The story of ‘the bishop of the abandoned tabernacle’

National Eucharistic Congress participants heard the story of St. Manuel González García (1877–1940), a little-known saint who passionately urged people to recognize the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist and to never leave him abandoned in the tabernacle.

Bishop Gerardo Colacicco, an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of New York, shared the story of the passionate Spanish saint who has been called “the bishop of the abandoned tabernacle” during a homily at Mass during the congress.

“The Eucharistic Revival began a few years ago because sadly, some of our Catholic brothers and sisters do not know or believe that our Lord is present, body, blood, soul, and divinity in the most Blessed Sacrament,” Colacicco said.

“Many have been wandering in the desert of despair, preoccupied by self and grumbling because they are hungry and nothing seems to satisfy. … Why? Because we failed to change. We failed to tell them the truth. Worse than that, we failed to fall on our knees in adoration. And many have been lost.”

Colacicco said that the example of St. Manuel, one of the patron saints of the U.S. bishops’ National Eucharistic Revival, can show us “how we move forward to make known the truth of the Real Presence in our midst.”

Born in Seville, Spain, in 1877, González was ordained a priest in 1901. He arrived at his first assignment to find that the tabernacle was ignored and the parish church neglected.

St. Manuel wrote in his journal: “My faith was looking at Jesus through the door of that tabernacle, so silent, so patient, so good, gazing right back at me. … His gaze was telling me much and asking for more. It was a gaze in which all the sadness of the Gospels was reflected.”

“For me, this turned out to be the starting point — to see, understand, and feel what would consume the whole of my priestly ministry. On that afternoon, I saw that my priesthood would consist of a work of which I had never before dreamt. All my illusions about the kind of priest I would be vanished. I found myself to be a priest of a town that didn’t love Jesus, and I would have to love him in the name of everybody in that town,” González said.

González devoted himself untiringly to loving the Eucharistic Lord with such intensity and devotion that others were drawn to that once-abandoned tabernacle, Colacicco explained. He founded schools, an order of sisters, preached missions, and was ordained a bishop.

After his episcopal ordination in Seville, he said: “I desire that in my life as a bishop, as before in my life as a priest, my soul should not grieve except for one sorrow which is the greatest of all, the abandonment of the tabernacle, and that it should rejoice for one joy, the tabernacle, which does not lack company.”

On his tomb in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel of Palencia Cathedral, it is written: “I ask to be buried next to a tabernacle, so that my bones after my death, like my tongue and my pen in life, may always be repeating to those who pass by: ‘Jesus is here! Jesus is here! Do not leave him abandoned!’”

First-class relics of González’s bone, blood, and hair were brought to Indianapolis from Spain by several sisters who are members of the Eucharistic Missionaries of Nazareth, the community he founded.

“Bishop Manuel teaches us that the very first thing we do is fall on our knees in front of the tabernacle and simply love Jesus who dwells within,” Colacicco said.

“It is our fervent prayer that our love for Jesus present in the Blessed Sacrament will be increased and be strengthened,” he said. “And when we leave this place and return to our homes, please God, may our love ignite a fire in the hearts of others that they may come to know, love, and serve our Eucharistic Lord.”

This article was written by Courtney Mares, a Rome Correspondent for Catholic News Agency. 

Featured image: National Eucharistic Congress participants heard the story of St. Manuel González García (1877–1940), a little-known saint who passionately urged people to recognize the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist and to never leave him abandoned in the tabernacle. | Credit: CarlosVdeHabsburgo, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons