Touching Jesus in the Eucharist

Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. I remember feeling confounded as I heard these words come from my roommate freshman year. I went to a Catholic school the preceding 13 years of my life and attended Mass on most of the Sundays, even a chunk of the weekdays, throughout my 18+ years. Even with all that, I did not come close to comprehending the True Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist.

I thought I believed that Jesus was truly present, but my concept was one more of representation: the bread, His Body, and the wine, His Blood. His Soul? Divinity? Never before entered my thoughts. I did not comprehend that all four were present, in unity with the Trinity, in both species of what I saw as simply bread and wine. I did not get it and it did not become clear in that moment.

A couple months later, we returned to campus after Christmas break and my roommate had just attended the 2010 National FOCUS Conference in Orlando, FL. I had personally scheduled to get my wisdom teeth removed during that time so I had a "legitimate" excuse to not be there. I remember lying up on my loft bed and listening to her share about her experience. She described being in the hallways of a resort and thousands of college students dropping to their knees as Jesus was processed by in the monstrance. I was not even capable of visualizing this; in my mind, it was more like 12 people in a cramped motel hallway. Completely pathetic in comparison, I know, but even my narrow understanding provided me with an incredibly profound encounter.

I did not get it! Why would they drop to their knees? Why did they even go to the conference in the first place? What was so special about the Eucharist? And why did I not see it? I thought that I was a "good" Catholic. I went to Mass on Sunday. I got a Latin-titled award in high school for some kind of virtue thing. What was I missing?! At that point, I finally opened up to the possibility that I actually was missing something, that these other students were not just weird or bored.

When Lent came around that semester, I made a resolution to attend daily Mass at least once a week. This completely changed my life. People actually paid attention to what was going on! I noticed that some would bow at different times, so I paid even closer attention to understand what they found particularly important: the Name of Jesus and the Consecration of the Eucharist. Something real was happening. I started going more and more and, by the end of Lent, was attending Mass every day that I could, even forming my class schedule around Mass times when registering for the upcoming semester. And, every time I walked up to receive Jesus in the Eucharist, I prayed something like, "It is impossible for me to comprehend. I choose to believe. Help me to understand."

There was no apparent change, nothing looked or felt different, but I became convicted. One day in prayer I was reflecting on the hemorrhaging woman in Mark 5. She had faith that if she merely touched Jesus, she would be made well. It worked! I pondered that when we are receiving Him in the Holy Eucharist, we are reaching out to touch Him as this woman did. If this was true, then we could be healed while receiving Him. Though I did not desire healing at that particular moment, I was undergoing a lot of suffering. Two years before college I was in a near-fatal car crash, t-boned (broadsided) on my driver's side by a vehicle going between 60-70 mph. Miraculously surviving and coming out of a 5-day coma, I was left with chronic pain, amongst my medical problems having a couple collapsed spinal discs and multiple fractures in my pelvis, spine, and sacrum.

Sometimes I wondered if God would heal me of these pains through the Eucharist. I knew that He could, but I was not sure that He would. But then, the summer after I graduated college, six years after the crash, He did. Whaaat?! Yes. I received Jesus in the Eucharist, knelt back down in my spot, and realized my back no longer hurt. It had only been two months since I had actually started to desire and ask for healing in my back. And it happened! Not only did it happen, but it happened because I reached out and touched Him. The next day I hiked a mountain. Soon after that I started running again. And then I joined an indoor soccer league. This past summer I hiked 225 miles of the Camino in Spain! It has now been 2 ½ years since the healing and my back still feels amazing. The six years of agonizing pain are no longer even imaginable. I am free to live as I am meant to live, to love as I am meant to love.

I am still striving to go to Mass every day and I am still on a journey to further understand the True Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. If I could encourage you to do anything, it would be to go to Mass. Sitting where you are, trying to grasp this mystery on your own, is going to get you nowhere. You have to actually take a step towards an encounter with Christ. If you are not making it to Mass on Sunday, start with that commitment. If you have that down, increase your daily Mass attendance. Allow Him to show you for Himself. Acknowledge His Presence. He will not force you to believe in His Power, so it is up to you to trust Him. He desires to make you well, so ask Him, and then let Him. He desires for you to know Him, so go meet Him. Meet Him in the Eucharist. Reach out and touch Him.