We exist in a material world, but one that is not isolated. It is enshrouded in a larger, immaterial reality that we cannot perceive with our refined senses. The reality of God and His creation is not limited to the sunrises we see in the East, or the birdsong of the forrest canopy. It is an inconceivable expanse outside of time and space that we exist in, participate in, and yet experience separately.

I am unable to walk through walls or see more than 10 miles or so on a clear sky day. Buildings, hills, and valleys obstruct my view, as does the limitations of my eyes and the curvature of the earth. But God’s angels and enemies flow throughout the created world each day, carrying out their tasks. There are those who are on mission from God, ministering to and protecting His people. There are others working just as earnestly for man’s enslavement. By their choice, God’s enemies chose to reject Him. They rejected this labor for the good, right, and just. They rejected an existence that required them to be in the service of love, charged with the care and concern for humanity. As a result, they are opposed by God in all places and at every moment. Rather than gaining power and prestige, they are destroyed by the foot of a virgin and a single word, fiat.

The reality does not require our assent to make it real. It continues in parallel to our own daily lives, all around us, while still out of view. It is not so for the immaterial. Evil spirits cannot stand to be in the same space as God, so a single grain of blessed salt dropped upon the ground, having God’s blessing and goodness embedded within it, necessarily must be seen and avoided. Just as a ray of light chases away every vestige of darkness, goodness disperses evil.

What does this then say about the Eucharist? At the Mass, when Jesus’ sacrifice is re-presented, when the angelic host assembles at the altar, when earth is caught up into Heaven, the bread and wine are transubstantiated into the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ. God is integral, meaning there are no parts within Him. Every atom is as much His fullness as His complete physical body. At the crescendo of the Mass, we process forward to the altar, and we receive Him within us.

Jesus said that His body is true food, and HIs blood is true drink. The Eucharist is consumed, and our physical bodies proceed through the digestive process. Jesus’ physical presence is systemically shared and diffusely spread throughout us. We are then truly a living tabernacle, inhabited at a molecular level by the author of life, Love and Goodness itself.

If a single grain of blessed salt can chase away Evil Spirits, what is possible for a person who has just received the Eucharist?

In life, we strive to earn the rewards of Heaven, and contend with our misguided desire to depart from God’s path. The more often, and more deeply, we contemplate the spiritual realities around us, the more plain it becomes how necessary it is for us to live a life of virtue and service. Life is always and everywhere difficult, but we are equipped and fortified with the things of Heaven that will never be overcome.