The Eucharist is the central sacrament of the Catholic Church. It is the reception of a consecrated host and, at the participant’s discretion, wine, that we believe is the body and blood of Jesus Christ through a process called transubstantiation.
I must admit up front that this still baffles me and I do not completely understand it.
However, it has had an incredible “pull” on me, beginning, oh, sometime around 2002 or so.
Despite regular attendance at Sunday School during my youth, up to CCD in 8th grade in preparation for Confirmation, despite four years at perhaps the prominent Catholic high school in New Jersey, despite growing up in a family of about 97 percent Catholics, of which maybe half attended mass weekly, despite all this, I don’t think the Eucharist was ever explained to me. Or if it was, it was done in a way that didn’t “stick.” Probably the latter, but I’m having a hard time of drawing up even a single memory of someone talking about the sacrament all those years ago.
But that is beside the point. I don’t want to argue how poor modern catechesis is (see how I just subtly argued my point there?). That’s the subject of a different post. I want to spend a couple of days trying to figure all this out for myself.
I have agreed to be an extraordinary minister of the Eucharist for my parish. That means, basically, that I will take the Eucharist to hospitals and give it to those who are stuck there, like I was nearly four months ago.
One of the highlights of those seemingly endless days of hospitalization was the daily visit from the Eucharistic minister. Some were chatty, some just gave me the sacrament and left. Either way, I believe whole-heartedly that I derived strength and comfort from it. Because it is the Real Presence of Jesus.
I recall back to 2002 when I was working IT in NYC. I had plenty of enforced free time so after exhausting all the used book stores in lower Manhattan I began attending daily mass at noon. It started accidentally during a visit to St. Patrick’s, but I soon found I liked it, and alternated between two churches, St. Anne’s and the Church of Our Savior. The highlight was receiving communion. After I got laid off and began working back in NJ, I attended Holy Trinity in Fort Lee periodically, but often around the time of the birth of my first daughter. It was at that parish where I felt the Real Presence in the Eucharist.
There was a visiting priest, a chubby bearded man with what sounded like an Australian accent. I was two pews back from the far right, kneeling, watching him hold up the host to consecrate it when everything seemed to fade away. I remember all sounds, the traffic outside, the coughing and shuffling of parishioners, the priest’s prayers, all sound faded out to complete silence. And my peripheral vision shut down; I was focused solely on that rounded piece of unleavened bread that this man was holding aloft. It held my complete, ultimate attention in a way nothing either had before or has since. It was strange, but oddly it did not seem earth-shattering or mind-blowing. Just pleasant.
So every now and then I try to read something theological to try to make some sense of what exactly this Eucharist is. Next Sunday I’m meeting with my priest to actually officially go over this. The following Sunday is another “training” session. I’m very curious as to what they are going to tell me, and I don’t want to go into it blind. The next couple of days I’ll try to post some stuff on our blessed sacrament, more to make sense of it myself than to pass along anything of value to you.
I must admit up front that this still baffles me and I do not completely understand it.
However, it has had an incredible “pull” on me, beginning, oh, sometime around 2002 or so.
Despite regular attendance at Sunday School during my youth, up to CCD in 8th grade in preparation for Confirmation, despite four years at perhaps the prominent Catholic high school in New Jersey, despite growing up in a family of about 97 percent Catholics, of which maybe half attended mass weekly, despite all this, I don’t think the Eucharist was ever explained to me. Or if it was, it was done in a way that didn’t “stick.” Probably the latter, but I’m having a hard time of drawing up even a single memory of someone talking about the sacrament all those years ago.
But that is beside the point. I don’t want to argue how poor modern catechesis is (see how I just subtly argued my point there?). That’s the subject of a different post. I want to spend a couple of days trying to figure all this out for myself.
I have agreed to be an extraordinary minister of the Eucharist for my parish. That means, basically, that I will take the Eucharist to hospitals and give it to those who are stuck there, like I was nearly four months ago.
One of the highlights of those seemingly endless days of hospitalization was the daily visit from the Eucharistic minister. Some were chatty, some just gave me the sacrament and left. Either way, I believe whole-heartedly that I derived strength and comfort from it. Because it is the Real Presence of Jesus.
I recall back to 2002 when I was working IT in NYC. I had plenty of enforced free time so after exhausting all the used book stores in lower Manhattan I began attending daily mass at noon. It started accidentally during a visit to St. Patrick’s, but I soon found I liked it, and alternated between two churches, St. Anne’s and the Church of Our Savior. The highlight was receiving communion. After I got laid off and began working back in NJ, I attended Holy Trinity in Fort Lee periodically, but often around the time of the birth of my first daughter. It was at that parish where I felt the Real Presence in the Eucharist.
There was a visiting priest, a chubby bearded man with what sounded like an Australian accent. I was two pews back from the far right, kneeling, watching him hold up the host to consecrate it when everything seemed to fade away. I remember all sounds, the traffic outside, the coughing and shuffling of parishioners, the priest’s prayers, all sound faded out to complete silence. And my peripheral vision shut down; I was focused solely on that rounded piece of unleavened bread that this man was holding aloft. It held my complete, ultimate attention in a way nothing either had before or has since. It was strange, but oddly it did not seem earth-shattering or mind-blowing. Just pleasant.
So every now and then I try to read something theological to try to make some sense of what exactly this Eucharist is. Next Sunday I’m meeting with my priest to actually officially go over this. The following Sunday is another “training” session. I’m very curious as to what they are going to tell me, and I don’t want to go into it blind. The next couple of days I’ll try to post some stuff on our blessed sacrament, more to make sense of it myself than to pass along anything of value to you.
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