Divine Comedy: Brian Regan and the Eucharist

Posted by Andrew Sciba in The Faith | 2 comments

via Brian Regan:

I was at the park and saw a family with a five-year-old boy holding a helium balloon.  He accidentally let go of his balloon – the boy started crying and his parents were like, “Why are you crying – it’s a balloon.  We’ll get you another one.”

Sometimes, I don’t think adults try hard enough to understand what kids are going through.  If you wanted to relate to what he’s going through, imagine if you took your wallet out – and it just started floating away.

“AHHHHHHH!!!”

“Why are you acting like that?  It’s just a wallet, we’ll get you another one–”

“I WANT THAT ONE!!!”

Naturally, what the parents don’t understand in the above routine is the perceived value that the child has in the balloon.  Isn’t it often tempting to look to the plight of another person and discount their situation so that it becomes more palatable to ourselves?  Similarly, we can look to major events in life and give them a shrug; if we engage them fully, we might be required to engage in the difficult process of personal growth.  Sometimes, it’s easier to keep our head in the sand.

I recall a time in my life when (way before I was tending to wild children) I would kneel in Mass during the Eucharistic prayer, blink, and the priest would sing, “Through Him, with Him, in Him…”  Admittedly, there are still times when I realize that I’m next in the communion line and I hurriedly askGodtopreparemyheart”Amen.”  This is, of course, unfortunate.  What greater or more important reality than the Eucharist is there that is so often not perceived?  How would a devotion to the Eucharist look in a person’s life?