Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus,

As we continue on our journey of faith, I would like to delve deeper into the message of Holy Communion.  In the General Instruction of the Roman Missal we read about “Holy Communion as an Act of Faith.”

“Christ’s presence in the Eucharist challenges human understanding, logic, and ultimately reason.  His presence cannot be known by the senses, but only through faith – a faith that is continually deepened through that communion which takes place between the Lord and his faithful in the very act of the celebration of the Eucharist.  Thus the Fathers frequently warned the faithful that by relying solely on their senses they would see only bread and wine.  Rather, they exhorted the members of the Church to recall the word of Christ by whose power the bread and wine have been transformed into his own Body and Blood.

The teaching of St. Cyril of Jerusalem assists the Church even today in understanding this great mystery:

“We have been instructed in these matters and filled with an unshakable faith that what seems to be bread is not bread, though it tastes like it, but the Body of Christ, and that what seems to be wine is not wine, thought it tastes like it, but the Blood of Christ.”

The act of Communion, therefore, is also an act of faith.  For when the minister says, “The Body of Christ” or “The Blood of Christ,” the communicant’s “Amen” is a profession in the presence of the saving Christ, body and blood, soul and divinity, who now gives life to the believer.”

As Pope Benedict XVI told the young people gathered for the Twentieth World Youth Day: “The Body and Blood of Christ are given to us so that we ourselves will be transformed in our turn.  We are to become the Body of Christ, his own Flesh and Blood.  We all eat the one bread, and this means that we ourselves become one.  In this way, adoration, as we said earlier, becomes union.  God no longer simply stands before us as the One who is totally Other.  He is within us, and we are in him.  His dynamic enters into us and then seeks to spread outwards to others until it fills the world, so that his love can truly become the dominant measure of the world.”

“Only Jesus can transform us into himself.  Our inner receptivity is critical.  To receive love, we need to be open to it.  The sacrificial gift of self at every Mass is the best way to be continuously transformed into Christ.  Then in Christ we become bread for the world’s bodily and spiritual hunger.” (United States Catholic Catechism for Adults)

May we be transformed into Christ through reception of His Body and Blood!

Fr. David