Michael is right...that is the best promise, the best gift in the world.
I'm not sure if my sweet Michael grasps the magnitude of this day, but he certainly was beaming with joy from sun-up to sun-down. He looked so handsome and grown-up in his shiny-white 1st Communion tie and his crisp blue dress shirt. Of course all the 1st Communicants looked radiant, but like every other mother, I thought my child outshone them all. :) At times during the Mass I thought my heart might simply burst with joy and pride. Michael had been waiting and preparing for this day both in his mind and in his heart for so long, and to watch him embrace each moment of the day with such maturity and joy simply delighted my heart.
After Mass we asked Michael where he wanted to celebrate this momentous occasion, and he chose The Bagel Company. He picked a blueberry bagel with blueberry cream cheese...I guess he loves blue, just like his mother! :) When we came home he opened his gifts and it was like watching a child on Christmas morn. From his godparents (Uncle Steve and Aunt Kristin) he received a beautiful wooden keepsake box, an activity book and a prayer book; from Paul's mom he received a cross necklace, a Mass book, a 1st Communion cross to hang on the wall, and a saint book; from my parents he received a blue leather-bound Catholic Bible and a St. Michael chaplet. He was delighted by every gift and kept looking at each one over and over again throughout the day.
Later that afternoon while Michael and I were playing a board game together he exclaimed, "Mom, I just feel like Jesus has been with me all day...He has filled me so much that there is no room for Satan!" I told him that's the wonderful gift of receiving the Eucharist...Jesus IS with us in a real and special way and helps us keep Satan away.
The Eucharist is such a gift and I don't think most Catholics even realize what a miracle it is. I recently heard a sad and staggering statistic that over 70 percent of Catholics don't even believe that the bread and wine at Mass are changed into Jesus' Body and Blood! How can this be? I truly wonder what caused so many (Reformers and Catholics alike) to go astray from this teaching on the Real Presence, a teaching that is so clear in Scripture and explicitly found in the earliest writings of the church fathers. And I wonder at my own complacency of this fundamental tenant of my faith, for if I truly embraced the wondrous mystery of the Eucharist, why am I not racing to Mass each and every day be fed with the Bread of Life, the precious Body and Blood of my Savior!?!? Lord, I believe...help my unbelief!
But I digress... What I am trying to express is simply how overjoyed I am that our Michael, our freckle-faced, chocolate-eyed son with the tenderest of hearts, is now being fed with the living bread, Jesus Christ, who comes down from Heaven to feed Michael's soul with the promise of eternal life. Truly this is one of the best days of this mommy's life too!
If you want more "Food for Thought," (forgive the pun!) read some of these amazing quotes from the saints and early Church Fathers on the amazing gift we have in the Eucharist:"The greatest love story of all time is contained in a tiny white Host."- Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen
"This is the wonderful truth, my dear friends: the Word, which became flesh two thousand years ago, is present today in the Eucharist," - Blessed Pope John Paul II
"What wonderful majesty! What stupendous condescension! O sublime humility! That the Lord of the whole universe, God and the Son of God, should humble Himself like this under the form of a little bread, for our salvation. In this world I cannot see the Most High Son of God with my own eyes, except for His Most Holy Body and Blood." - St. Francis of Assisi
"This food we call the Eucharist, of which no one is allowed to partake except one who believes that the things we teach are true, and has received the washing for forgiveness of sins and for rebirth, and who lives as Christ handed down to us. For we do not receive these things as common bread or common drink; but as Jesus Christ our Savior being incarnate by God's Word took flesh and blood for our salvation, so also we have been taught that the food consecrated by the Word of prayer which comes from him, from which our flesh and blood are nourished by transformation, is the flesh and blood of that incarnate Jesus." - St. Justin Martyr, 2nd Century
"I hunger for the bread of God, the flesh of Jesus Christ; I long to drink of his blood, the gift of unending love." - St. Ignatius of Antioch
"God is as really present in the consecrated Host as He is in the glory of Heaven." - St. Paschal Baylon
"The faith of the Church is this: That one and identical is the Word of God and the Son of Mary, Who suffered on the Cross, Who is present in the Eucharist, and Who rules in Heaven."
- Pope Pius XII
"How many of you say: I should like to see His face, His garments, His shoes. You do see Him, you touch Him, you eat Him. He gives Himself to you, not only that you may see Him, but also to be your food and nourishment." - St. John Chrysostom
"The Eucharist is connected with the Passion. If Jesus had not established the Eucharist we would have forgotten the crucifixion. It would have faded into the past and we would have forgotten that Jesus loved us... To make sure that we do not forget, Jesus gave us the Eucharist as a memorial of his love … When you look at the Crucifix, you understand how much Jesus loved you then, when you look at the Sacred Host you understand how much Jesus loves you now." - Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta
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