My Greatest Love

This is my metaphor describing what it was like to discover the Eucharist as an Evangelical Protestant.

Suppose a girl has a pen pal - for years. The girl and the boy converse daily even - sometimes more often than that. Letters. Emails. Facebook messages. Facetime. Texting. They come to love each other deeply and know how one another thinks. The girl becomes a young woman, and the two even get engaged and know that one day, when they are finally together, they will be married. For now, they are content. But then, the young woman discovers something amazing.

She realizes that the pen pal she loves so dearly LIVES RIGHT DOWN THE STREET. He has been there all along - physically, truly, really. And all she had to do all of these years is walk down that sidewalk and up those steps, knock on that door and go into His room.

And He has been longing for this from the very beginning. He has always longed for her - to come to Him so that He could be one with her - in every way.

I have loved Jesus Christ since I was eight years old. I have prayed and read the Bible and listened to Christian music and had times I felt very close to Him and times when I didn't.

But when I became Catholic, I realized that this Jesus I have loved most of my life is truly right down the street! And I can go to Him and be in His Presence - His Real Presence - whenever I want!

This is not something you keep quiet. This is something you must share.

When you see people who are in that same spot... longing for their Lord - you want to tell them that this One they love is right here.

Sure, you can keep emailing and Facebooking and Facetiming. You won't lose any of that closeness. But, don't you want to really be with Him?

Let Him touch you. Find that most intimate relationship of all. Open your hand to Him. Open your mouth. Your entire being to Him...

Of course, you do.

This is not a new teaching.

This Truth is as old as the Church itself. Older.

For it began with the Last Supper. Was foreshadowed in the Old Testament. Proclaimed and predicted by Jesus Christ in the Gospel of John chapter 6. Written about in the first and second centuries and every century since then.

You love Jesus.

Isn't it time to enter the very room in which He waits for you?