The Eucharist - The Sacrament of Love

"The Eucharist is the Sacrament of love: it signifies love, it produces love"
-St. Thomas Aquinas

Something I have been reflecting on in the past weeks is the Eucharist.

Part of this is due to the fact that I am giving a few talks on the Eucharist in the next few weeks but I think that the Lord has been really working in my heart to appreciate Him in the Eucharist more.

As I have been reflecting and looking back on my journey of faith and the ways I have encountered the Lord in the Eucharist, one thing has stuck out to me. That the Eucharist is the fulfillment of my deepest desire. The desire to love and to be loved.

For my whole life I have tried to earn love and to prove that I am worthy of love. When I failed I would despair because I thought I had lost any of the love that I had worked so hard to earn. My identity became my failure. Then, I would burn myself out trying to be the best and to be perfect, just how I thought everyone wanted me to be. I tried to earn back the love that I thought I had lost.

This didn’t work in my favor. I ended up depressed and alone and utterly exhausted. I couldn’t be what I thought everyone needed me to be and I hated myself for it.

Over the years, I have learned that true love, the love that comes from God, is not earned but freely given. I have found a new identity in the love of the Father and it gives me great joy. I have been created because He loves me and there is nothing I can do that will take that love away. His love for me is far stronger than any of my shortcomings.

As I have been reflecting on my past experiences in the last month or so, I have thanked God numerous times for His love that never stops pursuing me. During my darkest times, he was still seeking me. His grace got me to youth group almost every week which often included Eucharistic adoration. My parents brought me to Mass every Sunday, and He was pursuing me there. Every retreat He made it possible for me to attend was His pursuit of me. Every time I was drawn to the confessional, He was pursuing me there.

There is no way a person can know that truth and not be changed by it. The Lord’s love is the strongest love to exist and He is constantly pursuing us.

I was reflecting on this in the car today on the way home from Mass. Specifically the way the Lord pursues His people in the Eucharist. He humbles Himself and makes Himself incarnate on the altar, and then allows us to receive Him and to become one flesh with Him.

God, the creator of the Universe, who is Love (1John 4:16) allows us to receive Him and become one with Him.

When you encounter the person of Love in such an intimate way, there is no way you cannot be changed by that.

That’s not to say don’t struggle with doubt or anxiety anymore. Satan sees the truth taking root and he wants to rip it out. So I’ll still question myself, I’ll still have doubts, but as I encounter the Lord more (especially in the Eucharist) I can separate the truth from the lies that the devil puts into my mind. Because each time I encounter Jesus in the Eucharist, I become conformed to His truth, THE truth. The truth is that He is Love and in every moment He is loving me. I am a child of God and loved by Him infinitely more than I can imagine.

The more I go to Mass, the more I become rooted in my true identity as a daughter of God. Because in the Eucharist I encounter the truest of loves. I encounter Love incarnate. The Love of God made flesh. And not only do I encounter Him, but I become one with Him. And each time I do that, my heart becomes more and more like His and I learn how to love every person I encounter as He does.

And when I think about it that way, I want to go to Mass more. It is where my deepest desire, to love and to be loved, is fulfilled in a way no other person can fulfill it.

What else could I need if I received the very incarnation of Love today?

Nothing. I need nothing else.

And so each day I go to Mass and receive the Lord with an open heart, I can pray with full conviction, “The Lord is my Shepherd, there is nothing I shall want.” (Psalm 23:1)

For there is truly nothing else I shall want but Him.

Originally found on the “Joyfully His” blog. Shared by our Draw Near contributor, EmmaLee Miklosovic. Find the original blog here.