E-mail from heaven: Is your computer on?
The Holy Eucharist is the center of our Catholic faith. From Pentecost onward popes and saints taught we must receive Jesus in fear and trembling. Will my Communion be an intimate embrace with my Savior or an act of hate and indifference? If I bring Jesus into a heart ruled by Lucifer I crucify Him once again. Atone for sins against the Eucharist. Listen and imitate the saints.
Every saint has a profound love for Jesus in the Eucharist and leads others to adore Him by his example. St. Francis of Assisi said, “Let all the world quake and let Heaven exult when Christ the Son of the living God is there on the altar.” He and many other saints spent entire nights adoring before the tabernacle. St. Mary Magdalen of Pazzi exclaimed, “Oh, if we could only understand Who is that God Whom we receive in Holy Communion, then what purity of heart we would bring to Him!” St. John Chrysostom, called an apostle of the Eucharist because of his tremendous devotion said, “We are fed with that which the angels view with trepidation and which they cannot contemplate without fear because of Its splendor. We become one with Him: we become one Body and one Flesh with Christ.... Jesus, for the burning love He bore us, wished to unite Himself so closely to us that we should become one and the same with Him for such is the dream of true lovers.” St. Anthony Mary Claret reminds us to prepare ourselves for the Lord. “When we go to Holy Communion, all of us receive the same Lord Jesus, but not all receive the same grace nor are the same effects produced in all. This comes from our greater or lesser disposition.” Do we dispose ourselves by frequently going to Confession? Some priest-saints confessed every day before daring to celebrate the Sacred Mystery.
Would a lover embrace the beloved with a dagger stab to the heart? We do if we receive our Eucharistic Lord in mortal sin. Jesus showed his wounded heart to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque saying, “Behold this Heart which has so loved men that It spared nothing, even going so far as to exhaust and consume Itself to prove to them Its love. And in return I receive nothing but ingratitude, by the contempt, irreverence, sacrileges, and coldness with which they treat Me in the Sacrament of Love." St. Cyril warned, "They who make a sacrilegious Communion receive Satan and Jesus Christ into their hearts - Satan, that they may let him rule, and Jesus Christ, that they may offer Him in sacrifice as a Victim to Satan." God save us from such blasphemy!
What a blessing if priests reminded us at every Sunday Mass that we must be in the state of sanctifying grace to receive Jesus in Holy Communion. How many unholy Communions would be prevented? How many souls would return to the true faith?