Changed by Communion

William K. McElvaney writes,

During my days as president of St. Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, Missouri, I had what I call a mystical experience of the Eucharist. It happened during a worship service in the seminary chapel. As time neared for the Eucharistic liturgy, I had an unsettling vision. The communion table with the elements became superimposed on my desk in the president’s office, so that the two became one, inseparably joined, an organic fusion.  The elements now, as it were, rested on top of my communion table/office desk-become-one. The bread and chalice touched everything on my desk and everybody who entered the room. Nothing escaped the embrace of the bread and the wine.  After that experience, I never administered the seminary in quite the same way.”

– Abridged from William K. McElvaney, Eating and Drinking at the Welcome Table: The Holy Supper for All People. St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 1998 pp. 28-29.

Have you ever experienced communion as a mystical experience?  How has communion shaped or changed your life?