The campfire crackled as we sat under a starry sky at my sister’s house long ago.

S’mores and laughter abounded on this particularly perfect summer night.

My niece sat on my husband’s lap and gazed up at the stars as sparks from the fire drifted upward.

“You see those sparks?” my husband asked her.

“They float all the way up into the sky and get stuck there and become stars.”

My niece looked incredulously, first at my husband and then at the sky.

No photo could ever capture the complete wonderment on my niece’s little four-year-old face.

This was the same wonderment I saw on my own children’s faces when they captured a flickering lightning bug, discovered a wild fawn in the woods, stood before the majesty of a roaring waterfall, and watched the bread or wine become the Body and Blood of Christ at Mass.

Childlike wonderment and awe beget reverence for mystery, majesty, and the things Our Lord gives us that we cannot comprehend, explain, or understand.

Awe can fade

Somehow, however, that childlike wonderment can fade over time.

As we grow up and navigate the ups and downs of this earthly life, we can lose

reverence for things we should not take for granted.

Have you reached this point in your Faith life?

Do you come to Mass just to fulfill your Sunday obligation?

Are you just “going through the motions”?

Have you become numb to the mystery of the Eucharist?

What we know

In our spiritual lives, we all go through times of feeling close to Our Lord and times of feeling distant from Him.

But the strength of our faith should not depend on how we feel. It should depend on what we know. In times of spiritual aridity it can help if we focus on the basics of what we know about the Eucharist.

Jesus said, “My Flesh is meat indeed, and My Blood is drink indeed. He that eateth My Flesh, and drinketh My Blood, abideth in Me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth Me, the same also shall live by Me” (John 6:56-58).

We need Him

We need Jesus in the Eucharist for our spiritual sustenance.

When we receive Him, He unites with us and pours into our hearts graces, peace, love, and mercy unlike anything else here on Earth, whether or not we “feel” it — provided we are in a state of grace.

And He promised that when we partake of the Eucharist, we abide in Him and He abides in us.

Evoking reverence

Think about that — the Lord of the Universe abides in us, humbly allows us to take Him into ourselves so that He may be united with us and help us get to Heaven.

The Lord of the Universe loves us as a whole and loves each of us individually, beyond our human comprehension.

And the way He stays with us here on earth is through the Eucharist.

If that doesn’t just fill you with awe and reverence, I don’t know what will.

Maybe sparks floating into the sky and becoming stars?

The difference is . . . the Eucharist is true.