“Take this all of you and eat it, this is my body which will be given up for you.” (Mt 26: 26)
Only a priest can celebrate Mass and hear Confessions. One of our Legionary priests was asked to serve as a Chaplain in the US Army. He is one of 90 Chaplains in the Army and was recently sent to cover all of central Baghdad. He told us that he was helicoptered in to 3-4 camps a day to administer the Sacraments and many of the Catholic soldiers told him that they had not seen a priest in 6-8 months (needless to say, the lines for Confession were long and the Masses were packed). They had to fight off sniper attacks from the air, so he had a machine gunner in the helicopter to protect his travels. One day, he felt an inspiration not to go to the pick up place in the morning and a few minutes later a suicide bomber blew himself up at the exact spot where the helicopter was scheduled to pick him up. We need to pray for our soldiers and especially to pray for our Chaplains that they can endure this 24/7 grind with a good spirit!
