I want you to pretend that two things will happen today. Firstly, that you will come forward and receive our Lord in Holy Communion. Secondly, that when you return home you turn on your television and see on the local news the report that this church has burned down. Now the question becomes what will you spend the rest of your day talking about?
For many the answer to this question will be the fact that this church has burned down. That is understandable for this is an extreme example and falls outside of the ordinary of our life. Nevertheless, the more important part of our day is the fact that we have had the opportunity to receive our Lord in Holy Communion. So many lower this sacrament to simply being a mundane action which is done among the many other things which we do.
In all reality there is nothing more important then our opportunity to commune with our Blessed Lord in Holy Communion. Not the news of a church that has burned down, not the fact that your favorite football team has made it to the Super Bowl, not that a member of your family has gotten engaged. To various degrees all of these may be important, but I must stress the importance that is receiving our Lord in Holy Communion. Yet despite this importance we so often take what we receive for granted.
This lack of importance can so often be seen from the communion line itself. Here the “amen” which we have been instructed to say prior to our receiving of Holy Communion in the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite often goes forgotten or is mumbled without true conviction. As Gandi once exclaimed: “If I believed what you say you believe about the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, I would crawl on my hands and knees to the altar to receive Him.”
As Cardinal Sarah put it: “The most insidious diabolical attack consists in trying to extinguish faith in the Eucharist, by sowing errors and fostering an unsuitable way of receiving it. Satan’s target is the Sacrifice of the Mass and the Real Presence of Jesus in the consecrated Host.”
Let us look to the example of Saint John Paul II whose faith in the Eucharist was fervent. Despite his failing health he never ceased to kneel in the presence of the Eucharist. He would have trouble getting back to his feet, but he would always insist that he would kneel. Yet for us genuflections go forgotten or become curtsies as we lose focus upon that which is most important, Christ who is present with us in the Eucharist. It is no wonder that it becomes so hard to bare good fruit within this world when so many could care less about the gift that is Christ present with us in the Eucharist.
Our Gospel shows us the importance of this great gift. In it Christ looked out upon the multitude and saw them in their hunger and at that He multiplied the fish and the loaves and they were fed. Some would see that He is feeding their bodily hunger, but He is also feeding their soul. This serves as a foreshadowing of what we come to receive in the Eucharist. Through the Eucharist we have the opportunity to receive not mere bread and wine, but rather the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ our Lord. As Christ goes onto say later in this chapter: “Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life.”
