In a previous chapter of my life which I might title “Before Conversion,” I knew very little about what the Church actually taught. Amazingly, I did know that the bread that the priest consecrated at Mass was Jesus. It wasn’t a symbol, it wasn’t Jesus beside or around the bread, it wasn’t half Jesus and half bread. It was truly all Jesus and It only looked like bread.
When I was invited to my friend’s First Holy Communion, I was about 7 years old. I had never received any religious instruction but I was riveted by the long lines of people going up the aisle to receive a “round white thing.” I knew there was something special and significant about that. I also remember wondering why some people received it in their hands and some on their tongues. The event left a deep impression on me.
When I was 15 years old another friend invited me to a First Holy Communion Mass, this one for her little brother. I was a little older so I began to ask questions about the Sacrament. My friend loaned me her brother’s sacramental prep book so I could learn more about it. This is where I learned that Transubstantiation is the changing of the bread’s substance into the substance of Christ's body. The book didn’t use those exact words as it was written for 7-year old children but that is what it taught. I believed it instantly, completely, and wholeheartedly. What a grace!
That does not mean I always treated the Eucharist with the respect It deserved. I made excuses for my behaviour and received Communion anyway, telling myself I needed Jesus. Yes, I did need Jesus but I didn’t understand that the way I was living my life meant that I was profaning the Body and Blood of the Lord.
Not only that, and perhaps this is less significant in the scheme of things, but I thought Eucharistic Adoration was idol worship. Let me explain! As I was baptized but not raised in the church, and because this devotion had all but disappeared when I was growing up, I knew nothing about it. I only remember when it returned to my parish I read about it in the bulletin but there was no explanation as to what it was. The older folks remembered it from their youth, but for someone like me that fell between the cracks, I had no context for it. Perhaps I had seen a picture of a monstrance and was repulsed by it’s ostentatious golden and bejeweled decoration, but that was all I “knew” of it. Sad, isn’t it?
When I look back at these experiences it’s a wonder to me that I am Catholic at all. I am thankful that through the grace I received through my two friends inviting me to Mass, I was able to encounter the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. Ultimately that desire to receive Him is what drew me back permanently.
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