You're listening to Catholic Sprouts, the daily podcast for February 9th, 2021. This week we are talking about the powerful

motto, letting the Eucharist lead. And to dig deeper into this phrase, I want to introduce

you to someone.

His name is Cardinal Van Thuane.

He lives in Vietnam, and he is quite a bit older than you.

In fact, Cardinal Van Thuane spent 13 years of his life in prison during the 1970s.

At that time, there was a war in Vietnam, and a certain group of people called the Communists took over and they despised religion. They especially hated the Catholic Church. So Cardinal

Van Thuane, as the leader of the Catholic Church, was in prison for 13 years. And for nine of those years,

nine full years, he was in solitary confinement. That simply means

that he was locked in a tiny room all by himself for nine years. He only had contact with two

guards during that whole time. So think about that. Think about how old you are and how long nine years is.

Now the reason I talk about Cardinal Van Thuane is because of the Eucharist.

While he was in jail, he sent a message to people on the outside for some essential supplies that he needed.

And they sent him a little bit of wine and some Eucharistic

bread concealed in a flashlight. Because of the wine and bits of bread smuggled into him,

Cardinal Van Thuane was able to say mass every single day in his prison cell. He simply would put

a couple drops of wine in the palm of his hand and mix it

with water, just as the priest does at Mass. He also took a tiny crumb of the bread. And through that,

even though he wasn't in a church, even though he was all alone, even though he didn't have any

fancy gold chalice or altar, but because he was a priest, he was all alone, even though he didn't have any fancy gold chalice or altar,

but because he was a priest, he was able to say Mass.

And through that, Jesus and the Eucharist was truly present in that tiny, quiet, lonely jail cell.

...