What's it like to receive the Eucharist for the 1st time as an adult?

(From the 2005 archives)

Year of the Eucharist

When the Year of the Eucharist began in October 2004, I was still searching, though growing in my confidence that the Lord was calling me into the Catholic Church. Quite frankly, I didn’t even know there was such a thing as the “Year of the Eucharist,” and I barely knew what the word Eucharist meant.

On August 14, 2005, I received my First Communion. It is difficult to describe the joy and peace I sensed when I received the Most Blessed Sacrament that day. To be honest, I wondered if my overactive imagination was partly responsible for the profound experience I had when I knelt afterward, but each time, He has come again with that same deposit of peace. Each time, I recognize the Presence of Jesus Christ inside me and know that He is transforming and equipping me for service. I suppose there will be times in the next few decades when I do not sense Him so readily or feel anything profound, but I am comforted by the thought that He will come, regardless of my feelings, and bring to me precisely what I need every time I receive Him inside of me.

It saddens me when I consider my first forty years. I’ve “sat in on” many Catholic Masses through the years; I had no idea what I was missing. Without giving it much thought, I believed what those Catholics were doing was basically the same thing I did every time my Protestant church celebrated Communion. Not so. Protestant Communion was never efficacious for me; it never equipped me to live the life Christ marked out for me. While lovely and inspiring, it was merely symbolic.

Dear brother and sister in the Faith, do you know what you have in this Sacrament? Do you pause before receiving Our Lord and contemplate it all with wonder? If so, have you ever spoken about such things with a non-Catholic? Your evangelical friends are quick to ask you if you have asked the Lord to come into your heart. Have you ever asked them if they know what it is like for Him to come into the heart, the soul, the arms, the legs, and into one’s entire being? My friend, you have access to the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord.

Why not tell somebody? Pass along your favorite book on the Holy Eucharist (perhaps The Lamb’s Supper by Scott Hahn, a former Presbyterian minister). Or simply point your friend in the direction of the nearest RCIA class and encourage him to learn more about what the early Church Fathers had to say about Holy Communion or suggest that he take a second look at the Gospel of John chapter six. And ask your friend:

If this holy meal is real (and was never meant to be merely symbolic), wouldn’t you want to experience this intimate moment with the Lord?