The Eucharist: God’s Greatest Gift
From heartbreak to love, woman embraces the Eucharist’s grace in her life, her work
As the director of refugee services for the archdiocese’s Catholic Charities Indianapolis, Jessica Inabnitt uses her love of the Eucharist to guide her in helping refugees from around the world make a successful transition to life in the United States. Here, she poses for a photo with two members of her staff, Ahmad Ghaznawi, center, a job placement specialist who is a refugee from Afghanistan, and Anthony Khual, a cultural orientation specialist who is originally from Myanmar. (Photo by John Shaughnessy)
By John Shaughnessy
She apologizes for crying, but the tears are fitting and natural as Jessica Inabnitt talks about the greatest loss in her life.
Sitting in her office, with a wall sign behind her desk proclaiming, “Do small things with great love,” Inabnitt points to a nearby framed photo of her son Tyler on his graduation day from high school.
“My son passed away in 2009,” she says, wiping tears from her cheeks. “He was 18 when he passed, a freshman at Ivy Tech. He committed suicide. Very tragic and unexpected.”
She then shares a thought that has grown deep in her heart since her son’s death.
“We had fallen away from Mass and making it a priority. There was a lot of guilt I had to work through. But the Lord is so good to us,” says Inabnitt, a member of St. John the Evangelist Parish in Indianapolis. “There’s some good coming out of this. The Lord makes good out of everything.”
That goodness began to grow for her about 10 years ago when a friend invited her to share a holy hour of eucharistic adoration—at 11 p.m. on Fridays.
“At first, I said, ‘What are we doing? This is Friday night. I’m not going to want to go.’ But very quickly that changed. Just the peace that happens during eucharistic adoration,” she says. “There’s nowhere else where you find that peace.
“When you’ve reached the end of the week and you’ve worked through the struggles of life and work, and you just sit in that time and reflect, it changes your heart. It changes your whole outlook on things that you stress about, that you’re anxious about, that you’re angry about. You take those things to the Lord, and you let them go. I became more grounded in all those things because of that holy hour.”
Her conversations with God have included some tough ones about Tyler.
“I got to express myself to the Lord,” she says. “Nobody thinks you should go in there and yell at him, but he already knows you’re mad at him, so you might as well get it off your chest. You ask all these questions, but there’s also the beauty and the grace that come from eucharistic adoration and prayer in front of Christ. You start to recognize the graces. There was a lot of peace in there.”
The grace and the peace have blossomed even more in her appreciation of receiving the Eucharist, a time that draws her close to Tyler. In her readings about the faith, she has embraced the thought that when people receive Communion, not only is Christ present, but they are also surrounded by “all the angels and the saints and the cloud of witnesses” during that time.
“All those who passed before us are right there with us,” she says. “I always imagine Tyler with me at Mass, receiving Christ at the same time as I am.”
Her relationship with Christ has also led to a deep commitment to two of the principles he has asked all people to embrace—to serve others and to strive to bring them closer to him.
She served as the director of mission and discipleship for women at St. John the Evangelist Parish for six years.
“During my time at St. John, it was a lot about building my prayer life and building my relationship with the Lord so that I could inspire others and bring others to understand the Lord is there for them in a very personal relationship—and how to engage that relationship, how to stay in that relationship and lean on the Lord for all things.
“It was a life-changing experience for me. It was a time of great growth for my faith, and it was also spiritually rewarding to watch the growth of the women in the parish in their faith journeys, too.”
For the past three years, she has worked as the director of refugee services for the archdiocese’s Catholic Charities Indianapolis, helping people from around the world make the transition to life in the United States after fleeing from such countries as Afghanistan, Congo, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Venezuela.
“These refugees have been invited by the U.S. government to come here and resettle here,” she says, noting that Catholic Charities Indianapolis will assist about 500 refugees this year, providing help with housing, health care, employment, cultural orientation and education for their children.
“Everything we do is to help them toward their self-sufficiency. We are helping them resettle so they can be successful here.”
She views the work as a mission of human dignity.
“We serve folks from all different religions and cultures. My growth and my love of the Eucharist have grounded me to understand that, at the very core, we serve because of human dignity and respect of life.
“Refugee resettlement doesn’t always get included in sanctity of life discussions, but it is absolutely part of it. If we fight against the death penalty and we support life in the womb, we also need to put refugees and immigrants in that category as right to life.”
Her devotion to the Eucharist and eucharistic adoration has her looking forward to the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis on July 17-21.
Besides attending the event each day, she also plans to volunteer at St. John the Evangelist Church, which will serve as a perpetual adoration chapel during the congress, with the Eucharist being exposed each day for 24 hours.
She also plans to be in Lucas Oil Stadium when tens of thousands of people come together for eucharistic adoration.
“Just to think that Jesus is going to be in Lucas Stadium with so many people in adoration—the power of that prayer is overwhelming. I get emotional about it—how life-changing it will be, and possibly how world-changing it will be. All those prayers in the presence of Jesus.”
She anticipates that moment will bring her even closer to two of the most cherished relationships she has known in her life.
“I am Christ’s beloved daughter,” she says. “His love for me is greater than I can ever imagine. He brings good out of everything. Even through my stubbornness, he’s there for me, and he loves me.
“And I get to know Tyler better through knowing the Lord, through my relationship with Christ.” †
