I CAN COUNT THE NUMBER of times I’ve shed tears when receiving the Eucharist on one hand. My First Holy Communion as a child, probably my wedding.
But I also remember the tears of joy at that first in-person Mass in June 2020, my first time receiving since the beginning of the pandemic. They were tears of reunion, of the completion of something that had been incomplete for so long. They were the tears you cry when reunited with a loved one after a long absence.
The year 2020 was the lesson we all needed in the importance of the Eucharist in our lives. The importance we’d let ourselves forget when we took for granted the ability to attend Mass every week. Might we have let ourselves forget once again?
If absence makes the heart grow fonder, does ubiquity make the heart grow complacent?
Today’s reading from First Kings strikes poignantly in 2024.
“This is enough, O Lord! Take my life, for I am no better than my fathers.”
It feels like the cries of many of our hearts as we read the headlines and bemoan the state to which our society has fallen. We feel so powerless in the face of it.
The advice of the angel to Elijah, “Get up and eat” could be read by the cynical as simply good life advice for a depressive episode. But we’ve listened to the Gospel as well. “I am the bread of life,” Jesus tells us in John. And even our own experience has shown us how important the Eucharist is to our daily lives. How did we forget so quickly?
In the busyness of our hectic lives, in the despair we might feel for the world around us, let us remember to value the physical presence of God among us.
Have you ever been to a Protestant church? Or if you’re a convert, have you been back since you became Catholic?
I often find it a somewhat eerie experience. There’s a lack in the air that draws attention to itself when you know about it, and that lack is the Eucharist. I can almost feel the empty tabernacle on Good Friday, just like I can feel the absence of Christ’s sacramental presence in the churches of our separated brethren. And they don’t even know what they’re missing!
As Catholics, we have been given the greatest gift—the physical and sacramental presence of Jesus among us. In the light of the American Church’s Eucharistic Revival efforts this year, I think it’s time to reignite our fervor for the Eucharistic presence of Christ in our hearts again. Approach the altar today with a renewed appreciation for this gift of Himself. Make continual efforts to keep that flame of desire burning.
As the psalmist says, “Taste and see the goodness of the Lord, blessed the man who takes refuge in him.”