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My friend, Mark Forgach, was battling brain cancer. While speaking to him in the late Fall of 2019, I found out he was having a difficult time getting to Mass. He had been viewing Mass online with a priest visiting him weekly, but he longed for the Eucharist more frequently. As I was already a Eucharistic Minister I offered to bring Him Jesus multiple times a week and always on Sundays. I had no idea what the next few months would teach me about my faith.
I began bringing Mark the Eucharist. This involved stopping at the Tabernacle, driving to Mark’s house, and having a short visit that involving proclamation of the Gospel and administering Communion. My family went with me on Sundays and waited in the car. On other days I went alone. Three times a week minimum. This went on for a number of weeks. As Mark’s health continued to decline, I promised to keep up visits as often as Mark and wife Julie thought reasonable.
So, in mid-November on a cold morning, I went to visit Mark just as I had been. As I entered the house and walked over to Mark, he said, “You know Brett, every time you come to see me I see Jesus there walking in with you.” Julie and I looked at each other a little shocked. Mark was experiencing what we all should be experiencing, the true presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. You see every time I walked to Mark’s bedside I had the Body of Christ in a Pyx inside a burse hanging from my neck. Jesus was walking with me to nourish Mark.
When I left that day I sat in my car and cried. Jesus reached more than one of us in that room that day.
I continued to visit Mark multiple times per week, and we had our final visit on the morning of December 9, 2019. Mark was called home later that afternoon.
"[U]nless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day." John 6:53-54
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