Reaching for Jesus

In our Church we have many ways to pray:  words, song, gesture, signs, and symbols.  They offer us a way to express the inexpressible and through them we are formed into an ever closer relationship with God and each other.  I recently read an article by a Catholic lay minister which argued in favor of receiving Eucharist on the tongue instead of in the hand.  While I appreciate his devotion to the Eucharist and agree with his desire for all people to approach Jesus in the Eucharist with respect, I was taken aback by his description of people who receive Eucharist in the hand as less devout than those who receive on the tongue.  In our religion, and all of life, there is a temptation to judge our actions against those of another.  In talking with a priest about this issue, he urged me to take this matter to prayer:  "Jesus will let you know."  Sometimes I pray best with writing.  Here is my reflection on receiving the Eucharist in the hand:  

Walking up to the altar, hands in prayer, and then lifting them up, one supported by the other—as a beggar to ask for the bread she needs to continue on in life—begging the Lord to come and be my food and drink, to be all that I need, and all that I want to be.  I love the way it makes me an active participant in this sacrament.  I lift my hands up and ask Jesus to come to me, to live in me, to nourish me, to strengthen me.  I cry out “change me.”  I know I am not perfect.  But in our Mass I have had the opportunity to confess my sins “through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault,” and I have told the Lord, as the Roman Centurion did, “I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.”  We do not approach the sacrament because we are holy, because we are worthy.  We approach the sacrament because Jesus, the Good Shepherd, has called us.  He invites us to this feast and we respond with holy joy.

This covenant of love reminds me of marriage.  Jeff and I began dating halfway through senior year of college, at a (seemingly) less than opportune time.  Among other normal college woes (finals, break-ups, the unavoidable drama of living with 3 other 21 year-old girls) I was also dealing with the constant pain of a back injury that had herniated two of the discs in my mid-spine.

In the midst of the pain and the confusion and the stress of finishing college, a wonderful man walked into my life.  He was tall, handsome, kind, and intelligent—he was also the best friend of my recent ex-boyfriend and had until a month before that been dating one of my housemates.  So when he sent me an e-mail saying he was “interested” I didn’t know what to do.  Yes, I was “interested” too, but was this really prudent?  It wasn’t.  I prayed.  Not because I thought of it first, but because a wonderful, wise woman, named Fred (Winifred), who had been my spiritual director on and off throughout college listened to my entire convoluted, dramatized, hormonal story very patiently and then asked me with her God-loves-you-no-matter-what-eyes, “Have you asked Jesus what you should do?”

“No.”  I said honestly.

Later that day with my journal in my hand, I sat in my attic bedroom with a candle burning on the bedside table and wrote.  “What shall I do?  What do you want for me and Jeff?”  And I closed my eyes and sat for a while.  And then I saw it in my mind’s eye, a single image:  Jesus, taking my hand and interlacing it with Jeff’s.  That was it, and it was enough.  Better than words.

Marriage is not always an easy vocation and when we have our disagreements and irritations and annoyances, it is the reaching out for each other that keeps our covenant strong. 

In the Eucharist, I reach out for Jesus with my hands and when I do I am telling the Lord that I desire to walk with him all the days of my life. 

Perhaps for some people, receiving Eucharist on the tongue, or while kneeling, is the best way to embody their relationship with the Lord.  There are different ways we encounter our risen Christ, one not better than the other.  And I respect that our church allows for these different prayer postures and gestures.  What is essential is not the mechanics by which we receive the precious body and blood of our Lord, but the intention behind it.  Jesus touched lepers and washed dusty, dirty feet.  I don’t think he minds our human hands, reaching out for him with joy and hope.