A Missionary of Charity sister recounted in Kolkata that one morning at Mass some years ago in the motherhouse of the congregation, a small thin Host from the ciborium had dropped to the floor between the altar and the tabernacle. The breezes that pass through the chapel in the winter months had blown the consecrated Host from the filled vessel during Communion time without the priest being aware. A novice sweeping the chapel after Mass saw the Host and told her mistress of novices, who then informed Mother Teresa. The novice mistress said that Mother Teresa made her usual genuflection upon entering the chapel, approached behind the altar, and then knelt in front of the Host on the floor in adoration for a long time. She remained with her head bowed in prayer, unmoving, her eyes down, her hands folded. Many times in her life, Mother Teresa repeated that the presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist was inseparable from his presence concealed in the poor. The presence is one presence, she constantly affirmed. The same Jesus who hides in the Sacrament is disguised in the distressing appearance of the poor man. As she prayed on her knees before that Host in Kolkata, one wonders what may have passed through her heart and mind. In her saintly awareness, Jesus Christ on the floor of a chapel was the same Christ lying sick and abandoned on dirty street corners and alleyways throughout the world. Our love for the Eucharist can only deepen as we receive him in Mass only to go in search of him in his concealed presence among the poor. This truth can be a great provocation after a conversion. A rhythm of seeking and finding him in his real presence can extend outside the Mass to many unsuspected moments of a day if we open our eyes differently to the poor – in all their disguises of isolation” (Conversion, Haggerty, 163).
Prodigal Catholic 