Eucharistic Encounter 25: Don’t leave Him alone

Have you ever been to the little town of San Martín? It’s in the Highlands of Michoacan and only about 70 families live there.  

The little town of San Martín is in the Highlands of central Michoacan. I was down there for 15 summers between 1994 and 2009 in five-to-six-week service projects with young men from the United States. All the people down there were from the Purépecha tribe. Many of them speak Spanish, and they all speak Purépecha and have a tremendous amount of faith. This is the land of volcanoes and mountains and forest. It’s also the land of martyrs – 21 of them during the Mexican Revolution.

There’s a side chapel in the Cathedral in Guadalajara, about two hours away, where some of those martyrs are honored. They had the 48th International Eucharistic Congress there in the year 2004. Cardinal George was there and there were 5 million people who showed up for the event. There is a rich faith, but there aren’t enough priests for every village to have a priest. One priest takes care of 21 little villages!

While I was up there, I was asked to take four of them – and so I took San Antonio, San Isidro, Santa Rosa, and San Martín at the end of the road. San Martin is a little log cabin chapel, and the people were begging their parish priest to let them have the Blessed Sacrament in the tabernacle 24-7-365. After a few years of really insisting, the parish priest said yes, but with one condition: never leave Him alone.

Any time of day or night in this little chapel, there’s someone from the village who is sitting there or kneeling there in adoration. These people are very noble but very poor; the tabernacle is very simple, made out of pine wood with a simple lock and key. The inside has been covered with gold foil – Christmas wrapping paper, actually. Even more than all that, there’s somebody always there, visiting Jesus.

It pains me greatly when I go to Catholic Church and it’s locked and you can’t get in. Folks, we can do better than this. Don’t leave him alone. He’s the King of kings, the Lord of Lords who made everything for us. And you can’t outdo God in generosity. 

That’s why we need a revival of the Catholic Church in this country through the Holy Eucharist. The best thing we can do for our country is to be good Catholics who know Christ, love Christ, imitate Christ, and bring Christ together because he is the Savior of the world.

Well, I hope we all show up for Jesus in Indianapolis for the National Eucharist Congress, and we’re going to be broadcasting the Family Rosary Across America live every night from the mainstage. So let’s all show up for Jesus. 


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Rev. Francis J. Hoffman, "Fr. Rocky" is the Executive Director/CEO of Relevant Radio and a priest of Opus Dei.