Hello,
First of all it’s completely natural to find it hard to fathom the Eucharist. It is no coincidence that we call the Eucharist a Mystery.
I am sure there will be others who will address your question fully, but I’d like to focus on one aspect of your post.
“When I am consuming the Eucharist, what should I feel?”
Are you expecting to feel a miracle? A supernatural feeling? Perhaps the Holy Spirit or the Presence of Christ seizing your body like a new Pentecost? There exists documentation and testimony of such feelings, and you are free to believe in them or not. However, I personally do not look for a supernatural experience in the Eucharist.
First, to outline my belief simply: I believe the Eucharist must be a common experience, an everyday experience, a natural extension of our most primal human function, the consumption of food.
I would like to express a scriptural source for my beliefs. (Paraphrased from memory.)
From the Gospel of John. Christ reminds us that “My Flesh is food indeed, and my Blood is drink indeed.” The Jews pondered this mystery, and asked among themselves “How can this man give us his flesh and blood to drink?”
Christ replied, “Verily I say to you, unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you have no life within you.”
You see, you are not the first to feel like you do not understand the Eucharist. But Christ tries to explain it simply. His Body and Blood is food, true food. You don’t have to meditiate for hours or read theology to experience the Eucharist. If you are old enough to receive First Communion, you have learned how “food” works. In fact, you probably learned its function much earlier, at your mother’s breast.
Christ chose to become man, he was at one point the unfathomable “Word” of God. The “Son” that eternally proceeds from the Father. In the Incarnation, Christ took on the body of man. In that supernatural event, he became natural. Likewise, at the Eucharistic Consecration, the supernatural God; whom we call Jesus, the Christ, descends from the supernatural and becomes the natural. He becomes natural.
When you consume the Eucharist, you should feel like you’re eating food. Because it is food. Spiritual food, yes, but also physical food as well.
Therein lies the beauty of our religion. The other gods, be they Zeus, Allah, Vishnu, or a myriad of others both mythological or currently worshipped, they reign from the heavens, or from Mount Olympus, or from Nirvana, etc. etc.
Not so with the Christ. Who in his humility, approaches us not from a heavenly throne but in the form of Bread. The mana that came down from heaven, the bread of life. The child in the manger.
In the seemingly insignificant form of a white wafer, the Lord appears in all his glory. When he became Man, his throne was a manger, when he returns to us in the Eucharist, he resides on a simple plate, in a chalice, on a table prepared for supper.
The humility of God, who gives himself completely and without grandeur, under the appearance of Bread and Wine, is the “supernatural” aspect of the Eucharist.
And in all honesty, I think that it is far more beautiful this way, than if let’s say, the Eucharistic host glowed like the sun right after the consecration. If you want a God like that, they do exist out there. But Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, appears to us in humility. As a child in a manger, a corpse on a cross, bread and wine on a table.
There will come a day when he will return not as a humble part of the world, but as the Judge. Which traditional Church theology have referred to as the “terrible” judge. That is when we will experience the supernatural. Much like Christ at the Transfiguration. Revelation tells us that he shall appear like bronze from the furnace, and from his mouth shall extend a sword that will slaughter the enemies of God’s children.
Is that what we want at Sunday Mass? I for one, am far too sleepy for such an experience. We will see Christ in his glory in due time, but for now, the Eucharist is majestic enough, even in its round, white, simplicity.
God Bless.
Can’t wait for this year to rush by so I can get Baptized and take of the Eucharist next Easter Vigil :bounce: