Friar Alfonso J. Dávila Lomelí shares with us an intimate meditation from the altar: how the Eucharist, more than a rite or a word, is a living memory of a love that does not go away. Remembering – going back through the heart – thus becomes a path of communion, gratitude and presence.
Memento I am living my third year of priesthood, and the other day, just before celebrating the Eucharist, a simple but profound thought came to me. Something that I learned in theology -yes-, but that perhaps I had not stopped to savor at all.
The Eucharist is memorial. It is memento. It is remembrance.
It is to bring back to the heart something so wonderful, such an immense gift, that never runs out.
Also in theology I discovered that to remember is not simply to think about something that happened. It comes from the Latin re-cordis, and means, at its core, “to go through the heart again.”
How nice, isn’t it? To go through the heart again. Because it is there, in the heart, where memories are sifted, where affections are filtered, where what really matters is decanted. And it is there where love is housed.
That is what the Eucharist is: The living memory of a love so great that it never goes away. It remains. That it becomes a presence. In it we learn, again and again, what is worth keeping, what really sustains life.
I remember a friar used to repeat:
Each Mass is a gift, one grace after another, the greatest gift: God himself who gives himself to us.
And I repeat it to myself as well. Because yes, the Eucharist is real presence. It is God with us, here and now.
And I also think that in every Mass we remember so many faces. Of so many intentions. Of so many people that we carry in our souls.
The Eucharist is communionof course, but it is also communication. It is that moment when we open ourselves to God’s love and allow ourselves to be touched by his tenderness.
At every Eucharist, I remember. I remember the friars who have marked my path, my family who support me, the friends that life has given me.
I remember those who are far away, those who are no longer here, those who await our prayers. In the Eucharist, we remember what really matters.
And there is something else. In the Eucharist we are just as we are before Christ. Without masks. Without adornment.
As another friar taught me:
Be a good friar in the eyes of God; don’t worry about how others look at you.
If only we could first recognize ourselves in the Eucharist, and then live what we celebrate in our daily lives. Because what happens at the altar does not end there: it begins there.
And you… who do you remember in the Eucharist?
Friar Alfonso J. Dávila Lomelí
Madrid, 2025