Eucharistic Reflection - Are We Other Christs?

(Source: Wikemedia Commons)

“The Divine Lover in the tabernacle longs to diffuse His life. If we are to resemble Him, then love, which is His life, must so burn within us as to set on fire the world around us. "I am come to cast fire on the earth, and what will I but that it be kindled?"' Christ wishes us to create or renew this life in others.

To be His true disciples, we must not possess our sacramen­tal God selfishly, but, like Him, we must willingly and gener­ously sacrifice ourselves, be other Christs, in the unrestrained, perfect development and diffusion of His life of love. As love acts and reacts, our charity, especially toward those who need it most, through daily, thoughtful kindness, through a delicate anticipation, and, if possible, through relief of their wants - through spending ourselves and being spent for them - will determine the extent of our love of Christ and His love of us. The God of love cannot abide in a soul where there is no love of neighbor. "He that abideth in charity, abideth in God, and God in him."

Rancor, discord, arbitrary caustic remarks about peculiari­ties of our fellowmen, or dogmatic judgment on their behavior, cannot coexist with the God who dwells in us only through love. Divine charity cannot but languish in our hearts if we rudely wound even the least of God's creatures. To appreciate the gravity of uncharitableness, we have only to consider God's unwearied patience with us, His meek tolerance of our sins, and the supreme gift of Himself when we return to Him. He cannot, therefore, possess a soul contracted by distrust, embit­tered by resentment, or poisoned by jealousy.

To receive Holy Communion according to the mind of Christ is to lead a life lost in God. "As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father; so he that eateth me, the same also shall live by me." When the presence of the sacra­mental Savior within us crucifies our carnal selves and disen­gages our thoughts from earth, we will bear with our brethren and give to our contact with them the element that will mark our eternal communion with the saints. As, under the guid­ance of the eucharistic King, he runs the way of God's com­mandments, the communicant who fully corresponds with the grace of Holy Communion will so fuse his earthly with his su­pernal state, that his body will be on earth, but his soul in Heaven.

Christ suffered, died, and gives Himself in the Blessed Sac­rament, to transform the creature and unite him to his God. Will such love find little or no response in our lives? “

(From Transforming Your Life – through the – Eucharist by Father John A. Kane)