Finding Faith in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist – My Witness

Doubting Thomas
by Caravaggio, c. 1602

By Deacon Jim Miles

 
My Early Christian Formation
 
I was not raised in the Catholic Church, but rather in the Protestant tradition.  And here I differentiate the “Protestant tradition” from what can be called the “Catholic Lite” traditions of the High Lutheran and Episcopal (Anglican) traditions where there is sometimes a similar view of the real presence in the Eucharist.  My father was brought up Lutheran and my mother Methodist and I was baptized first by the Congregationalists and spent most of my childhood in the Presbyterian church although, because of the general lack of hard dogma my family was at home in a variety of protestant settings. When we visited my maternal grandparents who were faithful Christians, we attend either the Methodist church or Dutch Reform (my mother was a DeBruin from Grand Haven, Michigan, a Dutch enclave in Western Michigan).
 
So, until I was 21, I really had not thought of the Eucharist (communion, as it was called in the Presbyterian church and only distributed once or twice a year) as anything more than what I had learned growing up in that setting.  In the Presbyterian tradition of that time in which my family was quite active, communion consisted of a platter passed among the congregation containing cubes of white bread and trays of small shot-glass sized cups filled with Welches grape juice. Clearly, the thought behind this celebration was communion as expressed in the Bible was totally symbolic.  Even St. John’s “Bread of Life” monologue was interpreted as symbolic. 
 
I vividly remember what a great treat it was form me to be able to finish off the unused grape juice after communion Sundays, the left-over bread was given to ladies who were making stuffing.  I later came to understand that what a denomination thought about the Eucharist could be easily seen by what happened to the remnant following communion.
 
My Formal Conversion
 
When I was 21, I met the love of my life, Ofelia Ybarra, who would, in 1970, become my wife.  Looking back, I can now see how important parents are in shaping the lives of their children.  My future father-in-law made it clear that I could only date his daughter (the 4^th of 7) once a week and she had to be home by mid-night (for those who grew up in this time frame, you know this was incredibly strict, especially for a college junior).  The only way I could see her twice a week was by going to church with the family on Sunday – that did not count as a date.  And that was my introduction to the Catholic Mass.  I was totally lost.  The only thing that was familiar was the Apostles’ Creed which we also used in the Presbyterian, Congregationalist, and Methodist denominations.  I was satisfied by that profession that I was part of this new and very structured faith in which the sermon was ridiculously short and the ritual was something to be studied.
 
As I said, I was almost instantly deeply in love with Ofelia, and yes, the first words I ever said to her were “I love you will you marry me!” (True story.) Having been brought up in a family of active Christians and whose denomination had followed my mother’s tradition, not my father’s, I decided, after I offered my proposal and was accepted, that I would convert to Catholicism.  My wife was shocked and scared of my parent’s reaction, a reaction I honestly could not understand.  Remember, we had bounced from denomination to denomination without so much as a twinge of guilt.
 
Recall the year was 1970.  Vatican II was still being implemented but not well settled.  There was no RCIA, no formal Marriage Prep.  My formation before joining the Catholic Church was four Saturdays of one-on-one meetings with Fr. Joe Emil, the Pastor of St. Peter’s Church in Blissfield, Michigan.  He gave me a book (rather impressive in size) called The Catholic Faith (I still have it).  And we argued a bit about things like predestination (the Presbyterian denomination is heavily Calvinist in its orientation), and we talked about the sacraments and what they meant.  In the end (June 26, 1970), that morning I was conditionally baptized (Fr. Joe was not sure the Congregationalists or the Presbyterians had done it right), went through the Sacrament of Reconciliation (if I had been licitly baptized earlier, my conditional baptism would not have had the efficacy to remove my sins).  Then that afternoon I got married and received first communion (whew, what a day).
 
The Struggle
 
I realized as our marriage progressed, how little I knew about the fundamentals of my new faith and my wife did not understand my constant questions.  She is the model of faith and came to belief with an ease I envy to this day.  I read some but was still not satisfied.  Honestly, I still was clinging to my understanding of the Eucharist as purely symbolic, but reverence to the tabernacle and the piety of receiving the Blessed Sacrament I saw in my wife and others of the faithful were challenging that belief.
 
I was still struggling in 1979, even though I then knew the real truth of my faith was that the Eucharist was the transubstantiated real Body of Christ.  I was trained in the hard sciences (biochemistry) and had a very difficult time ignoring the rational side of my brain which insisted that when the priest consecrated the Eucharist, there was no physical change in the wine and bread. Even the language I read in some of the books was ambiguous using words like “appearance” which supported my doubts.
 
Thank God for my parents who had demonstrated the servant’s heart to me throughout my growing years.  I felt that call in me and, since one of my brothers-in-law (Dcn. Jim Martinez) had become one of the first Permanent Deacons in our diocese, I asked St. Thomas’s then Associate Pastor, Fr. Ed Ertzbichoff, about the status of the diaconal formation program.  It’s another story but a year later I enrolled in the program and began to study my faith in earnest. 
 
Real Conversion
 
At some point during the next three years, I came to understand that I had been operating intellectually in a totally physical world and that there was another world which I had ignored out of ignorance and training.  It was the world of faith or the metaphysical world.  “Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1)  Science had given me the answers to the “how” of so many things, but it had never given me the answer to “why.”  In coming to grips with this new reality, I could believe in miracles, things I could not understand on a physical level could now be understood.
 
Still, the real presence, a miracle taking place while I watched and repeated countless times around the world each day was eluding my heart.  To be totally honest, it also prevented me from a meaningful encounter with Jesus.
 
Miracle of the Locked Room – The Closed Door that Opened My Heart
 
At some point during my diaconal formation, I’m not sure if it was studying New Testament Scripture or possibly Christology I was confronted with the miracle of Jesus coming to the disciples in the locked room (John 20:19-28).  I knew in my recently expanded understanding that this event took place.  I also knew that God did not randomly violate the laws of physics.  Jesus was not “beamed down” into that locked room.  He came to them even though the doors were locked.  How was this possible? 
 
A number of theological ideas coalesced around this miracle.  “Noli me tangere,” When Mary Magdalene encountered the Lord following the discovery of the empty tomb, Jesus spoke these word – “Don’t touch me (Noli me tangere), I have not yet ascended to my Father.” His physical substance had changed!  He was now transformed, but visible, different than the ghosts, feared as spirits from the afterlife.  His substance had been glorified, transformed by God into something familiar yet totally different.
 
And now in the empty room, his disciples saw him too.  A glorified presence that physical barriers could not stop.  He came to them and breathed upon them. And they were transformed as well.  All except Thomas (and me), we had to be dragged into this encounter later and only then were we both able to exclaim, “My Lord and my God.”  Truly that was when the real presence in the Eucharist became real to me.  Finally this hard-hearted servant had seen what had eluded him all those years and I was filled with joy. (That and a little embarrassment because it had taken me so long to come to faith.)
 
My world was changed – is changed and I invite all who doubt or cannot believe to follow my example – believe there are things that make no sense in the physical world.  Believe there are things that science cannot and will never be able to explain.  Believe that the Son of God came to this world to save us from the misery and slavery of sin and gives us his Glorified Body, his real Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity as a seal and promise of that gift. 

Pax.