My Spiritual Journey Part 5
My Spiritual Journey, Part 5:
There was a point a few years ago when I had an intense hunger and desire to be in the presence of the Lord. An ache through the day and an ache that woke me in the night. It was an exasperating season in my spiritual journey.
Simultaneously, I had desired more depth in my faith and I had no idea what that could look like at the time.
Long before I knew there would be intense spiritual conversion, I said “yes” to the Lord to step away from the seemingly good. He often doesn’t gives us the full picture and this is a time where He really took me step by step.
From the sweet moments of communion, in the school gym I heard the gospel those years ago, there was a thread of a hungering and desire to commune deeply with the Lord in communion… though not in just mere symbol.
His eucharistic heart had been drawing me home.
From Pope Benedict XVI: Everything begins, one might say, from the heart of Christ who, at the Last Supper, on the eve of his passion, thanked and praised God and by so doing, with the power of his love, transformed the meaning of death which he was on his way to encounter. The fact that the Sacrament of the Altar acquired the name “Eucharist” — “thanksgiving” — expresses precisely this: that changing the substance of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ is the fruit of the gift that Christ made of himself, the gift of a Love stronger than death, divine Love which raised him from the dead.
I had learned what I had been hungering for - it was His presence in the Eucharist. & when I studied the Church and it’s origins & how Jesus desired for us to worship Him… I was enamored. I had experienced nothing more beautiful. I learned A LOT in a short amount of time and got to a point where I knew I couldn’t just turn away from what I’d learned.
The Eucharist changed my life. His presence enamors me. What a gift that we get to participate in the greatest sacrifice known to man. It’s humbling.
The gift of His True Presence in the Eucharist changed everything for me. His True Presence brought me home. The image I have when it comes to my faith these days is that before my conversion I was swimming in shallow waters, a bathtub with water an inch deep… and entering into the fullness of His Church has dropped me into a vast ocean. I am so glad I get to continue to discover the mystery of the Catholic Church for the rest of my life.