The Eucharist and Catholic Social Teaching, Part 2: The Eucharist and Human Dignity

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Transcript

0:06

Good afternoon. I want to start with a few preliminary remarks. And the topic is, the Eucharist and human dignity. The first preliminary mark is 10 years ago in Austria. 10 years ago in Austria in 2014, a Catholic couple was excommunicated because, they were stubborn and what they did were, lay people, they were celebrating the Eucharist and basically, Doing what only Catholic priests should be doing at this point in the Eucharist. And the bishop, a friend of mine and poor guy, I mean he had to tell them this is one of the gravest things you can do in the Catholic Church and there is no way I can just say, don't do this again. And I also have to say, I know the couple, that they allowed the Austrian television to basically televise what they were doing in their living room, which for me aggravates the whole thing. And I mention that because I felt really bad when I heard about that. And, and then I asked myself, why do I feel bad about that? And of course, as a Catholic, there are many reasons why one should feel bad about that. But one reason is, People have celebrated the Eucharist in danger under adverse conditions and held on to that. And so you will see I mention the name Alfred Delp here on my handout. Alfred Delp was a Jesuit priest. And, after the, the coup to kill Adolf Hitler in July 1944, July 20th, Where he was not directly involved, he was arrested and, spent the rest of his life in jail. First in Munich and then in, in Berlin Tegel. And he was shackled all the time. And he was writing the famous letters from prison with shackled hands. And on December 8, 1944, he was allowed to take the fourth vow with the Jesuits, which is a very special, experience. and he celebrated mass that night with shackled hands, and he wrote about that, and he couldn't even express, and he spent what he experienced, and, he spent the night in adoration in front of the blessed sacrament, and This is just one example of a person who held on to the Eucharist in the hope of, being released from prison. And there was still a chance in January 1945, he was sentenced to death. And on February 2nd, 1945, he was, hanged. So this is Alfred Delp who held on to the Eucharist. The next name you find here is, Cardinal Francis Van Tuyn, Vietnam. And then he was, he spent 13 years in prison after 1975 and he was just nominated, Archbishop of Saigon. And, out of these 13 years, he spent 9 years in solitary confinement. Solidary confinement, it's so easy to say that nine years in solitary confinement, but nine years where you see only one person, that's the prison guard per day, and what he did was he celebrated the Eucharist with one drop of wine, a little bit of bread, had his own little cardboard altar, and he held on to that. Again, they shouldn't have caught him, was dangerous, under adverse conditions. Then the third name is, the Cardinal Sigitas from Lithuania, Who celebrated in secret, with a dry grape that he got the Eucharist in a Soviet labor camp. And what I take from these stories is, this is not a game that you play. This is not about power. This is not, this is a game we play in our living room. And I do not justice to the couple I mentioned before. But that is why I think it made me so happy. lost for words, knowing what the Eucharist means for people, especially in extreme situations. And there is already a connection with human dignity. Alfred Delp, held on to the Eucharist, and that gave him hope. And as we know, there is a connection between our sense of human dignity and hope. There's a famous European Court of Human Rights, decision, it's called, ahem. it's a decision against the United Kingdom where a criminal who murdered twice was sentenced to death, sorry, was sentenced for life without parole. It's a famous case and, he said if you are sentenced to life without parole, without the possibility of looking into your case every, let's say, five or ten years, this is against human dignity. There's a famous judgment from 2011, in the case Winter versus United Kingdom, where the judge said, if you take away the hope from a person, do you take away the person's dignity? There's a connection between dignity and hope, which I find very powerful. Francis Van Twan wrote three books about hope in, after prison. So also for him, Eucharist was a source of hope, but also a sense of community. If you spent 13 years in, in prison and 9 years of which in solitary confinement, celebrating the Eucharist gave him the message, I am not alone, I am not alone, the Lord is here in real presence, but also the connection with the communion of saints. and again, dignity and community, there's a strong connection between affirming a person's dignity by including this person into a community. In the case of Cardinal Sigitas, I mentioned self respect. If you are in a Soviet labor camp, they do everything to undermine your sense of who you are, your self respect. And celebrating the Eucharist for him was an affirmation. I am one of God's beloved children. I am created in the image and likeness of God. And that is why there is a connection between Eucharist and dignity. a note on dignity, a note on dignity. There are many open questions related to human dignity that I mentioned too. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights famously mentions dignity in the preamble in Article 1. And it leaves a few questions open, including the question of the justification. the Universal Declaration of Human Rights bases human rights on the concept of dignity, but does not justify why we believe that we have, inherent human dignity. There were different drafts that suggested, some justifications, but at the end of the day, nothing has, survived. and, if you think of Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it says, all humans are born free and equal in dignity and rights. Full stop, they're endowed with reason and conscience, and should treat each other in a spirit of brotherliness. And there's a full stop now where there used to be a because. Free. Dignity. Because, endowed with reason and conscience. There is no because any longer. It just sits there a little bit. So there's an open question of the justification. The second open question is, the operationalization. What does it mean to enact, to quote Michael, to enact, human dignity? And of course human rights give us quite a bit at our hands, but it's still an open question. What does it mean to respect a person's dignity? We are much better at thinking about when do we violate a person's dignity? What does it mean to undermine our respect for a person's dignity? So these are two open questions. For dignity, I mentioned three temptations. There's one big temptation to, base human dignity on some sense of capability. the justification that survived a few drafts that talks about reason and conscience is a capability based justification. you are able to do certain things. and some people are not able to do certain things. They are newborns, they suffer from dementia. so there, there is a certain, way of thinking about dignity as if it was, bigger, if we were more capable. there's a temptation to think about that. There's also a temptation to, think about, dignity in unequal terms. Some people have more dignity than others. And of course we all know the term dignitary. And if you look at canon law if you hit the priest, if you hit the bishop, if you hit the pope, there are different responses to that. and that, no, it's true. and that says something about the dignitaries position, but not about human dignity, where we really believe it's equal. It's, it cannot be changed through a lifetime. And the third temptation is to see human dignity as this intangible thing. It's more symbolic. I don't know what it means, I mean, I just think that you have dignity. I'm looking at Bobby now. Think that you have dignity. But it doesn't really mean anything. But it should. in the Christian tradition, we have wonderful responses to some of these queries. Obviously, the justification, we have the story of the creation, in the image and likeness of God. And we have the theology of the incarnation, which is a strong affirmation of human dignity. And then they put their Genesis in Philippians. ThinkND. com And in terms of the operationalization, we have this wonderful passage, Matthew 25, 31 through 46, What you have done to the least of my siblings, you have done unto me. You all know that. And what I find intriguing about this Matthew 25 is, Jesus doesn't use it metaphorically. Jesus doesn't say, It is as if you had done that unto me. He doesn't use that. It's quite straight to the line, what you did to the most disadvantaged, to the wounded, to the vulnerable, you have done to me. CSD means Compendium of the Social Doctrine. The Compendium of the Social Doctrine makes it very clear. Professor Cavadini mentioned the Eucharist as basically the core of our Christian identity. For Catholic social tradition, the core of the principles is dignity. So the Companion for the Social Doctrine of the Church 160 says, and I have it somewhere, if I can read it, it says, The dignity of the human person is the foundation of all the other principles and content of the Church social doctrine. So it's really key. It is really key. So that's why dignity is key. Eucharist is key, and then they both have to go together. It would be amazing if they didn't. I mentioned the term dignity needs. Can you follow on the handout? Is it helpful to have a handout? I always laugh when I have a handout because when I get bored with the speaker, I turn it around. Don't do that. dignity needs. A Dominican priest by the name of Louis Joseph Le Bret talked about, in the 1930s, 40s, about human beings have dignity needs. Dignity needs. He is the one who inspired Pope Paul VI to use the term integral human development. Which the Keough School of Global Affairs has adopted as its defining slogan. and, if you want to become immortal, Get a footnote, get your name into a footnote in a paper document. He succeeded. He succeeded. So if you read Paulin Progressio, Article 14, it will talk about, Louis Joseph Le Bret. So dignity needs. His idea is there are basic needs, that's true. But human beings, in order to live a dignified life, have also dignity needs. And he mentions explicitly beauty and space. You want to have access to beauty. Beautiful words, beautiful nature. Beautiful spaces like this one. And, you want to have space where you can contemplate. Space where you can be at peace. Space where you can invite friends. This is what he called dignity needs. And obviously for Christians, liturgy is not an add on to a dignified life. It's very much part of what it means to live a life according to our understanding of human dignity. So that's my note on dignity. Good? It's 4. 53. That's 13 minutes. my, my second point here is three tales about the Eucharist. What I try to establish so far is Eucharist is central. Professor Cavallini mentioned it. Dignity is central in Catholic social tradition. So you bring those two together. You bring those two together. Here I mention three tales about the Eucharist. The first tale is, I once made the mistake of reading a lot, written by Ruth Burroughs. Ruth Burroughs, now the late Ruth Burroughs, was a Carmelite sister in, in, Britain. I used to say Great Britain. After the Brexit, I say Britain. so when she was still alive, she lived in Great Britain, sister Ruth Burroughs. and in 2012, the Archbishop of West, of Canterbury, the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, at that time, Rowan Williams. Do you remember Rowan Williams? I don't. The guy with the gift of looking like an old person at an early age. Yes. So he married William and Kate. If the greenhead died a little earlier, he would have buried her. but she held on. Anyway, there was a, Rowan Williams, and they have this lovely tradition in the Church of England, he, asked Ruth Burroughs to write the Lenten Book of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Lenten Book is a specifically written little book that is, distributed widely among the faithful and should help them through Lent. And Ruth Burroughs, a Catholic nun, which is also really interesting that the Archbishop of Canterbury, he is very close to Catholicism. He was very close to Pope Benedict XVI, so I always thought maybe, you know, because, you know the history of the Church of England. I mean, it's not the priest, did I say that? Oh, this is, oh, so Ruth Burroughs was invited to write the Lenten book in 2012 and she decided to write it on prayer. And she said, she was 80 years old at the time, and she said, I try to pray 8 hours every day for now 60 years. I still do not know what it is. I just know one thing. It's not a technique. It's not something where you achieve something. It's not something where you do something. And so I got really intrigued in Ruth Burrows writings. And she's quite strict about certain things. She's quite strict about, look, the Eucharist is not about making you feel better. It is not about having an island in the desert of the day. It is not about, what else do I have here, achieving something spiritually. It is not about, having, another toolbox, tool in your toolbox for success. Some people would think, you know, if I go to Mass, I will be better in the investment market. And, and she would say and, the Eucharist is also not magic. you want something to go away, you go to the Eucharist and then it will go away. This is not the case. as I said, I made a mistake because she basically says, don't think that your religious life consists in having good feelings about, oh, I feel Jesus close. This is not what it is, she says. And she's a Catholic nun and they know what they are saying, especially after 60 years praying eight hours every day. So I see that as illusions about the Eucharist, and we are not free from these illusions. And I also think that these illusions are connected to two topics that are dear to Pope Francis. One is the topic of the technocratic paradigm, that you think you can fix a problem. So I feel bad, I go to the Eucharist, and then the problem is fixed. Technocratic paradigm. You can use all kinds of things in a technocratic way. And secondly, that's even more important, spiritual worldliness. That's a term, Pope Francis takes from Henri de Lubac. And spiritual worldliness in Evangel Gaudium. That's why you see here, EEG 93 to 94. That's Evangel Gaudium. November, 2013, Pope Francis quote, and spiritual worldliness means to Alize, your worldly ambitions. Ambitions. So actually a careerist here on this earth. But you coin, I mean, you put that into spiritual language. You sell this as, you know, an expression of your spirituality. and he says this is really dangerous and you could fall into this trap when it comes to instrumentalizing the Eucharist for your own career prospects. I am not saying that the more respect you have for the Eucharist, the less successful you may be. I'm not saying that, even though there's hope that this is partly true. But, There is this sense of the Eucharist is not yet another tool in our toolbox to have successful lives. The second tale I want to tell you is this. When we in our Catholic liturgy come to the part of the Eucharist in the liturgy, we have, and I put it there, already gathered, acknowledged our sins, listened to the Word of God and its meaning, confessed our faith, and prayed for the needs of the world. So that's what we have done when we enter this stage of the liturgy. And all these five points could be meaningfully connected to the idea of human dignity. Gada, there's a communal aspect in our existence. Human dignity has a lot to do with being part of the human family and fully Acknowledging our sins. It is part of human dignity to know about our imperfection, to have the gift of reason, the gift of self reflection, the gift of critical self reflection. listening to the word of God. Dignity in many traditions is connected with the openness to the transcendent. In the Catholic tradition, it's a very important idea. It is part of human dignity that we are open to the transcendent, to the supernatural, to what we cannot fully understand. We have confessed our faith. It is part of human dignity to enter commitments. In these commitments, that's a very important point, do not necessarily make your life easier. They may make your life even more difficult. and, just a few days ago we had our Holocaust Remembrance Lecture, with Professor Michael Dobkowski on, the Holo on Janusz Korczak, the famous, pediatrician, who ran an orphanage in the Warsaw Ghetto, could have escaped from the ghetto, stayed with the children, and was killed with the children. And he wrote a ghetto diary. And Janusz Korczak, in his ghetto diary, says, as a young man, I used to pray, Dear God, I am not asking you for an easy life. I am not asking you for an easy life. I'm asking for a difficult life, but beautiful and dignified. And that's what his life was about. So there's this sense of, it's part of human dignity if we try to live it, to end the commitments. And then we've prayed for the needs of the world, the idea of humanity. Human dignity very much, if you think of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the preamble says we should be mindful that we are part of a human family. And we shouldn't allow the atrocities of the Holocaust, the Second World War, the First World War, to happen again. Because we are one human family. And so there is this sense of these five points. have a lot to do with human dignity. That's my second tale. My third tale about the Eucharist is, if you think about the Eucharist in terms of moments or dimensions, I mention four here. Transformation and disruption. The Eucharist is, as you know, transubstantiation. There's a moment of, transformation, but in such a way that it's really disruptive, because you don't see the change. You don't see the change. So there's this moment of disruption and something else begins. Transcription by CastingWords there is a moment of mystery and sacredness. Mystery and sacredness in the Eucharist means it doesn't get more sacred than that. Blessed sacrament, adoration, you know what I'm talking about. But there's also this moment we don't understand. How can a human person with his or her intellect understand what's happening in the Eucharist? We don't. We can describe it. I mean, transubstantiation is a lovely term. I don't understand it. I can explain it to the students. I don't understand it. There's a difference between being able to explain and being able to understand. so there's this moment of sacredness. Thirdly, a moment of reality and presence. In the Catholic tradition, as you know, and I think that's, Michael explained it to me, a very important concern for the American bishops, making people, aware of the real presence in the Eucharist. This is not symbolic, this is the real presence of the Lord. So there's a moment of reality and presence. And fourthly, there is a moment what I call celebration and community, which is self explanatory. And here again, those four moments, can be easily connected to an understanding of human dignity. Transformation and disruption. Sometimes we think of human dignity as the invitation to have, To convert, to have a new beginning. You can give your life a new direction. That's part of who we are as human beings. There's a sense of dignity that comes with it. Mystery. the beautiful thing about human dignity is, we don't have a justification that everybody, accepts. So there is a moment of mystery. And even if we, as Christians say, created in the image and likeness of God, we don't really know what we are saying. I mean, yes, we, again, we can explain. But I don't understand what it means. It just means that there is a mystery. James Hanvey, a Jesuit from Britain, once said, mystery is the capacity for inexhaustible meaning. There's always more you can say. There's always more you can discover and ask yourself. So there is this sense of mystery also when it comes to human dignity. reality and presence. Dignity is not this intangible, symbolic something. It has a lot to do with respecting earthly dignity. Life conditions, real life conditions. So there's this moment of reality. And finally, celebration. Dignity, as I mentioned, I think now three times, has a lot to do with our social and communal dimension. So here again, you could see that those four moments of the Eucharist could be meaningfully, I hope, connected with our idea of human dignity. Good? You don't have to agree, but, I mean, it would be nice if you agreed, then I felt a little better. dignity, I mention here, is a we existence. We as members of the human family. And then there is this very interesting question, which brings us close to Catholic social tradition. who is the we? Is the we all of us? And our understanding of human dignity is, yes, every human being is part of the human family. And insofar as you're part of the human family, you have human dignity inherent. It's not capability based, it's not based on a club model. Some have more, some have others. it's based on the fact that you are a human being. And here, we need those whom we have wounded. Desmond Tutu, the legendary Archbishop of Cape Town, Nobel Peace Laureate, and also the chairperson of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Desmond Tutu once said, The perpetrators have forgotten their dignity. We, the victims, have to help restore their dignity. The victims, we have to help restore their dignity. It also means that people with privilege, Need to be especially sensitive to, whom have I wounded on my way to the privilege? At whose expense do I live? what has happened in terms of damage done to human beings or the planet for me to be where I am? And then you may need those who are especially vulnerable, those who are especially disadvantaged, to restore your dignity. The other point is a little delicate. I mentioned, Evangelii Gaudium 47. This is this famous line, in, in, in Pope Francis, which he has repeated quite often. The Eucharist, although it's the fullness of sacramental life, is not a price for the perfect, but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak. it's, you have seen it often. I mean, it's often very, it's quoted very often. Eucharist, although it is the fullness of sacramental life, is not a price for the perfect, but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak. And what you would like to avoid when you connect the Eucharist with human dignity, you would like to avoid the Eucharist being an entry point for humiliation. When people ask me what's the most tangible way of violating a person's dignity, I would say humiliation. You humiliate the person. There are different ways of humiliating a person. the most effective is to give the person the message you don't belong. to give the person a message you are not a full member. humiliating also means to reduce a person and object. Humiliating also means to, to violate the person her self respect. Basically you give the message you are not a full member of the human family. So having said that, and this is theologically tricky, and I'm only a half baked theologian, so I will be very careful here. We should at least be very careful and sensitive to creating a culture of exclusion around the Eucharist. Where you would like to avoid situations where a person comes up and the priest says, not you. You would like to avoid those situations. So I'm trying to be very careful here. Because that's where you see, if humiliation is a tangible way of disrespecting a person's dignity, and, if you want the Eucharist to be probably the highest expression of human dignity, you would want to avoid that. I'm not saying that, and Canon Law would give us some advice here, that this can be avoided in all situations, right? you don't want to make the Eucharist a cheap something that people don't know what this is about. there is this discussion, people with Trisomy 21, And their access to the Eucharist and the idea is if they have an understanding, you know, of what is happening, which may not be the full understanding of the theologians, for example, they would be admitted to the Eucharist. So I'm just saying that and so before you stone me, I move on. But I think it's an important question to ask. If we want to make sure that people feel strengthened in their dignity, including the understanding of sinfulness, because for me that's an understanding, that's a deep understanding of your own dignity, that, you know, you are a sinner. and, that's a very good response to the question who are you? I'm a sinner. It's a very good response to the question who are you? Which brings me to probably the most important, topic at 5. 08, 12 minutes before I stop speaking. Hunger, dignity, and the experience of the Eucharist. let us be very simple here. Let us say there are two ways of celebrating the Eucharist. One, the experience of the Eucharist of the well fed And the experience of the Eucharist of the Hungry. That's very simple and simplified. And I put some names here in brackets. Simone Weil. Simone Weil was a French philosopher. She lived from 1909 till 1943 and died at the age of 34 from exhaustion. And she suffered all her life from migraines. And we believe that she converted to Catholicism. she still believed that the way to honor God is, not to instrumentalize God in whatever way or form. And she had, one important insight, she had many important insights. One important insight is this, you all know the Book of Job, the Book of Job, and Simon Vail said, the Book of Job was written in intense pain. It must be read in intense pain. Which means you shouldn't read the Book of Job when you are well fed. You should read the Book of Job when you have a migraine, which is what she did. And so obviously, there is a different experience of reading the Book of Job if you read it when you're well fed, and happy, and healthy, and successful, or when you read it in a different, set of your mind. Dachau, as you know, was the first concentration camp. It opened, do you know, it opened in March 1933. Hitler came to power in January 1933. You ready? And it operated for 12 years, until 45. So it was the longest, operation, operating concentration camp. And there was a priest's barrack in Dachau, outside of Munich. and the priest celebrating the Eucharist in, in Dachau would say, this is Christ coming to us in our Calvary. and believe me, it's a different experience of the Eucharist in, in this situation, than in a situation where it's almost a cultural event. Or a situation where, you know, I mentioned some of the illusions that we may have. That the Eucharist is yet another tool that makes us more successful and more appealing to humanity. Gaudium et Spes 27 talks about undignified living conditions. So there is a sense of if you are hungry, this is not a state you want to be in. It is undignified to be hungry. And I have, Leib Goldin was, A Jewish intellectual in the Warsaw Ghetto. And in the book, Voices from the Warsaw Ghetto, he talks about hunger, which is a beast and transforms human beings into beasts. So I'm not trying to say it's romantic to be hungry. it, I'm not saying that. I'm not saying famine is the solution to a deep, experience of the Eucharist. but I do believe, we should think about this difference, celebrating the Eucharist where we are in a well to do state, Celebrating the Eucharist where we are in some kind of misery. And then you could say, the hangar I want in the Eucharist is a spiritual hangar. and yes, I'm not denying that. However, and here I mention Ignatius and Arupe. Both are on record saying, don't Alize human experiences too quickly. So Petro Arrupe, for example, in 1973 was asked to comment on the question from the Interprovincial. We Jesuits have evolved poverty, but obviously we don't live like the poor. And as you know, the Jesuits have many universities and schools and then you have to dress like this and have access to a study and books, so they don't live in favelas. and Petro Arrupe wrote this famous letter on poverty basically saying, I would expect each Jesuit to have friends with the poor. Friendship. Not a sense of, I accompany you so that you get out of your poverty. Friendship with the poor. I want each Jesuit to think about, is what I have really necessary? make an inventory. and I always like to ask my students, having introduced the Swedish term lagom. Do you know the Swedish term lagom? Lagom means, a Hindu knows, just about the right amount. It was introduced in the literature through an American psychologist. who dated a Swedish woman and she hosted him in her single person household and she said, I have three towels. Not two, not four, I have three. And that is lagon. Because I need one for myself, one for the laundry, one for the guests that travel. Three, not two, not four. It's a good question to ask, what is the lagon amount of ties, shoes, etc. Earrings, television, spouses, whatever it is. So there is this point about, is it really necessary? And then Aruba said, I want each Jesuit to have an experience of material poverty because material poverty teaches us something about poverty, all the other forms of poverty, that other forms may not easily do. So I'm not advertising that, that hunger is wonderful, but I do believe That if we really experienced hunger, and Lent is a good period for that, the celebration of the Eucharist will be different. Which is not to say that the spiritual hunger, I mention in my beatitude quotation here, being hungry and thirsty for justice, is not a very important point for the Eucharist. I think my little point is this one. People who are hungry, in a serious meaning of the term, will have A deeper understanding, experience of the Eucharist and what Jesus Christ gave us than those who come to it as, you know, fed, successful, happy people. And that is why I also mention here the experience of the wounded. Oscar Romero, in his diary, talks about these situations where our hunger for justice is important, but also our hunger for healing. He talks about the Eucharist he celebrated in the house where a priest and four young men were killed. We celebrated the Eucharist on the 40th day after the tragic death of our brothers. When it came for the offertory, they gave a bouquet of red flowers to the mothers of each of the four young men. They also gave one to Father Octavio's father. This was very moving for the people present. There is hunger, because there is a wound. And if you have a wound, you are open. And if you're open, you suffer. And into this suffering, the wound of suffering, the mystery of the Eucharist can enter in a very meaningful way. a few, months before that, he talked about celebrating Mass with religious sisters in his archdiocese. I spoke to them about the presence of Christ in our midst, which he has revealed in diverse forms, especially in the Eucharist, about how many times the Lord's loving presence is answered by indifference. Atonement is necessary. And that is why I think the opposite of hunger is indifference. The opposite of hunger is indifference. I have a piece of advice for you at 5. 15, five minutes before I end. Never go grocery shopping when you are hungry. Write this down. Never go grocery shopping when you are hungry. Because you lack the indifference for good decisions. Indifference, however, is not the value that we want to bring to the table of the Lord and to the Eucharist. you need hungry people to understand what the Eucharist can fill in terms of hunger of the person. Now, before I come to my conclusion, if you turn the page, that small print, I have, four examples of the experience of the Eucharist through Pedro Arrupe. Pedro Arrupe was the superior general of the Jesuits. he lived from 1907 until 1991. After a stroke in 1981, he was paralyzed and incapacitated for 10 years. And, for him, the Eucharist meant everything. And, I give four examples, and obviously we will not read that in my remaining four minutes. One is the experience of reality. Pedro Arrupe studied medicine for five years before he entered the Society of Jesus. As a medical student, he went to Lourdes and he witnessed a miracle, a Eucharistic miracle in Lourdes. And then he was invited into the medical committee that assessed, is this really a miracle or not? So he strongly believed, because he has seen with his own eyes, so to speak, in the real presence and the real effect and the real power of the Eucharist. He built his life on that. And after this experience, he dropped his medical studies and became a Jesuit. That's the first example. The second example is, there is an experience of hunger. In 1941, he as a non Japanese priest was erected in Japan for 33 days. And he was in solitary confinement, and, he had no chance of celebrating the Eucharist. He couldn't. There was nothing there for him to celebrate the Eucharist. And he said, I was tormented. Above all, tortured by not being able to say Mass and not being able to receive Eucharist. What loneliness there was. And here the hunger. And that is why, do you remember the initial example of the Austrian couple in the year 2014? This is why, this is beyond words, what the Eucharist means to people, especially if they are hungry. And hunger and suffering, there is a connection without trying to glorify hungering. The experience of our only hope and foundation. Pedro Ruppe became world famous in the late 1940s because he was in Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945, when the first atomic bomb was dropped. He was the novice master of his order, a little outside of Hiroshima, and he witnessed in the city center, he saw the explosion. And that is a procession of wounded people going his way. And since he studied medicine for five years, he could set up the first kind of treatment center for the wounded. It was an experience nobody understood. It was the first time. People didn't understand what, what's happening with these people. And we, here you have two examples of the Eucharist in this situation. He talks about celebrating the Eucharist on August 7th in their chapel. The Eucharist And he says, the chapel half destroyed was packed, full of those who had been injured. They were lying on the floor, close to each other, and they were obviously suffering from the torments of their pain. It was a frightful scene. Within a few minutes, there would descend upon the altar the one of whom John the Baptist had said, there is one in the midst of you whom you do not know. So that's when you celebrate the Eucharist. He went into the city of the town to see the Jesuit father's house. There was a lot of tragedy going on. The first thing they did was celebrate mass. Celebrate mass. And of course then they got to work. So he wasn't spiritualizing the effect, but he went to work. The other example he gives, after the atomic bomb, maybe two weeks after, he went to Hiroshima, and he came into this house and saw this young Christian girl, Nakamura, lying stretched out on a rough table, raised a bit above the ground. and he, she was deeply wounded, she couldn't clean herself, she couldn't take care of herself. It was a terrible sight. Appalled by such a terrible sight, I remained without speaking. After a little, Nakamura opened her eyes, and when she saw me near, and smiling at her, she looked at me with two tears in her eyes, and sought to give me her hand, which was only a purulent stump, and she said to me with a tone that I shall never forget, Father, have you brought me communion? that's the hanga I'm trying to talk about. And those who are disadvantaged, those who are suffering can bring us this hunger in this very special way. And the last example is here, his experience of celebrating the Eucharist in a favela, and he was deeply moved by these really poor people who have nothing, and, being grateful and overjoyed that the Eucharist was given to them. And there's a scene afterwards you can ask in the Q& A because I'm running out of my time, what a person after this Eucharist wanted to give to Pedro Arrupe. So this was my, my, my 40 minutes. a few reference points at the beginning. The idea of Dignity and the Eucharist being deeply connected in both ways. And my conclusion is, 18 years ago in Austria, 18 years ago in Austria, my father in law died, and I remember the funeral mass and the Eucharist, When the priest held up the host, this is my body. I was deeply moved because my father in law worked very hard. very hard. He basically worked himself to death. And that was one of those moments where, the Eucharist can give an answer to a question we may not be even able to ask. Thank you.