This past July many of us were riveted by the Eucharistic Revival that occurred in Indianapolis. I was unable to attend the Eucharistic Revival as I was with the Oblates at the General Chapter in Annecy, France. However, when I reflect on this past year, there was one moment in which I was touched by the power of Christ in the Eucharist.

This moment occurred this past summer during an annual summer activity we call “Mass on the Grass.” This happens at various parishioners’ homes each summer in Adrian, (MI). The idea is simple: one family hosts the event and provides the main course and everyone comes with a chair and a dish to pass. We’ve been doing this for four years and it is one of our most popular activities. One of the things that I love about Mass on the Grass is that parishioners invite their neighbors to come and we have this wonderful gathering of usually 60-70 people on a Friday in the heart of our city.

One Friday, I was going to Alfredo and Juanita’s house for Mass on the Grass. There were so many people there that my car got boxed in. Since I’m usually one of the last to leave, I didn’t think anything of it and began my usual routine of greeting people. A little after 6:00 PM I pulled out my Mass kit to set up Mass and realized I had forgotten to bring a chalice. I looked over at my car and saw it was boxed in and there was no one from church who could go back and get me a chalice.

So I told Juanita that I needed a huge favor - I needed a cup from her kitchen to stand in as the chalice for Mass. I explained to her that once this cup held the Blood of Christ, it could never be used for anything else again. I would take the cup to preserve it and eventually bury it after the Mass.

Juanita nodded and I followed her into her kitchen. She opened the cupboard and in the back was one wine glass. She said that her family shared this one wineglass when they celebrated important milestones in their lives: the engagement of their daughter, and her son graduating from college. She said to me, “This is the nicest cup we have. Use this,” and she pressed it into my hands. I felt awkward but I took the glass with me.

A half-hour later, that glass became a chalice when it held the Blood of Christ which was then distributed to everyone at Mass on the Grass.

As I held the chalice up, I looked over at Juanita and Alfredo. They were kneeling in the grass, smiling because their glass, the most precious glass they ever owned, now held the Blood of Christ. I started to tear up as we distributed the Eucharist to everyone gathered there.

This was my close moment — when God’s presence was palpable and I understood the Eucharist in a new way.

Because when that ordinary glass cup received the Blood of Christ, it was changed and transformed into a new thing, a chalice, and it can never go back to being an ordinary “cup” again. If the Eucharist is so powerful that it changes ordinary vessels into sacred vessels that can only be used to hold Christ’s Body and Blood, shouldn’t that same thing happen to us each time we receive the Eucharist? When we receive the Body and Blood of Christ, aren’t we changed into a new thing too?

In the Introduction to the Devout Life, St. Francis de Sales tells us: “There are two types of people who should receive communion frequently; the perfect, because being well disposed they would be very much to blame if they did not approach the [Eucharist] which is the source and summit of all perfection, and the imperfect, so that they may continue to strive for perfection; the strong lest they become weak, and the weak so that they become strong. The sick ought to receive communion so that they are restored to health, and the healthy ought to receive communion so that they do not fall sick. We receive the Blessed Sacrament often so as to learn how to receive it well, for we hardly do something well if we do not do it often.”

I still have that glass chalice in my office in a sacred place and I plan to bury it soon. But for now it stands there as a reminder of the power of Jesus: that Alfredo and Juanita gave me the most precious cup they owned and, by the power of the Holy Spirit, that cup held the Blood of Christ.

In like manner, when we receive the Body and Blood of Christ we are changed, and like the vessels themselves, we ought not remain the same; instead, may we become what we receive: Christ’s Body and Blood in communion with Him and each other for the salvation of the world.

May God be praised!

Please note that I have not used Alfredo or Juanita’s real names. Both gave me permission to write this article about our faith journey together here in Adrian.

Eucharistic Revival: The Glass Chalice

The Call of Matthew – and Our Call

I’d Rather