When I first began to wear hearing aids, I was awed to hear sounds that I had never heard before, but in due time I grew accustomed to them. Psychologists tell us that if we paid attention to every sound we heard or every color we saw, we would literally go insane. To protect ourselves, we learn to block out certain sounds and sights. They call this process, “habituation.” Parents and teenagers call it “tuning out.”
There is a down side to habituation. After a while, we tend to habituate almost anything in life like sunsets, landscapes, or family. We lose our appreciation and excitement for the things we see all the time when we take them for granted.
Have some of us have added Eucharist to that list? When I say, “Body of Christ,” and the person receiving communion gives me either no response or a lifeless, “amen,” I wonder if we share the same belief in what I just said. If a fellow Catholic decides to skip Mass, I wonder if we share the same belief in what Eucharist can do for us.
Just before communion, the celebrant holds up the cup and host and boldly proclaims in this or similar words, “This is the lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. Happy are those who are invited to this supper.” Are you happy to be invited? Does being here make a difference in your busy schedule or would you prefer to be elsewhere?
Ideally every Catholic would be thrilled to be here at the Lord’s Table. This meal should be the highlight of our week yet looking around; you and I both know that not everyone who could be here is present for any number of reasons. For some, other activities are more important or appealing than the chance to be with Jesus at Mass.
Much of our attitude toward Eucharist and the Mass depends on what we personally believe. The core of our Catholic faith is that bread and wine when consecrated, become for us the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Not symbols, as many other Christians believe, but truly the real presence of Jesus Christ. Our Catechism tells us, “Under the consecrated species of bread and wine Christ himself, living and glorious, is present in a true, real and substantial manner: his body and his blood, with his soul and his divinity.” (1413). When you stop to think about it, the Real Presence is no more incredible than the incarnation itself. If God would choose to become human to make divinity present to us, why couldn’t Christ change bread and wine into his divinity and humanity?
Nonetheless, numerous surveys reveal that not all Catholics believe in the real presence of Jesus Christ even though this is what fundamentally separates us from other Christians. Contrary to what the Church teaches, many Catholics don’t believe that the bread and wine, once consecrated, have truly become the body and blood of Jesus Christ.
If you don’t believe in what the Eucharist is, I ask that you decline the invitation to come to this supper. Instead, stay in your seat and ponder what is stopping you from accepting this crucial belief of our faith. St. Cyril of Jerusalem, 1600 years ago, said, “Don’t judge the reality by what you see and touch and taste. Judge instead by your unwavering faith.” Before that, St. Augustine said, “Faith opens the door to understanding. Unbelief closes it.”
How readily we are impacted by what is unfolding before us depends on the level of faith and love we bring with us to Mass. Just how open are you to God’s presence? When we approach the Mass without active faith in Jesus’ presence, we are pretty much in the same boat as the unbelieving crowds we often encounter in the gospels. They saw a carpenter, an itinerant preacher, an ordinary man. They didn’t see God and neither do we when we fail to see Christ present in our midst in the Word and in the Eucharist.
Even if we say that we believe in the real presence, our words are hollow if we don’t express our faith by our actions. Noting how nonchalantly many Catholics approached the Mass, a non Catholic once said, “If I believe what you say you believe, I’d be crawling to that tabernacle every day on my hands and knees to be with the One you say is in there.”
The way we approach the Mass, that is, our preparation, conduct, and follow up, reflects our belief in what is happening. Do we see ourselves as coming here to be in the presence of our God? Chances are, there is room for improvement to make the Mass more meaningful for us.
The Church calls on us to fast for an hour before communion for good reason. We should get out of our normal routine by quieting ourselves down to be in God’s presence. Seize the moment to ponder the readings beforehand or use the time in private prayer to prep yourself to pray with one another. Think of this time before Mass as a warm up time, much like one warms up before exercising. Ask yourself, “Does the way I dress reflect that I am about to encounter God in this gathering?” Do you see this as an extraordinary opportunity or not? What if it were the President who was waiting to see you? Would you come nonchalantly or ill prepared?
If you are indeed happy to be invited to this meal, and I hope you are, then savor the moment. Take and eat, Jesus tells us. He didn’t say, eat and run. Allow him to then transform your lives in this extraordinary encounter that has changed the lives of countless believers.