This summer, I was teaching a group of young children a week of Vacation Bible School about several topics related to our Catholic faith. When we would review what we had discussed during the week, the youngest children in particular were very excited to shout out repeatedly, “The Red Light shows us Jesus is there!” The Sanctuary Lamp, the red candle in our churches that indicates to us that Jesus is truly present in the Blessed Sacrament reserved in the tabernacle, captured the attention of the 4-year-olds in particular. In their childlike innocence, they sensed the awe they should have in the fact that they could actually be with Jesus Himself.

Are we as quick to share their childlike faith and delight in the Lord who comes to give Himself completely to us? Jesus did not simply come 2,000 years ago and leave us only with nostalgia for His presence or even with the desire for His promised return. He has kept His promise to remain with us until the end of time by giving us Himself in the Holy Eucharist. Every day, at every Mass, He comes down to us on our altars, as bread and wine are transformed into His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, to be with us, to feed us, to sustain us, to unite us to Himself. How much of a difference do we allow His presence to make in our lives?

We need to guard ourselves against receiving Holy Communion in a routine fashion: we want to be open to receive all the graces that Our Lord wants to give us. In each Holy Communion, there is enough grace available to make us great saints, if we would only let Him transform us. But we can become so caught up in all our “grown-up” responsibilities, important as these may be, that we lose sight of the presence of our God there for us, the One, after all, who is the reason we are doing any of these things in the first place.

The witness of the martyrs, many of whom shed their blood rather than live their lives without the Eucharist, can help to remind us what a wonderful gift we receive in Holy Communion. One saint who tends to appeal particularly to children is St. Tarcisius. Tarcisius as a young boy was stopped by some young pagan boys as he was carrying the Eucharist, hidden in his cloak, to Christian prisoners awaiting their own martyrdom. When the boys asked Tarcisius what he was holding, and he refused to tell them, they began taunting him and then beating him until his death. Tarcisius died in order to protect the treasure of the Eucharist.

Just as the Vacation Bible School children’s eyes shone bright with the thought of the Sanctuary Lamp, so too do young children generally delight in the story of St. Tarcisius. The childlike mind senses the awe that we should have in God truly present among us and realizes in simplicity that it is this Presence that gives meaning to our lives. May we grow in that childlike simplicity that rejoices in this greatest of treasures.

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Sr. Mary Martha Becnel, OP, is a member of the Ann Arbor-based Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist.