Losing the Eucharist

Today became a sad day for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. On the feast of Saint Patrick many Catholics learned of the hard decision that our shepherd Archbishop Perez needed to make. Archbishop Perez needed to suspend Mass. While in my heart I knew it was coming, it still was a huge blow. It was a huge blow for various reasons.

The sacraments were not never there for me. I never understood how people in other countries could not experience the sacraments on a daily or weekly basis. Yet, somehow this will be my new norm. Mass will not be available to me. Even more upsetting about losing the gift of Mass is no one taught me about how or what a spiritual communion is. I find myself searching the internet and my theology books on how to do a spiritual communion. So now as my heart breaks for losing the sacraments, I am trying to figure out how to do a spiritual communion.

While I am not going to go into what a spiritual communion is or how one attempts it (that will be another article), I want you to know that your feelings on the sacraments are valid! It is okay to feel upset. It is okay to feel like you just lost a person so close to you. I know I feel devastated that I will not be able to receive Christ each week. I know I feel like I just lost the most important person in my life. It is like a death and not knowing how I will proceed on my earthly journey without Christ. Yet, I think about all of the prior Gospels and the Acts. Is this how all the Apostles felt when Jesus died on Calvary on Good Friday? Is this how Mary felt knowing that Jesus was going to die before her?

Losing the sacraments is about using this time to understand how to come closer to Jesus. Will this time period allow me to deepen my relationship with Christ or will my relationship move farther away? This happening during Lent could not come at a better time. Now, it is time for me to grieve losing my relationship with Christ as how I expect it to be. More importantly, this is now a time for me to take my relationship with Christ to a deeper level. It gives me the ability to yearn for the sacraments that I take for granted each week. By “fasting” from the sacraments, the next time I receive them I will appreciate them a lot more, hopefully.

The next time I receive the sacraments for the first time after this fast, will I be able to have a deeper relationship with Christ?  Will I have had a conversation with Christ knowing that the Eucharist is not something to take for granted? Maybe somehow God is showing us that the Eucharist needs to be taken away from us, so that we can have a greater appreciation for the Eucharist.