The Eucharist: Source of Life
By the time I entered the Catholic Church last year, I had spent six months getting closer to the Eucharist. One could take issue with my narrow timeline of six months, seeing that I had had some exposure to the Mass since high school. I’d gone to a Catholic school where a monthly Mass was mandatory, but it was only in the last year that I gave any credence to the concept of transubstantiation (an abstruse vocab word from theology classes--also mandatory). I credit the sacrament of baptism (even in a Baptist church!) in June of 2021 for the reason why I could feel an increasing pull to comprehend the mystery of Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist when I started going to Mass just six weeks after that baptism. This mystery would very gradually change the way I experienced God from an intellectual (and mostly unacknowledged) longing, to living faith.
At that time, I kept my distance from the doctrine of the real presence, having only just come hesitantly into the Baptist faith shared by some of my closest friends. I was understandably reluctant to leave it to--as I saw it--carry out empty traditions, and blindly trust in the infallibility of all doctrine since the beginning of the Church. Despite my hesitancy, I was pulled along to daily Mass by my earnest fiance, whose sudden curiosity in the Church was inexplicable and intriguing to me.
By November, we were coming to Mass regularly, and my experience of Adoration on a silent retreat made the mystery of Christ’s sacrifice personal to me. It also disturbed me, challenged me, and made me think, “I have nowhere else to go. Whatever I’ve been looking for, it’s here.”
April 2022 brought the conclusion of RCIA, and with it the sacrament of confirmation. At this time, RCIA had provided me with enough intellectual material to satisfy much of my skepticism. It was only at this point that I responded with my whole heart to the invitation my Father was extending to me.
After receiving Communion throughout Easter, I began to realize my own love for God as my heart’s response to that call. It was the deepest knowledge, and feeling, of security I have ever had. Still, I struggled to believe in it all the time. I struggled to choose faith in the moments when I didn’t feel God’s presence. When I went home to my atheist parents, I felt myself doubting everything that was happening in my life. I could come up with endless natural explanations for the changes in my life—I was more open with loved ones due to others being open with me; I was simply suggesting an emotional reaction during prayer. I fought the lie that God didn’t love me because God didn’t exist. In those moments, the Eucharist was (and is) a tangible consolation. I found that I could not deny God’s love for me in the face of what he’s done to be physically close to me in my still-broken state, through Holy Communion. The rest that I received in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament was undeniable, once I learned to see it.
I think that what moved me toward conversion was the desire to be shown that I am loved, and that the deepest wants of my heart—for justice, for knowledge of and union with God—can and will be fulfilled. I wanted what was missing to be restored to my heart.
I remember a favorite worship song at the Baptist church I attended: “Your love never fails, it never gives up, it never runs out on me…”
I couldn’t yet sing the words with conviction. Instead, they were a message from the Father, to my heart: MY love never fails. I will never give up on you. I will keep pursuing you. And He did—to the point of showing me His love for me in the Eucharist. More than anywhere else, Communion is where I say with the psalmist, “Oh God, you are my God--it is you I seek!” Here is my God whom I seek, in his fullness, although hidden.
Peter Julian Eymard writes “The more you receive Communion, the more will your love be enkindled, your heart enlarged; your affection will become more ardent and tender as the intensity of this divine fire increases. Jesus bestows upon us the grace of His love. He comes Himself to kindle this flame of love in our hearts. He feeds it by His frequent visits until it becomes a consuming fire. This is in truth the ‘live coal which sets us on fire.’ And if we so will, this fire will never go out, for it is fed not by us but by Jesus Christ Himself, who gives to it His force and action. Do not extinguish it by willful sin, and it will burn on forever. Come often, every day if necessary, to this divine Furnace to increase the tiny flame in your hearts!”
The next time you go to Mass and receive Communion, I encourage you to do two things:
Ask God for the grace to pray the Mass well.
God loves us so much that he allows himself to be ministered to by human hands. He loves YOU so much that he humbles himself to enter your body—every day! Ask God to show you in the prayers of the Mass how he wants to strengthen and give to you.
2. Receive your Lord.
Be silent and recognize Jesus in the Eucharist. Rejoice in how intimately close he has made himself to you in the moment of Communion. Take that moment to just be close to him.
Ariel Lewin