Today’s find: Host

There was a moment when I could sense the Presence, a rushing in.

Grandson #1 was different. He was feelin’ it. He had just become host for the Host … and Jesus was giving him a hug, deep deep inside.

My prayer for him in the moment was that he’d remember this sensation all his life. Remember it, but also grow with it. Grow comfortable with it. Be comforted by it – the Presence.

There’s no communion like your First Communion, of course. I still remember mine, dimly, some 62 years hence. And mostly that’s because we tend to make a big deal out of this very Catholic moment. We get dressed up, we invite the family, we take photo after photo, we put on a feast. 

It’s a lovely moment on the whole. But also a bit of a chaotic one once Mass is done … once we are all sent forth, as hosts for the Host. In a sense, the “Jesus inside us” can get lost in the moment. He’s not exactly overwhelmed, but definitely receding a bit. The Star of the Show becomes the Understudy, fading into the background … blessing our family time together, to be sure, but without demanding His time in the spotlight.

And this is Presence, too. This is the gift, the grace of Communion that I have come to treasure in the six decades since I first became host for the Host. I think it’s because I have learned to meet Jesus “on the beach,” as it were: The Jesus who gently encourages me (and every disciple) to “Come, have breakfast” – the invitation we hear in the gospel passage for the Third Week of Easter.

Hence, my prayer for my Grandson – that he grow comfortable with this gift he has been given. That he be fed by the Presence, and feel Christ’s grace moving in him … even (especially) on the ordinary days of his life. It is in fact a prayer I make for every person whose First Communion I have attended through the years. It’s a good prayer, too, for those of us who’ll be making upwards of our “8,000^th Communion” in the days to come.

We are – all of us – invited to “Come, have breakfast.” Even those of us who might find ourselves “lightly clad,” like St. Peter, at certain points in our lives: We are not perfect in following Christ. Perhaps we never will be. But the invitation stands. Jesus meets us where we are. The Host beckons us to join Him on the beach, and to keep enjoying His Presence … until nothing in our lives holds us back.

Let us pause now…to recall that we are in the presence of the Holy & Merciful One.

IHS