"Padre, Padre, per favore!" Fr. Robert Barron

In the spring of 2007, I was privileged to be a scholar in residence at the North American College in Rome.  During that period, I had the opportunity, on three occasions, to distribute communion at Mass in St Peter's Square.  Standing on one side of a partition, I watched as scores of people came forward to receive the Eucharist.  In the typically Italian style, things were a tad disorganized, and the faithful were compelled, in the press of the crowd, to stretch out their hands toward me.  I saw all sorts of hands--old and young, dirty and clean, line and unlined--reaching out for the bread of life.   When I would move along the partition, some would cry out to me plaintively, "Padre, Padre, per favore (Father, Father, please).  Never before in my priesthood, though I had distributed communion to thousands, had I had the sense of carrying food to those who were desperate for it.  Those faithful in St. Peter's Square embodied a truth that is deep in our Catholic tradition, though too infrequently stated:  the Eucharist is not a luxury, but a necessity, for without it, we would in the spiritual sense, starve to death.