Eucharist Reflection Paper

Growing up in a Catholic based family I had my baptism and my first communion. I went to church because my parents took me to church. I prayed and had confession because it was what I was told to do. Up until I was about 13 I followed my parents’ word on religion, then after a while I started to feel disconnected and I stopped going to church. I was only doing things out of habit. Slowly, as I was intrigued to understand exactly why we follow the rules or participate in our rituals I began to open my mind and let myself feel the meaning. After watching the Church 21 video “Eucharist and our Formation as the People of the Church,” by Cardinal O’Mally, I was brought upon the reason why I began to feel the faith, how we must love to have a healed

When I was, almost robotically, participating in the Eucharist as a young child I didn’t feel what I saw in my mother’s eyes. She felt love and peace when she was at church. Until I learned to understand what was happening, that was when I actually had my first experience or manifestation of faith. From then on I wanted to be at church to be part of this experience and community. Praying before leaving the house or going to bed began to feel the experience I had at church. I began to see it all differently and receiving the bread and wine meant more than just getting up and eating something and drinking out of a glass. Cardinal O’Mally mentions how people would refrain from receiving the Eucharist because they did not feel worthy or prepared enough to receive it. In my experience as a child I would go up because everyone else was doing it. When I began to feel the faith and meaning put into this ritual, was when I began to decide not to take it when I felt I had lied or done something wrong. I know that you should refrain from taking it only when it is a grave sin, but even though it was only a small offense I didn’t feel worthy of receiving Jesus’ body or blood. It was the simple fact that this signified the body and blood of Jesus that made me feel as an even bigger sinner if I received it. The experience made me view everything