It’s Saturday evening and Mass time here in Pittsburgh, and if you’re anything like me, you’re maybe a little distracted getting in line for communion. Maybe also a little hungry—after all, it’s almost time for happy hour or dinner while sitting outside in the summer evening air.

Now, there’s the shuffling through the pews, the papers that sometimes crinkle, the kneelers that crack an echo throughout the church when they fall, the occasional goldfish cracker to be avoided, the queuing—so many things to navigate! But then, at the front of the line, you make eye contact with the Priest, and the distractions melt away.

“Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.” How visceral and challenging and true. We receive communion to be closer to Jesus, to participate in the world with him, and to take him with us wherever we go.

Now, everyone has a little different experience while saying “Amen.” You’ve seen it, I’ve seen it—the kiddos who just had their First Holy Communion, all shiny and bright, our parents and family members, the young families, the occasional “I’m phoning it in” person. (Hang in there, everyone has an off day, buddy!) But all are ultimately doing their best to say, “Jesus, stay with me. Help me. Love me.”

We walk back to our pews, and we pray, we watch, we wait. Here is this community that I’m so lucky to be part of, in all its humanity, all walking to the same goal, receiving nourishment, comfort, care at the altar. Then, the final blessing, the last notes of the song, and out the door we go. We take Jesus with us to live in this wonderful and flawed world.