We continue to live out this year of revival and deepening of the faith in the Eucharist of the Church in the United States. In summary, we cannot state it often enough. It is our Catholic faith that, through the Eucharist, Jesus has entrusted His true and sacramental presence to the Church in every age. 

 

At Mass, when the priest celebrant says, “This is my Body” and “This is the chalice of my Blood,” what was bread has truly become the body of Jesus, and wine His blood. We do not say that in a merely symbolic sense. If we did, it would mean that we, as human beings, have sought to memorialize the presence of Jesus and the Last Supper on our own. While that would be noble and laudable, it would, even if unintentionally, diminish the words of Jesus and the gift of His presence.

 

As we have noted in various reflections over recent months, the world is changed and we ourselves must be changed by the reality that the Eucharistic truly is the presence of Jesus in our material and physical world. That is to say, we have learned from our earliest catechesis that God is everywhere. He is present to all of creation, continuing to be the on-going source of its very existence. The Eucharist, however, is a special presence. It continues the presence of the Incarnation when Jesus took on our human flesh and blood and lived among us.

 

The Scriptures record various moments when human beings found themselves in the special presence of God in this world. In the Old Testament we are told that Moses regularly spoke to God face to face. He would go alone to the meeting tent and would return changed, with his face brightened by God’s presence (Ex chapters 33 and 34).

 

When Peter was first called by Christ, he was tested by going out and dropping his net after a night of fruitless fishing. As he pulled up an exceptional catch, Peter recognized the holiness of the one calling him. He then said to Jesus, “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.” (Lk, 5:8).

 

These and other examples in the Scriptures give us an insight and a model for our own hearts when we are in the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. In such moments, our own eyes are shielded from seeing the full glory of the Risen Christ. That will be shown to us in the next life (1Jn: 3,2). But we should have a sense of awe that is drawn from our faith. Like Peter, we should be aware of our unworthiness because of the sins of our lifetime.

 

For this reason, any revival of our Eucharistic faith must be linked to our reception of the sacrament of reconciliation. We need to recognize the infinite goodness and sinlessness that is the nature of Christ’s divinity. That makes us aware of our unworthiness to be in the divine presence, except that Christ Himself invites us to Him, as He did with Moses.

 

Of course, apart from our daily sins, there is a level of sinfulness that renders us especially unworthy to receive the Lord because we have become so apart from Him. That is the result of committing mortal sin.

 

Conscious of both our venial and our mortal sins, our desire should be to prepare to be in the presence of Christ and especially to receive Him. For that reason, we should regularly avail ourselves of the great gift of confessing our sins. We should be especially conscious that hearing the words of Christ through the priest, “I absolve you from your sins” has a special link to preparing to meet Christ, both in the next life and in the Eucharist.

 

The great gift of Jesus’s true presence in the Eucharist is joined to His gift of mercy and forgiveness, and the link of the Eucharist to the sacrament of confession is an important element of this year of renewal of our faith.