The Eucharist of Desire
A reflection piece by Elaine Pinto
Years ago, I found myself lamenting to a Benedictine sister that I had no ready access to the Sacraments. Attending a non-Sacramental church at the time, the frequency was low, my hunger for the Eucharist was increasing, and my distress seemed to be mounting.
“You could do what we do”, she said, “If we’re away from the monastery on holidays, and aren’t able to take the Eucharist, we follow what Aquinas called the ‘Eucharist of Desire’ ”.
Photograph by Kevin Grummett
Aquinas defined this Spiritual Communion as “an ardent desire to receive Jesus in the Holy Sacrament and a loving embrace as though we had already received Him.” Encouraged and established in the Catholic tradition, the practice also reaches into the Lutheran and Anglican Communion.
Richard Wurmbrand, a Lutheran pastor imprisoned for fourteen years in Romania, once told of celebrating the Eucharist with fellow inmates when they had no elements. They used only the element of air. “We prayed the Eucharist quietly, with people in the circle taking turns to make louder conversation, so that the guards would not notice what the rest of us were doing. ’The Body of Christ’, I said to each prisoner…and I would give them…air. ‘The Blood of Christ’… and I would give them… air.”
My longing for the Eucharist in the past, and hearing stories such as Pastor Wurmbrand’s made we wonder about the anatomy of Christian desire. Was there a way it could be nurtured even by those who weren’t suffering such a certain and complete loss of the Eucharistic presence?
I stumbled into this way by accident, at an Oblate Congress a few years back. For the whole week, Centering Prayer was offered before the day began. But on two of the mornings, we could choose to sit in silence around the Presence of the consecrated Eucharist in a side chapel.
Not knowing what to expect, I slipped into the already crowded space just as a young German priest appeared. Removing the consecrated bread from the tabernacle where it was reserved, he placed it on the altar, in full view, while we remained in silence. I continued “watching” through the half hour, with eyes sometimes open, sometimes shut…but increasingly aware of the Presence of the Host. Hunger and desire seemed to grow, and a still holiness filled the room.
After half an hour, the priest gently returned the Host to the tabernacle. Then he lay prostrate on the floor before the altar, praying;
“Oh my God, take from me everything that separates me from You.
Oh my God, give me everything that brings me closer to you.
My Lord and my God, detach me from myself to give my all to You.“
(Prayer of St. Nicholas of Flue 1467)
Moving out of the chapel into the new day ahead, I ached with desire for God. I had turned my heart to the gift of Christ Himself on the altar and now my soul held something new, though I understood infinitely less, than I had ever known. All this…simply contemplating the Eucharist.
In his book called Prayer, Hans Urs von Balthasar writes, “The object of contemplation is God…we cannot contemplate God apart from those pathways which lead to Him, and reveal Him to us, for it is thus that He manifests Himself” (Hans Urs von Balthasar, Prayer, San Francisco, Ignatius press, 1986, p. 155)
Desiring to assuage the vague sense of loss in these COVID-19 days, we can trace the deep longing that points to our desire for God. We fan this desire by staying present to it in silence, preparing our hearts for the joy of when we will receive again.
Elaine Pinto is a Deacon of the Anglican Church, serving at St Margaret’s parish in Winnipeg. We consider her a saint ben’s person as well, as she almost always shares with us in the Wednesday midweek Eucharist (when we can do that…), and last fall joined the saint ben’s retreat at St John’s Abbey, Collegeville.