Pope St John Paul II famously once said:

“In that little host is the solution to all the problems of the world.”

This is a remarkable claim: Whatever we are worried about, whatever causes us to lose sleep at night — the solution is the Body and Blood of Jesus. The solution is the Most Holy Eucharist.

All our money problems…

— the solution is the Eucharist.

All our family problems…

— the solution is the Eucharist.

All broken hearts. All disappointment. All grief. All frustration:

— the solution is the Eucharist.

Israel and Iran bombing each other and dragging the whole world to the brink of war…

— the solution is the Eucharist.

The AI revolution is upon us…Some are saying: ‘Maybe THIS is the the solution to all our problems?!?!… Or AI could just end up creating a robot army that ultimately determines human beings are not necessary anymore and we go full-blown Terminator??? …Who knows? At any rate…no matter what lies ahead for us:

— I KNOW that the solution is the Eucharist!

People are anxiety-ridden — They’re addicted to screens, social media, and pornography. Young people are being exposed to deeply damaging ideologies about what the human person is. What a man is… what a woman is. What marriage is. What the meaning of LIFE is… there is a blatant disregard for the sanctity of life… but nonetheless:

— the solution is the Eucharist!

Families are broken, mental illness is rampant, mass shootings keep on happening, human trafficking silently goes on right under all our noses, our nation’s immigration laws struggle to find the proper balance between accountability and humanity…. violence, drugs and disorder on our streets all seem to be on the rise… but once again as always:

— the solution is the Eucharist.

In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that the whole world could be burning down — absolutely everything could be going wrong, which, thank God… there is still PLENTY of good left in this world, and it’s worth fighting for, as Samwise Gamgee would say…

— But even if everything was literally on fire and     absolutely nothing was going right, the              solution would STILL always be the Eucharist.

“In that little Host is the solution to all the problems of the world.”

I remember when Notre Dame Cathedral caught on fire back in 2019 — the story came out later that a priest had heroically run back into the fire, risking his own life, to save some of the most precious relics housed at Notre Dame — including the Crown of Thorns. And while he was there, he also retrieved the Most Blessed Sacrament that was still inside the Tabernacle.

I personally like to imagine what the inside of that burning cathedral must have been like RIGHT BEFORE the priest came running to the rescue:

Flames erupting. Wood and other debris dropping from the vaulted ceiling. Everything falling apart. So much history. So much beauty. So much art and culture… actively being lost second by second…

And yet… 

Jesus was still quietly inside that Tabernacle.

And he was in complete control of the situation.

He wasn’t afraid of that fire.

He wasn’t worried about anything at all, even if that priest never showed up…

Because in the Most Holy Eucharist — Jesus reigns supreme no matter what else is going on.

No circumstance is so dire, no situation so bleak, no weight so heavy upon us… that the Eucharist is not Lord and Master and Solution of everything.

I love all the stories we have of priests who found themselves inside gulags and concentration camps at the hands of the most powerful, most cruel dictators of all human history… Despite their absolute best efforts, not ONE of those dictators had the power to stop the Eucharist.

How pitiful! How sad for them!

They couldn’t stop a pitiful little wafer!!!

They couldn’t snuff out such a silent, humble, little God as this!!!!

Somehow, some way… those emaciated, malnourished, half-dead priests still managed to scrape together a tiny crust of bread and a few drops of wine… and they figured out a way to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass without a congregation, without an altar, without any incense or beautiful vestments, and really without any hope of ever seeing worldly freedom again…

There is, of course, the story of the Venerable Cardinal Van Thuan, who happened to be a close personal friend of my predecessor, Fr Prinelli. Cardinal Van Thuan was arrested by the communists in Vietnam in 1975, and of all things he could have been worried about when he got thrown in prison, his biggest concern was:

“Will I still be able to celebrate the Eucharist?”

Thankfully his captors allowed him to write a letter to his family, asking for some necessities. Among other essential items, he added: “And please send me a little wine as medicine for my stomach ache.” 

His family immediately understood the coded request, so they also sent him some hosts, hidden inside of a flashlight. And every day at 3pm, Cardinal Van Thuan celebrated Mass from memory. Afterward he would frequently say: “These were the most beautiful Masses of my life!”

For Cardinal Van Thuan —it didn’t matter what situation he was in:

The Eucharist — the Real Presence of Christ’s Body and Blood in the Most Blessed Sacrament — was still always the solution.

But you know, when things get really really dark and really scary… the temptation for us will always be to try and come up with our own solution. To rely on ourselves. And find a fix that makes sense to us.

That’s what the apostles did in our gospel today, right?

They saw what was happening. The crowd was getting hungry. The sun was going down. They had nothing to offer them. So, they tried coming up with their OWN solution to the problem: 

“Dismiss the crowd so that they can go to the surrounding villages and farms and find lodging and provisions; for we are in a deserted place here.”

Send them away, Jesus! That’s the answer! That’s the solution! Make them go away and buy their own food!

But Jesus responds with the real solution… the supernatural solution: 

“Give them some food yourselves.”

Jesus wasn’t afraid that all they had was 5 loaves and 2 fish.

He wasn’t worried at all that they didn’t have enough to go around.

He had the solution.

He WAS the solution…

Something that we simply don’t have enough of today in the Church… is ordained priests.

I once heard a statistic that there are roughly 20,000 Catholics for every one seminarian preparing for the priesthood. And not every one of those seminarians ultimately goes on to become a priest…

Simply put: This is not enough.

If we as a Church are going to fulfill Jesus’ invitation: “Give them some food yourselves” — if we’re really going to feed the entire world with THE SOLUTION to all of its deepest problems, the Holy Eucharist — then we need more priests.

But we’re not desperate.

We’re not afraid.

We are confident that the Lord will provide the Church with the shepherds She needs… We know that He has the solution! And He is still gently inviting young men today to follow Him in this way.

In his autobiography, the Seven Storey Mountain, Thomas Merton shares a story from his life when he was wrestling with the will of God. He was torn between the old life he was leaving behind, and the new life the Lord was awakening in him. 

He had expressed an interest in the priesthood, but he didn’t really know what to do next. So, as the story goes… he found himself wandering the streets of New York as the daylight faded and turned to dusk… and he realized he was being mysteriously attracted towards a church he’d never visited before on 16th Street. 

The church looked dark, and he first tried pulling on the front door to go in and pray— It was locked. Not willing to give up quite yet, he then noticed a door to some kind of basement under the church… and again, something subtle but impossible to ignore prompted him: 

“Go and try that door.”

So he yanked on that door, and he found himself in a lower church, with the chapel full of lights and full of people all adoring the Blessed Sacrament on the altar. They were striking up the Tantum Ergo and lighting the incense for Benediction. He fell down to his knees, and in that moment, the Lord asked him a very direct question:

“Do you really want to be a priest? If you do, say so.” 

He looked straight at the little Host in the monstrance — he looked at the solution to ALL the world’s problems — and somehow he just KNEW Who it was that he was looking at. 

And so Merton responded:

“Yes, I want to be a priest, with all my heart I want it. If it is Your will, make me a priest — make me a priest.”

Perhaps the Lord is awakening that same desire in the heart of some young man here today. I have no idea who I may be speaking to right now, but it’s entirely possible that you are being called to the priesthood.

If you are a Catholic man — you owe it to yourself, to the Church, and to God to seriously consider and discern… the priesthood. Families: You need to support and encourage your sons to be open to this mission and calling.

It’s hard.

It’s not easy.

It’s entirely counter-cultural.

But we need good holy men to say: “Yes — actually I do want to be a priest. I want to sacrifice my life and offer it on the altar of the Lord in union with Jesus in the Mass. I want to raise up and offer that tiny little Host to God the Father, in the power of the Holy Spirit.”

Because somehow… “in that little Host is the solution to all the problems of the world.”