As a Protestant pastor, I have a confession to make. In fact, I've already confessed it to a Catholic priest.

For more than 15 years, I snuck into the Catholic mass, taking the elements while knowing full well that Catholic doctrine allows only Catholics to share in the family meal. A guest in someone's home should abide by the family rules, and I did not. For that, I repent.

My deeper sorrow, however, is not for what I did among Catholics, but rather, for what I did not do among my fellow Protestants—namely, experience power and joy in the sacrament. In fact, if God hadn't intervened dramatically, I might still be searching elsewhere.

At my first pastorate, I was surprised to discover that Communion was celebrated only quarterly. Our denomination was in merger talks with another denomination whose tradition includes weekly Communion. How often to offer the sacrament threatened to become a major stumbling block to uniting. The discussions, however, never seemed ...