One love. One blood. One life. You got to do what you should.

Sorry for the break in the action, everybody.  Sarah and I celebrated our 4^th anniversary last week, and took a couple days’ vacation.  It’s a little tradition we started of taking off, just the two of us, and going somewhere far away for a few days.  Some people think we’re crazy to leave our kids behind and take off like that, but, while we love our kids as much as (if not more than) humanly possible, we recognize that our marriage is our primary vocation (and the reason we have kids in the first place).  So to all those married couples out there (especially the young ones—before you develop bad habits of not making time for each other), we highly recommend making time for yourselves at least once a year (and your anniversary is a good excuse) to drive away (or fly if that’s your “thing”) and just be you.  Anyway, I took off the whole week from the blog, because last week was incredibly hectic leading up to the vacation, but here we are back on track again.

Now that we’ve completed the first half of the Mass, it’s time to move right along to the Liturgy of the Eucharist.  So the obvious question now is, “What IS the Eucharist?”  The short version is to say that it is the Body of Christ.  The long version is what you will get in the next slew of posts.  I’ll say for starters, though, that the word Eucharist comes from the Greek word eucharistein, which means “to give thanks.”  The Eucharist is our way of experiencing God in a REAL way here on earth and being thankful that we CAN have this experience.  Of course, the Eucharist isn’t ACTUALLY in the Bible, right?  This is just something the Catholic Church made up as it went along, right?  NO…a RESOUNDING “no.”  Look, for example, at the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 22 Verse 20: “Then he took the bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body, which will be given for you; do this in memory of me.’”  I don’t really know any simpler way of pointing this out.  Jesus said “This is my body.”  He didn’t say, “This is a SYMBOL of my body.”  He didn’t say, “This is bread, but just pretend for a minute that this is my body.”  He said, “This IS my body”…p lain, and simple.  Nothing lost in translation along the way, just straight up Truth from the very mouth of Jesus, Himself.  Communion, the Eucharist, the Body of Christ—whatever name you use—IS Jesus. It IS His body, and NOT a symbol or a reminder, or a representation.  It simply IS His body. 

So Catholics are cannibals??  Catholics EAT the skin of Jesus???  Even if they think they do, it still looks, tastes, and feels like bread!  How do you explain that?  My answer: All in good time, guys…all in good time.  This post is just a little introduction.  Tomorrow we’ll start unpacking the entirety of the Liturgy of the Eucharist, and when the moment is right, we’ll answer these questions…or at least answer them the best we can with our limited human understanding.  Until then, don’t forget to click the “Follow” button in the right-hand column and tell your friends about this blog.  Peace!