I share my parents’ faith about the real presence, so I was habituated from a young age to be reverent in church and to know that God is present and really important. 

I went to a small Catholic school and we had, as our teachers, the Sisters of Saint Joseph from Nazareth, and they were very attentive to share with us their own Eucharistic faith, their own Eucharistic devotion. I think particularly of Sr. Magdalena, who was my teacher in first and second grade. She's the one who got me ready for First Holy Communion. And I think of Sr. Jane Frances Miller, who I never had as a teacher, but she was in charge of the altar servers. She very much impressed upon us what a privilege it is to serve at Mass and really shared her faith with us. 

When I was six years old, in the lectionary for Holy Week, there was the reading of The Passion. I remember Sister telling us that if we didn't move during the whole reading, we would have special graces. (I'm sure she was concerned about how fidgety 25 six year olds might get!) I remember striving very hard to remain very still for the seemingly infinite amount of time that it took for Father to read the Passion in Latin. That was one way I was taught reverence for the sacred liturgy and made aware of God’s presence in it.

I remember being in the chapel at the seminary, in front of the Blessed Sacrament, when I was 20 years old and a sophomore in the seminary college. I was coming very close to leaving the seminary. I was thinking that perhaps I wasn't called. I was also perhaps a bit afraid about what the future would hold. I remember being in that chapel and receiving an insight that I was being a coward by thinking of leaving — that it wasn't about being called somewhere else, but it was about escaping what I really understood would be the challenges that the Church would face. 

I realized that that's not the kind of disciple, that's not the man I wanted to be. And so I made a commitment to stay. That's one of the most powerful prayer experiences I've had in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. It's something I often return to in prayer, to ask to be renewed in that commitment, to try and be generous, and to try and have fortitude as a disciple. 

It is when I celebrate the Eucharist that I am very mindful that my ministry doesn't depend on me. The Eucharist is a reminder that I don't offer myself to the people that I serve, and that Christ is always there through my ministry. Christ is offering, through me, something so much more valuable and efficacious than what I could offer. I think the celebration of the Eucharist transforms my own perspective about who I am as a pastor and what it is I offer through my ministry.

In the last few years, one of the themes that very much strikes me when I celebrate the Eucharist is what I say at the beginning of the preface, that, “It is right and just, always and everywhere, to give God thanks.” That reminds me then that in the Eucharist my thanksgiving is an echo, joined to the thanksgiving that Jesus is right now offering to the Father. There's no space, no time, no context in which it's not right to give God thanks. And so that means that every time, every place in the world can be sacred, can be taken away from the realm of the Devil, from the realm of sin and be transformed. 

For me, one of the most important ways to be engaged in Eucharistic adoration is to sit down and be quiet. I don't have to say a lot. In fact, the less I say, the better. And to recognize that I am loved. The Blessed Sacrament is the sacrament of Christ's unconditional love for us. And I'm invited to love him in return. 

As a pastor, my hope is that those who claim — and rightly claim — to be disciples of Christ would find a new appreciation for His presence and what He offers us in the Holy Eucharist, and would come every Sunday to share in the Eucharist. He wants to be loved. That's what every human being does, and God in Christ has become human. He wants us to be there, and He wants to give Himself to us. He is waiting.