Browsing The Seed

Eucharist-centered Living

Today the Church celebrates what is her official Eucharistic Solemnity, her “official act of homage and gratitude to Christ, who by instituting the Holy Eucharist gave to her greatest treasure” (Parsch, The Church’s Year of Grace, v.III, 17). The Eucharist is for us the never-ending fulfillment of Christ’s promise that He would be with us always, “even to the end of the age” (Matt 28:20). In the Eucharist, Christ makes present – in the bosom of His Church and at the hands of His priest – time and time again His own Body and Blood, given for the life of the world. The traditional Eucharistic poem, O Sacrum Convivium, captures the essence of the Most Holy Eucharist well: 

“O sacrum convivium! In quo Christus sumitur: recolitur memoria passionis eius: mens impletur gratia: et futurae gloriae nobis pignus datur. Alleluia!”

“O sacred banquet! In which Christ is received, the memory of his Passion is renewed, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory to us is given. Alleluia!”

In this Sacrament, we literally feast upon the riches of Heaven, the everlasting and infinite banquet of God’s love offered to us in His Son. No earthly spread can compare; this is Heavenly Food, and in it, we draw richly from the source of all grace and life. The Body of Christ rends our hearts at the memory of what He has done for us in His Passion, the event that this Sacrament makes perpetually present before our eyes at each Mass. He died and gave us His Body so that we might live, provided we are continually washed of our sins in His Blood. The Eucharist fills us with grace, but only if we do not approach unworthily, as one dead in sin; to approach the Lord in such a manner is to eat and drink to our own condemnation (cf. 1 Cor 11:29). The Eucharist cannot restore us to life if we are dead in sin, but it can help us to retain that life and make it grow and develop, all the while preserving us from the disease of sin and unending death (cf. Parsch, 27). The Eucharist is Heaven on earth, and so it ought to continually alert our hearts, minds, and souls to the future glory that awaits those who seek to remain in communion with the Lord in all things. As we prayed during the post-communion prayer at Mass: Grant, O Lord, we pray, that we may delight for all eternity in that share in your divine life, which is foreshadowed in the present age, by our reception of your precious Body and Blood.” Our Jesus speaks to us in the Eucharist of His great love and of the life He offers us in Heaven, in which even now we can take delight through our reception of this Most Blessed Sacrament. This Sacrament is life in its truest sense – life that will never end – and we can find this life nowhere else. If the Eucharist is not the center of our lives, we are not truly living, because we are not rooted in True Life. 

In the end, Christ is the only thing present in this world that will accompany us into the next, and we find Him here in this Sacrament. Let us cling to Him here where we can find Him, touch Him, taste Him, and love Him. Let us strive to give our lives as completely to Him as He gives His life to us, and He will come to us, and carry us upward and onward, as we set our hearts and minds on our Heavenly Homeland, where He waits for us, and constantly calls out to us from the Eucharist. May God bless you in the week ahead and may Mother Mary lead you more deeply into the Sacred and Merciful Heart of Jesus. I remain,

Affectionately Yours in Christ,

Fr. Hess

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