Holy Thursday

Tonight is the 1,970-somethingth anniversary of the first Holy Communion celebrated by Jesus Christ with His disciples on the night before He gave up His life for us. It is also exactly the twentieth anniversary of my own First Communion and entry into the Catholic Church.

Nearly half my life I've now lived as a Catholic (exactly half next year). A half-life ago, faith was new, heady, and powerful. I was surfing on the crest of a tsunami that swept away the wreckage of what then seemed like a long period of meaninglessness. I didn't know the direction the wave carried me, but I rested in the blessed assurance that the right way was the way the wave was going.

It's hard to say how long the ride lasted, but here is where the wave deposited me. Now faith is cool and still, a thin steel rod instead of the thick sinewy cord of twenty years ago. It is now an anchor holding me in place against the buffeting waves of distractions, selfish interests, work, housekeeping. I have let the anchor chain play out a little too far, though, and while the hold is solid, the buffets keep me farther from the center than is healthy.