A Discipline of Vision

In the midst of the Eucharistic Revival, Megan Cottam recalls the importance of finding the Body of Christ in all circumstances.

In my early- to mid-twenties, I discovered a love for the Eucharist. I attended many Holy Hours and found daily Mass whenever I could. I grew to understand the Eucharist as fuel for the day’s service and treasured this routine. I felt like I had reached my spiritual peak, when a conversation with a parish deacon shook me out of my complacency:

“What happens when you can’t get to Mass? How will you be fed by the Body of Christ then?”

While I didn’t know then what he was guiding me toward, I have learned to appreciate the wisdom in this question. When Jesus is presented to us in a way other than the beauty of liturgy, sacred silence, or the precious gift of the Eucharist itself, can we recognize Him? It was on one tragic day that I learned the discipline of finding Christ everywhere, a skill I have relied on in the rollercoaster of parenting and life.

A ministry team of two, Brother Jim and I worked for a Catholic non-profit accompanying gang members and their families in Chicago. On this particular day, we had been called to the children’s hospital, a place requiring a strength no one desires to need.

We walked down the hospital corridor, our eyes briefly looking into window after window of children attached to unnatural tubing, monitors, and machines making all sorts of noises. My heart sunk a bit further with each door, and the air itself seemed heavier as mothers, siblings, and nurses attended to the beat up, morphed, and sickly little bodies.

Before we reached little A’s room, we were told of the serious nature of his condition, and expecting the worst, or what I thought was the worst. The 6-year-old boy had been put in the Pediatric-ICU thanks to a hit-and-run drunk driver crashing into him as he attempted to cross the street. A neighbor informed us the prognosis was grim, and that we should visit the family before they took A off life support machines.

I expected a limp body where a vibrant bouncing boy once had been. I expected crying relatives, and grandparents praising God to shield their pain. I did not expect the convulsions, the blinking, and machines alarming the nurses of his coughing up the breathing apparatus. Although unconscious, his body signaled the pain constantly running through his ragged bones and organs.

His all-too-young father remained by his side, stroking his hand, reminding him of his favorite shows he could watch if he woke up, and telling him he was loved. We spent about 30 minutes in silent prayer as A’s father buried his head in the hospital bed, trying to limit the amount of emotion that could escape.

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There we stood, gazing upon Jesus in his most disguised form. The Eucharist was not exposed on a pleasant-looking altar in a golden monstrance, but we certainly found ourselves in front of the Body of Christ. Although there was no incense, the air had a weighted holiness to it, as though the busyness of our lives was stopped in its tracks. God was close, hovering over A and his family during his last moments, and the Spirit felt palpable. This hospital room was truly holy ground.

Brother Jim and I often found ourselves entering moments of intense and sudden tragedy that expose the fragility of human existence. And yet, despite the pain, these moments seemed to hold the greatest sense that God was present, standing in solidarity with our suffering.

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When Jesus is presented to us in a way other than the beauty of liturgy, sacred silence, or the precious gift of the Eucharist itself, can we recognize Him? #catholicmom

Even in our trials of daily life, let us never take for granted that the Body of Christ is present before us every day, if we have the courage to look it in the eye. The walls between church building and world are thinner than we think, and God’s presence knows no boundaries. May we grow ever further into a Eucharistic worldview that comforts us with His constant presence, and fuels us to share God’s love with one another.

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