20th Sunday of Ordinary Time (B) 18 August 2024 First Communion
This Gospel passage (Jn 6,51-58) is one of the most explicit in teaching us that the Eucharist is actually the body of Christ. We are eating His body and drinking His blood. The Eucharist is not just a symbol; Our Lord is physically present there.
God dwells where the bread was, and now it is He who is present instead of the bread.
In coming to us in this form Jesus does not lose anything of
His own reality, but gives more reality to what He has created.
Bread and wine are called for duty in making this Sacrament possible. We treat the presence of Jesus with great reverence, so we take it carefully and thankfully.
If we honour the Lord in this way He will honour us with His abundant grace, and many good effects will follow.
Today we have several children receiving their first Holy Communion. We welcome them and surround them with our prayer.
It is the first time for them, but for some of us it would be in the hundreds or thousands of times.
As it has been put: We should take each Communion as if it were our first and our last. First, insofar as there is excitement and expectation there. Last, as when comes our time to die we want to be in the best company possible, and that would be Jesus Christ.
We give the sacrament as much time as we can to take effect within us.
St Thomas Aquinas gives us some idea of the many good effects Communion can bring us: Let this Holy Communion be to me an Armor of faith and a shield of good will, a cleansing of all vices, and a rooting out of all evil desires. May it increase love and patience, humility and obedience, and all virtues. May it be a firm defence against the evil designs of all my visible and invisible enemies, a perfect quieting of all the desires of soul and body. May this Holy Communion bring about a perfect union with You, the one true God, and at last enable me to reach eternal bliss when You will call me. I pray that You bring me, a sinner, to the indescribable Feast (which is Heaven).
In short, through the Eucharist Jesus can make us a new person, generous, merciful, humble, searching for justice, able to endure persecution, and much more.
He can do more for us, and in us, if we invite Him in - which is what we are expressing by coming for the sacrament.
When we say Amen it packs a punch. Implicitly it expresses a desire to deepen our union with Him, which could land us in trouble (cf apostles, martyrs) but it is more than worth it.
What about frequency? The general idea is that we receive once a week.
Like food it has to be repeated and often.
Many think they do not need it, but this is just lack of understanding as to what Our Lord can do for us, and what He is asking of us.
It is like bringing a glass to the ocean. We can fill the glass but it will not last long before we need a refill. We can take in only so much each time. This is why we have to repeat Holy Communion. There is so much going on we cannot express it all on one occasion.
It does help if we prepare, and if we resolve to live what we express here.
With practice, with prayer, with learning from past faults, we come to see beyond appearances, and then the deeper truth will appear.
Even in Heaven we will not have exhausted all the ways in which we can know God.
Our first Communion is one step; there are many more to go.
Bread of Life, be the beginning, the middle and the end of all that lies ahead, until we reach our true home with Thee.
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