCC X, 77.
10 OOCC X, 88-89.
11 OOCC X, 110.
12 OOCC X, 111.
13 OOCC X, 102-103.
14 OOCC X, 145.
15 OOCC X, 499.
16 OOCC X, 500.
17 Idem, 427, 437-438 «Dio sia benedetto, benedetto il sia il Suo santo nome».
18 OOCC V, 443.
19 ISTITUTO SAN VINCENZO PALLOTTI, Cronologia della vita di San Vincenzo Pallotti, 31.
20 OOCC X, 148.
21 OOCC X, 324.
22 OOCC X, 160.
23 OOCC X, 264.
