Eucharistic Witness Series
What does the Eucharist mean to you? How has the Eucharist changed your life? How have you encountered Jesus in the Eucharist?
Throughout this year of Eucharistic Revival, follow along to see how the Eucharist has touched the lives of Immaculate Conception parishioners.
Interested in writing your own? Submit it here or email erindonnic@gmail.com for more information.
We often turn to each other after leaving a time of Adoration and say, “Ah! I wish we had more time with Him!” Beholding the real presence of Christ in Eucharistic Adoration has been something we have shared together in our dating and engagement discernment, and we have found that He brings deep consolation. We’ve come to Adoration looking for Him, and we leave with Him and so much more. He roots us in the good, guides us in what is true, and helps us become more grateful for the beauty around us. It’s been unfathomably helpful to us in our vocational discernment to pray together, and allow ourselves to keep Christ at the center of our relationship. Christ is so still in the monstrance, and this is something we think will be helpful for us to remember in our soon-to-be marriage: to be still for one another, to listen to one another, to love one another, in the good times and the bad.
– Jack Colleran & Grace Fallon
The Eucharist: My Refuge of Hope
The Eucharist is my most profound source of hope and strength. Receiving it daily has brought me closer to Jesus and guided me through life’s challenges.
The Eucharist gives me wisdom and patience to persevere and silence the voices that want to affect my peace. It fills me with love, peace, and trust in God’s plan.
When I was 22, doctors told me I could never become pregnant, and if I did, the chances of loss were 95%. Through the daily Eucharist, I found intimacy with Jesus. So, I have been able to receive his strength to carry my cross, pray, forgive, trust in God’s plan, and offer my life for a greater purpose. At 38, against all odds, I became pregnant. This miracle was made possible by God’s grace. Surrounding our lives with Jesus through the Eucharistic is a daily blessing we receive to be united with Jesus.
– Julie G.
The Eucharist is the heartbeat of my journey towards priesthood. Each time I partake in the Body and Blood of Christ, I feel a profound connection to His sacrifice and love. It’s not just a ritual; it’s an encounter with the divine. Through the Eucharist, I’ve learned humility, as I approach the altar unworthy to be fed by such a great feast. It has taught me the power of presence; in those moments of quiet communion, I feel the gentle guidance of the Holy Spirit, shaping my soul for service. The Eucharist sustains me in difficult moments and strengthens me for the challenges ahead. I’ve seen its transformative power in my own life, and I long for others to experience the same. My prayer is that all IC parishioners may come to know the profound love of Christ through His gift of the Eucharist, even as He continues to shape me into the servant leader I am called to be.
– Father Joe McHenry
Most young couples will tell you that the moment they locked eyes on their wedding day, as the bride walks down the aisle toward her groom, is one of the most special moments they have shared together. And although we could hardly lock eyes through both our tears, we would certainly say the same.
It is another shared glance, however, that we hold most dear. That is the moment we locked eyes at Immaculate Conception’s Easter Vigil in 2022, just after Evan was confirmed and received Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist for the first time.
Although we stood apart, we both felt an overwhelming closeness in that moment, and experienced a new sort of spiritual intimacy. Only a month later, Evan proposed. And the closeness we felt – through the Eucharist – has only been wonderfully magnified by the Sacrament of Marriage.
Not long after that, having just learned that I was pregnant, we sat together in Mass and marveled at the fact the Eucharist would not only spiritually nourish us as a couple, but physically nourish our baby each time I received Him.
Now, we both look forward to our little girl’s First Holy Communion, and the glance that all three of us will share when she receives Our Lord. And although Evan won’t admit it, we’re also looking forward to perhaps watching her walk down the aisle one day too.
-Evan & Helena Myers
During my freshman year of college, for Lent, instead of giving up chocolate or sweets as I had done in the past, I decided to spend 30 minutes each day in adoration. It ended up being the best Lent I had experienced up to that point. I was particularly impacted by the realization that God wanted to spend time with me not just when I was sad or desperate for an answered prayer—as had been my impetus for coming to prayer in the past—but indeed he wanted me to share with him my joy and excitement as well.
During my junior year of college, I ended up in Rome for a week with my classmates. As we visited each different church, I found myself completely uninterested in the architecture or natural beauty or even the relics various saints. I only wanted to be present before Jesus in the Eucharist.
Back in Austria following that trip, in the little adoration chapel of our study abroad campus, I was struck by the realization: the Jesus here is the same Jesus that I spent time with in Rome, the same Jesus that I visited in Czech and Poland and Slovenia, the same Jesus that was waiting for me back home in Virginia.
Presently—living and working in Alexandria, Virginia—the Eucharist continues to play a central point in my life. Through many graces and especially through regular time spent in adoration of Our Lord, I have come to confidently believe that—as he did for the early believers in the book of Acts—Jesus desires to give us a life filled with miracles, boldness, and supernatural abundance. Our Lord is good and He is truly present in the Eucharist.
– Michelle F.
A sense of certainty, peace, direction – and acceptance; to me this is the Eucharist. As I gracefully (I hope) move into my “senior” years, I look back upon my Catholic life and reflect upon the many changes that I have seen in the world and in my Church. It can be a bit overwhelming – like having 15,000 unanswered emails in your “in” box – and sometimes disheartening. But one thing has been consistent for me; the power of the Eucharist.
Despite years of Catholic education and knowing that the Eucharist sits at the epicenter of our Catholic life, only with age and experience have I begun to appreciate and embrace more fully its centrality. When I am seated before the monstrance during Adoration, or simply during Mass, I can find the peace that often is difficult to find in our noisy world and yet is so essential to moving forward in life.
The Eucharist is love – something all of us can use!
– Kevin P.
Imagine you’re standing alongside Christ in all his glory. You notice his wounds, and suddenly you sense a tremendous love flowing forth from them into your wounds, giving you hope of being made whole again.
That’s what the Eucharist means for me.
“A spirit will occupy your soul,” I sometimes tell my students. “You don’t have a choice in the matter. The spirit that occupies your soul might be the spirit of the metaverse. Or it might be the spirit of despair over the world and your place in it.” They get it. “Where you do have a choice,” I assure them, “is in the spirit that you open your heart to receive.”
Why not open our hearts to the spirit that can heal us, remake us, recreate us, redeem us, reorient us amidst all the world’s spirits that would disorient us? Why not open our hearts to the Spirit of Christ?
That’s what the Eucharist means for me.
Some people say that we Catholics fetishize the Eucharist. There may be instances of that, but it would be to miss the main point. The Church is the Body of Christ. We the Church are the Body of Christ. It is we who are being transubstantiated whenever we lift our hearts up to the Lord.
That’s what the Eucharist means for me.
At every Mass, after the consecration, we hear the words, “the Mystery of Faith.” And then we respond acclaiming the glory of the Lord’s saving Passion and Resurrection. True, we do not see the effects of his Passion and Resurrection, all of a sudden now present before us. But they are indeed there—for He is there! Which is why the Eucharist itself is the Mystery of Faith par excellence.
To spend time, then, before the Eucharist praising, adoring, and glorifying Jesus is to exercise our faith in the most powerful way possible. It is to train our minds on the sublime mysteries stored up for us in heaven and dispensed day after day to us on the altar. And it is to train our hearts—and all of their worries and concerns— on this Friend who becomes present to us, for us, for no other motive than His saving love. What a gift. What a mystery! Given to us now in faith, but in due time, face to face.
– Br. Charles Marie Rooney, O.P.
“The happiness you have a right to enjoy has a name and a face.” (Pope Benedict XVI)
One day this summer, after spinning restlessly over some difficulty beyond my control, I decided to visit an adoration chapel. I went to vent. To breathe. To rest. I hoped for nothing more than a little quiet since this issue seemed beyond resolution. I walked in to find a quote on a stand awaiting me: “Man wants happiness and happiness is the possession of God. In the Eucharist, God gives himself to us without reserve, without measure” (St. Hurtado). This day was also the feast of St. John the Baptist. The quote stand was to me an inanimate St. John, the last of the prophets, encouraging me to behold the Lamb. The One whom generations longed to see and could not. I wanted a solution, but God wanted to give me happiness Himself. O come let us adore Him.
– Marsha F.
The Lord’s presence in the Eucharist has taught me that true love abides universally and is present to us freely, as a gift to share with others. The Eucharist is a tangible reminder that God is always with me, with us. The real presence of the Lord in the host is what drew me to Catholicism when I was converting in my early twenties. The Eucharist has been, mystically and viscerally, a part of my prayer life, and really my psyche, ever since.
I am strengthened in love and draw hope from the Eucharist. I often am brought to tears upon the reception of communion, overwhelmed by the love, healing power, and steadfastness of the Lord. In ways I don’t understand, God unites God’s self to me in His great sacrificial gift.
Since my first Communion, God in the Eucharist has been a constant in my life. In times where I lacked faith, I was still drawn to the Church to receive communion. My marriage sacrament was accompanied by the reception of the host. I think with joy of teaching my daughter about her first communion. I pray when it’s my time to pass from this world that the Eucharist will be available to shepherd me.
-Diane A.
When I began high school, I was challenged on many points about my Catholic faith, including the Eucharist. I researched why Catholics believe in Christ’s Real Presence in the Eucharist, and found the scriptural basis, the earliest patristic writings, and 2000 years of unbroken Church teaching all in accordance. I knew then that I would always be Catholic.
Years later, during a time when I was living immorally and with insufficient regard for God, I found myself at a youth conference run by Franciscan University. During Adoration, near the back of a massive crowd, I looked at the stage on which rested the Blessed Sacrament. I asked, “Why are You so far away, Lord?” I audibly heard what I know to be His voice respond, “Why are you so far away?” Fear and awe gripped me. I avoided answering this question for some time before finally responding and altering my life. And though not quite that miraculous, my time in Adoration since then has always confirmed that Jesus is alive and present.
– Bailey K.
In Matthew’s Gospel, when Jesus returns from Gethsemane, he finds Peter and the two sons of Zebedee asleep. He tells Peter: “So you could not keep watch with me for one hour?”
During this period of Eucharistic Revival, let’s take up that challenge from our Lord and commit to a weekly Holy Hour with the Blessed Sacrament. Silent prayer in our Lord’s presence deepens your faith, improves your relationship with God, and helps you appreciate the beauty of Christ’s sacrifice and real presence every time you attend Mass.
The Holy Hour completely transformed my prayer life. It is easy to understand the doctrine of the real presence in theory. But we are not just minds, but embodied beings. Spending time with Jesus physically helped me experience the power of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist rather than just intellectually assenting to it.
It can transform your prayer life too.
– Peter S.
Interested in sharing your own Eucharistic witness? Submit it here or email erindonnic@gmail.com for more information.