(My comment from the old Exchange)

I was pretty much an agnostic until I was 16.

Then quite unexpectedly I found myself reading the Beattitudes and sensing that they were being written directly to me....and that God really did know me and care about me. In succeeding months I read more scripture--especially the Psalms--that reinforced that belief.

A few years later I discovered that the Christian Eucharist is truly a gift of joy---not the dreary, prolonged, and pentitential liturgy of the church of my childhood.   I discovered that this joy can overflow into a life of service to humankind, especially to the lost, the last, the least, and the lonely.

Now I cannot imagine a Sunday without the Eucharist.   The third century martyrs of Abilene had declared, "we cannot live without Sunday."

It is as true in our days as in theirs

I think there are a lot of people who want to have faith, but people in general have a hard time receiving things. There's nothing you can do to earn it, you only need receive it. That can be difficult because our brains have been trained to earn everything and receiving can be an uncomfortable feeling, from receiving a gift or a helping hand, to receiving the gift of a savior. The pressure of receiving a gift of someone dying for people he didn't know, for sins they haven't commited yet is pretty heavy. It almost seems as if just saying "yes, I believe you died for me" is so little in comparison. Heck, I know lots of people who have a really hard time just asking for and accepting help with something that needs done around the house, let alone something like that.  At least that's one of my theories anyway.