Another thought to ponder...

In a few weeks we will be celebrating Holy Thursday. On that night, the Lord Jesus instituted the Most Blessed Sacrament - the Eucharist. It is also the night in which he instituted the Sacrament of Holy Orders. Makes sense too, right? We need priests to consecrate the bread and wine which becomes for us, the body, blood soul and divinity of Christ. Cool. It is also the night in which Our Lord began his Passion, in the very act of instituting the Eucharist. ‘Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins.’ A short time after, he began to shed his blood in the garden of Gethsemane and then fully on the cross the following afternoon. On the third day he rose from the dead, making redemption complete and making the Eucharist the source of life. Eternal life. ‘Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you.’ It is almost (if it isn’t) like saying that ‘unless you receive communion, you remain in your sin.’ Of course, we have the Sacrament of Reconciliation to forgive us our grave sins, but Reconciliation is geared towards making one prepared, and able, to receive Christ’s Eucharistic Body. No matter what you feel, whether you ‘feel the Lord’s presence close to you’ or you ‘feel abandoned,’ the reality of Jesus in the Eucharist, and the reception of him worthily, gives supernatural life to the soul. Remember, Jesus said, “I have come so that you may have life and have it more abundantly.”

But what of it?

Brothers and sister in the Lord, go to confession often. Go to receive him as often as you possibly can in communion. Jesus desired and even promised to be with us ‘all days, until the end of the age,’ and this is the most perfect way he fulfills that promise. Don’t leave him alone. Prepare yourselves for him, not only through prayer, but through confession, through the reading of the Gospels, through works of charity (both corporeal and spiritual) so that we may be one with Him.

If our attitude is one of always desiring the Lord, even though we know that we have failed him many times, heaven becomes more and more of a reality for us. Desire other things, and the Good Lord, out of love for you, will give you those other things, even into eternity - oh, I forgot, you can’t take them with you so, let me correct that. If you desire other things, the Good Lord will give you those other things, mainly, eternity alone separated from his love but being unable to avoid feeling his love as it burns forever.

In His love - George