“So Very Precious”: How I Rediscovered the Eucharist

It was quite a few years ago when it happened. But, boy, did it make me angry. At the time, I was still Protestant and I was attending a Catholic Mass. The Liturgy of the Eucharist was well underway and I was about to participate in Communion. And then – BOOM –  I was gently asked (not by the priest) to consider not receiving it.

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?

Stunned and deeply fuming, yet trying to be respectful, I sat back down. I can still remember manically vowing to myself that I would NEVER allow anything to come between my God and me and how could anyone even THINK to suggest otherwise and what ARROGANCE the Catholic Church must have to suggest that I was not worthy to receive the Eucharist and so on and so on and so forth.

That was not a good day.

Now prior to this Mass I was deeply committed to my Protestant faith, if not a bit stubborn and overconfident. But subsequent to this experience, I doubled down on my arguments against becoming Catholic. I still remember the caustic words that poured from my mouth regarding the Church’s stance on the Eucharist. Exclusive. Elitist. Condescending. I felt wronged. Burned.

But years would pass. I would continue to attend Mass (my wife and I would alternate Sundays attending Catholic Mass one Sunday and Protestant services the other). And yes, in an act of smug defiance, I received Communion at both churches. Take that.

And yet.

And yet, something was happening. As I attended Mass, in spite of my resistance, I began to see the Eucharist in a different light. While it was consistently valued at its monthly appearance at my Protestant church, it was always present at the Catholic Church. Every Sunday. Every Mass. And what’s more, the Eucharist was beautifully revered in the fashion described by the Second Vatican Council document Lumen Gentium. It is “the source and summit of the Christian life”. The entire flow of the Mass from the anticipation embodied in the Introduction and the Liturgy of the Word to the sated reflection found in the Concluding Rites points, points, always points to the “source and summit” – the pinnacle – where the bread and wine are consecrated to become the Blessed Sacrament and the Precious Blood of Christ. The Real Presence. 

In spite of myself, I began to realize that something very special was happening – something wondrous. This comprehension was yet another of the innumerable moments on my journey to Catholicism where G.K. Chesterton’s words ring so true.

“The moment men cease to pull against [the Catholic Church] they feel a tug towards it. The moment they cease to shout it down they begin to listen to it with pleasure. The moment they try to be fair to it they begin to be fond of it.”

Reconsidering the Eucharist and all that it meant was a moment when I ceased to pull against the Catholic Church. And I felt another a tug towards it. In Peter Ackroyd’s brilliant biography, The Life of Thomas More, the power and beauty of what was transpiring at the Mass was described in the most vivid of terms,

“In ceremonial manner the priest enacted the stages of Christ’s ministry, passion and death; as one spiritual writer put it, ‘the process of the mass representeth the very progress of Christ to his passion.’ Every movement and gesture of the celebrant had dramatic significance so that, for example, when the priest holds out his arms before the altar he is an image of the crucified saviour. The most sacred truths of the faith are given full material reality, leading up to that moment when Christ himself becomes present at the altar. This was marked by the moment of elevation when the priest held up the host, become by a miracle the body of Jesus. At that instant candles and torches, made up of bundles of wood, were lit to illuminate the scene; the sacring bell was rung, and the church bells pealed so that those in the neighbouring streets or fields might be aware of the solemn moment. It was the sound which measured the hours of their day. Christ was present in their midst once more and, as the priest lifted up the thin wafer of bread, time and eternity were reconciled. The worshippers knelt down and held out their arms in adoration, since this was the sight for which they had come. There are reports of the people running from altar to altar to catch a glimpse of the consecrated host at different Masses, and one priest complained that at the sound of the sacring bell the people rushed away from his sermon to witness the elevation.”

Imagine. Not the spectacle of people rushing from altar to altar. Not the candles, torches or the peals of the sacring bell. Not even the priest with arms outstretched or arms raised. But simply consider “time and eternity reconciled” in this sacramental moment of moments where we take Christ at his word and experience the presence of inextinguishable light in a world of all-consuming darkness. And suddenly we begin to comprehend why the people rushed, why flames were lit and bells were rung, and why the priest takes this as among his most solemn roles, in persona Christi.

Juxtapose the wonder and gravity of this scene with the flippancy with which the Eucharist is often considered by the modern world. Flannery O’Connor, a devout Catholic and brilliant novelist, found herself at a dinner party with agnostic luminaries of the literary world when the conversation took a curious turn. As she recalled,

“Well, toward morning the conversation turned on the Eucharist, which I, being the Catholic, was obviously supposed to defend. [Mary McCarthy] said when she was a child and received the Host, she thought of it as the Holy Ghost, He being the ‘most portable’ person of the Trinity; now she thought of it as a symbol and implied that it was a pretty good one. I then said, in a very shaky voice, ‘Well, if it’s a symbol, to hell with it.’ That was all the defense I was capable of but I realize now that this is all I will ever be able to say about it, outside of a story, except that it is the center of existence for me; all the rest of life is expendable.”

A symbol is a thoughtful representation which engenders warm feelings, but in the end is just a symbol. A stand-in. It represents something utterly dependent on one’s own interpretation and reaction. But the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist changes everything. It is an Entity unto itself and it is transformative. It is something that consumes and molds us as opposed to something we simply consume. Love Itself appears once again for you and for me. As Pope Benedict XVI reminded,

“As far as we can understand it, this is the sense of the Eucharistic sacrifice. To counter the great weight of evil that exists in the world and pulls the world downwards, the Lord places another, greater weight, that of the infinite love that enters this world.”

Indeed.

There was one day years ago when my eyes just opened about the Eucharist. One day. And this stubborn, proud critic of the Catholic Church found one less thing to be critical about. It happened when I was holding my newborn daughter – this utter miracle with the deepest blue eyes – in my wife’s hospital room. As family came in congratulating, admiring and adoring, there naturally came a point when they wanted to hold her. And as I looked down at my beautiful, perfect, precious, precious girl, I leaned her gently into their eager, waiting arms. Be so careful, I thought. Be so, so careful… It’s not you, I thought about my family member…you know that I love you. It’s simply that I want you to know how infinitely much I love her. She is so precious.

So very precious.