“I’d like to say a bit more on receiving the Precious Blood as someone in recovery. Important preface: this is my experience only & I *strongly* recommend that you only receive the Blood under the advisement of your sponsor, spiritual director & care team if you’re in recovery.
getting sober was a pivotal piece of my return to the Church (thanks in part to Our Lady—more on that some other time). but the Sacraments are why I came & why I stayed. so I had to navigate this from early on. what was my relationship with the Blood at the Eucharist going to be?
alcohol is & always has been poison to me. I appreciate the allergy language in the 12 Step program but poison imagery has been more apt for me. drinking was a long, slow road to an early death. approaching the altar for the first time with the intention to receive felt risky.
but I kept getting tugged back to the chalice; so I worked with my support team as I waded into the terrifying territory of receiving the Blood as an alcoholic. what I’ve come to experience through that has given me a new understanding of the Cross & Eucharistic transformation.
you sometimes hear alcoholics talk about the fireworks that go off when you taste alcohol (intentionally or not). it sets off a cascade that so easily leads to relapse. by God’s grace the sparks that flew when I received from the chalice were different. warming, not incinerating.
I found that what would’ve been poison to me before the Mass was now turned into medicine. bringing it to the foot of the Cross robbed the instrument of death of its power & turned it into an instrument of healing. it was & is a tangible instance of what happens there every time.
this is part of why I believe in corporeal Real Presence. more than any philosophical or exegetical argument, the most powerful evidence for me is that the poison is no longer poison. the chemical toxins are there but in its essence it is something supremely lifegiving now.
to be clear, I am *not* saying that this will be everyone’s experience or that you should even try. that is a discernment process that needs to be approached with extreme caution. but I did want to share a bit about how I’ve experienced the Eucharist as a recovering alcoholic.”
Tweets by Jayan Koshy @jathko on 5 August 2019