Wonder & Awe: The Eucharist Made Me Catholic with ValLimar Jansen | Eucharistic Encounters

The deep, personal connection to Jesus in the Eucharist drew ValLimar from Baptist roots to Catholic truth, transforming her faith through His real presence.

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Experience a profound journey this Advent and Christmas season with "Eucharistic Encounters: Advent & Christmas Reflections on the Gift of the Eucharist." From the first Sunday of Advent through the Octave of Christmas ending on January 1st, immerse yourself in daily reflections that deepen your connection to the Eucharist and the heart of our faith.

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Transcript

When I was a little girl, I grew up on the Baptist side of a very "Batholic" family in the very "Batholic" state of Louisiana. I was the daughter of the daughter of a Baptist pastor. So days were spent wholly following lots of rules about what you were not allowed to do. Yet there was more focus placed on all the things you were allowed to do because this was our focus.

There was so much fun. Take eating dinner together every night as a family. We were required to be home for dinner as a family every night. So often, there was lots of singing while getting ready for dinner: spirituals, gospel songs, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Motown, Stevie Wonder. But mostly gospel, since my mother was a superstar soprano in our church's gospel choir.

Everyone had a job, something they had to contribute to the preparation of the table, whether it was setting the table, making the salad, putting the slices of fresh Wonder Bread on a plate, or filling every glass with water. Sometimes, you were the lucky one who got to change that water into Kool-Aid. All these staples had their special place on the table before we began to eat.

We had to go around the dinner table, one by one, and answer my mother's question: "What was your scripture of the day today?" Then we would say grace together. During dinner, we each had to engage in the dinner conversation, one by one, explaining how we applied our scripture of the day to all the things that happened that day.

But did I tell you my mother was a schoolteacher? After dinner, there was more singing as we cleared the table and cleaned the dishes: The Supremes, The Four Tops, James Brown, but mostly James Cleveland and Shirley Caesar. I loved church. My favorite thing at church was communion. I loved that table with the carving: Do this in remembrance of me. I loved communion.

I heard rumors that my Catholic cousins got to take communion every time they went to church. In Sunday school, I asked the question, "Why do we only take communion once a month? Why not every Sunday?" The answer? "Because we are Baptist." Not a good answer for six-year-old me. Six-year-old me convinced my mother to let me watch the Christmas Eve midnight Mass broadcast from the Vatican.

I finally got to see what my Catholic cousins experienced each week. I thought it was so gorgeous. My six-year-old mind thought everything was so majestic and beautiful: that gigantic pipe organ, the singing, the smoke, the costumes, the painted windows, the huge statues. Fast forward to my first experience attending a Roman Catholic Mass. It was a teaching Mass at the Newman Center Parish associated with UC Santa Barbara, where I was in graduate school.

The priest let us know that throughout the Mass, he would pause and take a moment to explain to us what we were about to do. And he did everything: incense, sprinkling, bells. He did it all. The paradigm shift for me came when he explained the difference between Protestant communion and Roman Catholic Holy Eucharist. As a Baptist, I grew up believing in miracles.

What a miracle to witness at every Mass: bread and wine become the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ. And I could witness and experience this miracle every single time at Mass. As a Baptist, I grew up having a personal relationship with Jesus. How much more personal can it be, then, to take the body and blood of Jesus into my body, to be consumed by what I have consumed, to become the body and blood of Jesus—broken, poured out, and sent forth into the world to be His real presence to everyone and everything on earth?

This was a deeper communion with Jesus Christ. I wanted this Holy Eucharist. I wanted this way to follow the command of Jesus: Do this in remembrance of me. On Monday morning, I signed up for RCIA. I became a Roman Catholic in 1991.

My upbringing gave me a love of God's holy Word, the importance of studying, knowing, and memorizing the Word of God, the importance of applying the Word of God to my daily life, the importance of music and weaving singing into my faith life, the importance of storytelling and how enjoyable it is as a storyteller or a listener.

The love of sacred ritual in my daily life at home as the domestic church and the importance of ritual in general to my faith life. I feel so grateful for RCIA, especially at a university Newman Center, and studying the Roman Catholic faith like a university course.

What grounds me? What centers me in my faith today? It is the Eucharistic celebration: gathering with the body of Christ, experiencing the real presence of Christ as God's Word is proclaimed in the midst of the people, being transformed, and receiving the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus in the most Holy Eucharist, being sent forth and going out into the world to be the real presence of Christ, proclaiming the Gospel with my words and my deeds.