We take the Eucharist for granted. Shock! Horror! How could anyone take so sublime a Gift for granted? Isn’t that verging on the blasphemous? Well, no. We are meant to take the Eucharist for granted, as children take for granted the fact that their parents will provide for them. That doesn’t mean we should be in the least bit sloppy or casual, or assume we have “rights” in the matter. The Eucharist is a gift of God, which he gives to whom he chooses, how he chooses and when he chooses. It never ceases to amaze that God should give the Eucharist even to me. I take comfort from the fact that the gifts of God are irrevocable, which is why we can take the Eucharist for granted: it is given to the Church till the end of time and is, as Newman said, “a higher gift than grace”.

A higher gift than grace: that is worth thinking about. Truly we should approach the Eucharist with awe as well as gratitude. It pains me that so many people fail to answer “amen” when they receive the Sacred Host or Precious Blood. It pains me when people talk about “the bread and wine”, as though they were no more than that. It pains, but it does not surprise; and I rather suspect it does not surprise God, either. Bread and wine are so ordinary; eating and drinking are such ordinary activities. It is easy to forget that they are both transformed and transformative because of what the Lord Jesus did at the Last Supper. Today, as at every Mass, we shall be invited to approach the altar of God and “taste and see that the Lord is good”. As always, we take the invitation and the Gift for granted. That is what it means to be a child of God, a temple of the Holy Spirit and a tabernacle of the Lord.