"Dad, a couple of kids at school don't receive communion."
"That's too bad. Why don't they?"
"They say it isn't the 'real' Mass?"
"What?"
"The Mass at our church. They say it isn't right."
"Hmm. Those aren't the same things — whether it's 'right' or whether it's real."
"What do you mean?"
"What I mean is that, even if there are things done at Mass that shouldn't be done, it doesn't mean that the Mass isn't real. Unless things go really bad, a piece of bread and a cup of wine still become the Body and Blood of Jesus."
"I see."
"When the priest says 'This is my body' and 'This is my blood,' the 'this' he's describing really happens, regardless of what else has happened."
"Yes."
"It's good, noble even, for us to want the celebration of the Mass to be reverent and faithful. It's something else to suggest that the Mass isn't 'real' because it doesn't go the way it should."
