April 1, 2017

The Pain That Would Not Go Away

Fr. Dwight Longenecker is the pastor of Our Lady of the Rosary Parish in Greenville, S.C. A former Anglican priest, Fr. Longenecker converted to Catholicism in 1995 and was ordained a Catholic priest in 2006. He maintains his own website, as well as a blog on Patheos.com. It is on his blog that you can find him tell “a true story of the healing and forgiving power of the Eucharist.”

It seems that, one day, he answered a knock at his door to find a young woman, in her twenties, standing there. Her name was Jane, and she had come looking for help. It seems that she was suffering from constant pain in her abdomen, but none of her doctors could determine the cause. Even the painkillers they prescribed could not abate it. This had been going on for a year. She did not know where else to turn, and so she came to him, even though she was not even Christian.

Fr. Longenecker asked her to describe the pain. She said, “it’s like someone is ripping my insides out.” He thought perhaps she had an abortion in her past and asked her gently about it. She indicated that, in fact, this had been the case. She had gotten involved with a married man, become pregnant, was pressured by him to have an abortion and was rejected by both him and her own father.

While she knew nothing of the Mass or the Real Presence of Christ, Fr. Longenecker explained both. He told her about Christ Himself being there during the celebration. And so, a Mass was said for Jane, for the aborted child, for the abortionist, for the married man who left her and for her father. Several parishioners came to the Mass and joined in the prayers for forgiveness and peace.

A week later, Fr. Longenecker heard another knock at his door. It was Jane again. He could see from her face that she was much better. Her pain had left her the day after the Mass.

The next summer, Fr. Longenecker was present when Jane was married in church. The summer after that, she had a new baby baptized.

Source: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/standingonmyhead/2015/04/the-healing-power-of-the-eucharist.html.

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