I felt the kneeler creak with the weight of a young boy scooting closer to me. The church was freezing, as usual, the new air conditioner roaring proudly, unaware that the seventy-year-old building has never once cooperated with modern technology. I was happy, like a mother duck with her fuzzy duckling, to be nestled together after being fed at the altar.
“Is it supposed to be sweet?” He whispered into my hair.
I turned to look at him, piercing blue eyes blinking and head tilted toward others still receiving Holy Communion.
It’s not an experiment I’ve felt the need to put to the test, but experts say if you quit eating sugar for so many days, your taste buds and your brain’s reward pathways reset, making you more sensitive to natural sweetness. Had he forgone the sweets of summer? No, no. I quickly remembered purple syrupy popsicle drips on my floors and marching ants.
Just this past week, I cleaned up more sticky messes after robbing hives with my dad and spinning honey late into the night with Wade. I’ve always wanted to start this chore when we’re more rested or have less on the calendar, but it seems like baseball and honeybees like the same time of year.
After supper was cleaned up, Wade capped the first few frames of honey and we all became connoisseurs of the liquid gold. As always, the boys needed a few extra tastes to be sure, but we all eventually agreed how it’s even better than years past. We prayed together, sent the boys to bed, then Wade and I started an assembly line of capping frames, putting them in the spinner, and scraping honey out of the drum strain into buckets. Working together, the coffee pot sputtering, and two boys snoozing in their rooms above us? Pure sweetness.
But the Eucharist?
There’s a line that has played over and over in my mind for almost ten years. Sometimes I wonder why and how words can do that, but I think it’s because we’re supposed to sit with them just that long, a lifetime, to get a taste of their significance, their mystery. During the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, specifically the dialogue that follows the Tantum Ergo during Eucharistic Adoration, the priest says: “You have given them bread from heaven.” And the faithful respond, “Having within it all sweetness.”
Having within it all sweetness.
For Catholics, the Eucharist is the “source and summit of our faith.” It’s everything. It’s Jesus. We believe that Jesus is fully present in that small, precious, humble host. Fully present and prepared to be misunderstood, ignored, dropped, and mistreated. Fully present to offer us all sweetness, in this life and the next.
This doesn’t mean that every night is as sweet as honey-spinning with your honey. No, this life will still have bitter moments. Our perfect Lord was surely not spared suffering. He does, however, offer us the sweetest way to endure the most heartbreaking days: united with Him.
Maybe this is the taste-experiment we all should try: Taste and see, the Lord is good.
Having within it all sweetness.
