I’d wanted to do an Emmaus Walk retreat ever since I’d sat under the teaching of Kenny Wood at Riverbend. The way he explained the Emmaus story brought such power and meaning to it. The pilgrims in that story saw Jesus in the breaking of the bread. This was the essence of the scripture that Kenny wanted to break open for us at Riverbend. Yet, the bread, for Kenny, was still just bread. Somehow, he thought God’s grace attached to the bread, even though the bread stayed bread. (It’s my own opinion that he was afraid of where this teaching might lead him.)
Years later, in 2006, I was still in a rut searching for a church home. My friend Amy, the soprano in our trio, the Grace Notes, offered to sponsor me for an Emmaus retreat. A methodist teacher friend had also encouraged me over the years to do that retreat. So August of 2006 seemed like the right time. I thought this might give me the answers I sought about how "to get more of Jesus," and about where to go to church. There were two specific advantages of attending this retreat also:
1. I’d be able to take communion multiple times.
2. I’d be able to avoid becoming Catholic.
Since I’d gotten the hint from God that being Catholic was a possibility, I’d looked up information about the “Real Presence” as taught by the Catholic Church. At that time, I didn’t see what the big deal was about believing the bread actually became the body and blood of Christ. If people wanted to believe that, then why couldn’t they? It hadn’t occurred to me yet that I’d need a priest to consecrate the bread in order to transform it into the Body of Christ.
At that point, Christianity (and the Real Presence) was still mostly “Wishful Thinking” to me.
So I went to the Emmaus retreat. And for three days I received communion that I hoped would be Jesus. Instead, that bread seemed like. . . well. . . bread. Just dry bread. I felt like I was going through motions. Empty rituals. I didn’t tell anyone.
I know that God did bless me at that retreat in a mighty and profound way. But the blessing did not come through the communion bread.
I should have been elated that Sunday night at the end of the retreat, yet I was numb. Grateful for the blessing that I did, in fact, receive, but confused and disappointed that my blessing did not come through the communion. I woke up Monday morning, and I still could not shake my confusion. If I’d found more of Jesus in that communion, then I could be a Methodist. Then my problem of where to park my carcass on Sunday morning would be solved. I really wanted to be satisfied with the communion I’d received, but I wasn’t. I cannot overemphasize at this point, the relief I desired to feel, if only I could have been satisfied with the dry bread at that Emmaus retreat.
At the risk of showing some spiritual pride, I have found that first thing in the morning, I'm especially vulnerable to God's promptings. My thoughts during my first waking moments are frequently very spiritually fruitful. Tuesday morning after the retreat, as I opened my eyes and the first moments of consciousness were creeping into my brain, the thought entered my mind, “OMG! The Catholics are right! That bread at the retreat. . . was just. . .well. . . bread. Jesus intended it to be his body, but at that retreat, it was just plain old bread.”
I didn’t know how the bread in the Catholic church came to be different. I had no idea about the mechanism involved in consecrating the bread. I wasn't thinking about apostolic succession yet. All I knew at this point was, if you want to believe in the Real Presence, then the Catholics are the only ones who can guarantee that reality. Everything else is just “wishful thinking.”
So in August of 2006, I decided I had to run, not walk to the nearest Catholic church and join RCIA, after putting it off a year. I told myself I wouldn’t make any rash commitments, that I would just get all the Catholic information straight from the Catholics themselves. If I decided the Catholics were full of baloney, then so be it, I could always go back to the Methodists, or the Presbyterians, or the Baptists, or the Lutherans, or the Pentecostals, or the Non-denominational Evangelicals.
It occurred to me that I might be about to embark on my own walk to Emmaus, with Jesus teaching me about His church. I did still attend protestant churches from time to time after I started RCIA, but I didn’t receive communion after September 2006. Further, I did not receive Jesus in the Eucharist until the breaking of the bread at my confirmation mass, the day I received His Real Presence, the Blessed Sacrament, Holy Eucharist, for the first time.
