The National Eucharistic Congress continues with an annual National Eucharistic Pilgrimage. The US bishops began the enormously successful Eucharistic Revival after a poll several years ago suggested that only 31% of Catholics actually believe what the Church believes about the Eucharist.
I was surprised by that poll, too. I was surprised the number of believers was as high as it was. When I was a kid, I went to religious education and Mass and never learned about the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. Or at least, I was never taught it in any way I remember.
In fact, I don’t remember anything of my instruction for First Communion, but I can vividly remember one particular activity we did.
My teacher took us right up to the tabernacle, opened it, and had each of us feel inside. “See, there is nothing in there to be afraid of!” she said.
I think she wanted it to be a moment of increased familiarity between us and the sacrament, but it wasn’t. I even think she told us that the priest had removed the hosts for our visit, but my young brain registered only that there is nothing in the tabernacle.
It’s no wonder that in the Old Testament, God heavily restricted the Holy of Holies — and Catholic canon law protects the tabernacle. The mystery surrounding the Eucharist helps preserve our faith.
It also hurt that I didn’t receive my first Confession until years after my first Communion.
The necessity of confession as a preparation for communion has been stressed in the 21st century. The use of the Catechism has made it clear to parishes: first confession must come before first communion. The Catechism requires it (in paragraph 1457) — but it wasn’t clear in my 1970s parish.
This is why St. John Paul II called the state of confession a “crisis” in the Church and used magisterial language in his 2003 encyclical, saying, “I therefore desire to reaffirm that in the Church there remains in force, now and in the future, the rule by which the Council of Trent … affirmed that, in order to receive the Eucharist in a worthy manner, ‘one must first confess one’s sins, when one is aware of mortal sin.’”
Bishops around the world followed suit. In 2006, the U.S. bishops published the document “On Preparing to Receive Christ Worthily in the Eucharist” and in 2007, the Latin American bishops followed with the Aparecida document prepared by the future Pope Francis (see No. 177).
In the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, our children all learned that communion flows from reconciliation, because God is an attentive Father, involved in their life and preparing them to be involved in his. In my childhood, God was more like a benign uncle who kept his distance and didn’t care much what I did.
In college, friends finally set me straight.
I ended up at a Catholic college practically by mistake, but once I was there, my new peers returned me to confession and told me about the Real Presence. Scott Hahn tapes gave me the details they couldn’t supply — and it changed my life.
I was in charge of Eucharistic Adoration at my college and have been faithful to it ever since. I have found that there is practically a one-to-one ratio in my life: The more time I spend in Eucharistic Adoration, the less anxiety I have in my life.
I like to compare it to the difference between being at home alone or when someone else is in your house. If no one else is home, the whole house feels different — and if someone is there, even if they are asleep in the other room, you know you’re not alone. In the same way, adoration makes my whole life feel different, because I know I’m not alone.
I know that Jesus Christ himself is here and the future is 100% safe in his hands. Whether things are good or bad, he’s got this.
I want things to be different for my children — and now my grandchildren.
So that they will know what I didn’t, when they are old enough, I rehearse in church the same questions and answers I have gone over with all of them.
I ask, “What’s that called?”
They answer “The tabernacle.”
“Who is in the tabernacle?”
Jesus.
“How can he fit in there if he’s a man like me?”
Because he’s God so he can do anything he wants.
“So what did he do?”
He turned bread into himself.
“Why would he do that?”
Because he loves us and he wants to be with us every day.
I hope that lesson changes their lives as it — eventually — did mine.
