When Elizabeth Seton returned to New York she attended her own church as usual, but chose a side pew which faced the Catholic church opposite. She records that she constantly found herself speaking to the Blessed Sacrament there "instead of looking at the naked altar where I was, or minding the routine of prayers."

Later after she had become a Catholic, she burned with faith at no time more strongly than when she was about to receive Communion.

She wrote: "God is everywhere, in the very air I breathe, yes everywhere, but in His Sacrament of the Altar He is as present actually and really as my soul within my body; in His Sacrifice daily offered as really as once offered on the Cross."

On New Year's Day, 1821, Mother Seton was near death. To receive communion in those days one had to abstain from food and drink from midnight, and when a nurse requested the dying saint to take a beverage she said: "Never mind the drink. One Communion more and then eternity." Thus in the face of death she reminded us that only on this earth is Eucharistic union with Christ possible... an honor even the angels cannot enjoy.

The World's Greatest Secret
John M. Haffert