Jesus’ presence and the true meaning of the Eucharist are found by a Columban priest in Pakistan.
By Fr. Tomás King

It was another day and another village in Pakistan. I and a catechist were visiting villagers on the land of the landlords they worked for. When we arrived at the village in Pakistan’s Sindh province, we were seated on a charpai (a stringed bed), which is usually the only furniture most people own.

We were given a glass of water, and a young woman prepared the evening meal on a clay stove outside the mud and timber home. She started the fire with great difficulty as a cool refreshing breeze rose, a welcome relief from the desert heat.

With the fire burning, she prepared vegetables and bread. Night had fallen, and the moon with thousands of bright stars speckled the sky. I sat under this magnificent night sky, feeling the cool, fresh breeze and watched the woman prepare the meal.

I became mesmerized as she lit and tended the fire, prepared the vegetables and bread, and minded an infant child at the same time. She served the guests first, then the men of the house, and then herself—by which time little was left. When I asked her name, it was her husband who answered.

I tried to understand my feelings and reactions.

Was it anger at the oppression (as I see it) of this woman who had to fulfill her cultural and family duties in this subservient way? Was it guilt that I, who have plenty, was the first to be fed?

But there was also something deeper and stronger. What I saw before my eyes was an act of sacredness and beauty, yet one that was also subversive and revolutionary. She shared all she had to give to others. I saw her situation as oppressive and unjust and yet her instinct was to reach out to share and give life to others.

Once again, it’s the so-called poor, the so-called uneducated, the nobodies of this world, who in their daily actions reveal what is really important. It was probably one of the most real and profound “Eucharists” I have been present at. There was no doubt about the presence of Jesus Christ. I had come to celebrate Mass with people and had been humbled and shown the real meaning of the Eucharist.

A woman of the Parkari Kohli tribe that lives in the desert of southern Pakistan prepared the evening meal for her family.

After Mass, I was told that a young woman had safely delivered a child inside in the room. “This is my body, broken for you. This is my blood, shed for you.”

There was the time last year I celebrated the Eucharist in a village with a family who hadn’t eaten for two days because the landlord hadn’t given them an advance. How is Eucharist nourishing for people who are hungry for bread?

Then there was the feast day of Saints Peter and Paul, June 29 this past year, and a group of 13 missionaries from eight nations were on a midterm break from language school. We traveled to northern Pakistan, into the Himalaya Mountains, all the way to the Pakistan-China border.

We arrived at Khunjerab Pass. At 16,000 feet, it is the highest metal-enforced border crossing in the world. We celebrated the Eucharist right on the border, half of us in Pakistan, half in China. We were surrounded by snow-capped mountains, as splendid of a cathedral as one would ever wish to see. The Eucharist includes all of God’s creation.

In the words of Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: “Since once again, O Lord, in the steppes of Asia, I have no bread, no wine, no altar, I will raise myself above those symbols to the pure majesty of reality, and I will offer to you, I, your priest, upon the altar of the entire earth, the labor and the suffering of the world.”

Jesus celebrated his Eucharist on the night before He was killed at his Last Supper with his friends, one of whom was to betray him. Most of the Eucharist prayers I celebrate are with people who are in bonded slave labor, in debt to landlords, and often sick and hungry.

They live on land they don’t own, at the behest of a landlord. They don’t get proper wages. In many villages, there are no provisions for health and education.

The biblical image of the rich man and Lazarus come to mind. Like Lazarus, the people have to make do with the crumbs that fall from the table. They’re still a long way from claiming their God-given right to sit at the table itself as equals.

Yearning For Unity & Harmony
It is this context in which I’ve celebrated the Eucharist with people. We sit at a makeshift altar on a mud floor covered by scattered quilts. A sacred space is created. Animals are usually nearby.

When it’s night time, the sky is magnificent: the setting sun, the stars, the moon; a breeze from the desert cooling the daytime’s intense heat.

Such moments and encounters make one ready to be touched by the presence of Jesus and drawn deeper into the mystery and significance of everyday experiences like sharing a meal. The harmony and beauty of creation draws one into the mystery and a longing for healing and fullness.

One can live in the midst of much brokenness, powerlessness and injustice and realize that the Passion of Jesus in not over yet. It continues in the lives of these people.

Their resilience, hopes and longings present in the prayer and the acts that make up the Eucharist give them the strength and courage to continue to live, to break through their injustices and to move beyond their brokenness.

The Eucharist exposes the injustice and disunity present in our world while revealing the people’s longing for unity and harmony. “Do this in memory of me.”

Columban Father Tomás King of Ireland first went to Pakistan for mission work in 1989. He was ordained into the priesthood in 1992.