Celebrating the Feast of Corpus Christi

Happy Feast of Corpus Christi (Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ) weekend! I’m writing to my spiritual family today and thought of my own birth family as well.

Some people have very powerful or peaceful experiences at their First Communion, others not so much. How was yours? Was yours at St. Pats, like me? We were in Spokane for Spring break and Grandmom took me to the sacristy before Mass to let Father know. Someone got a cake for the house after.

Many years later, when I was about 15, I had a truly special experience with the Eucharist. After Communion, there was a warmth that started in my tummy and went out to my head and to my toes. I told my mom about it and she asked if it could have been from the properties of the wine (the Precious Blood still has all the external properties of the wine, which is part of the miracle.)

I knew it wasn’t that; I’d only taken a sip. The next day at school at Marist (in Eugene), I went to the lunch time Communion Service where we received Communion – just the host – from the tabernacle and it happened again!! Warmth from my tummy to my head and to my toes.

It happened a few more times – enough for the Lord to make sure I knew that the Eucharist is really him – body, blood, soul, and divinity. Our God is a good, good God.

God gives us gifts for our salvation and the building up of others. When a nun told St. Theresa of Avila that she was envious that she didn’t have mystical experiences like her, Teresa responded saying something like, “Some people like you have such faith you only need to hear about mystical experiences to believe, while others of us are so hard-hearted that God has to do such things to help us believe.”

May we all be given the gift of faith and respond to it soft-heartedly, so as to believe the wonder that is the Eucharist.

Love and blessings.