Eucharistic Reflection - Be Aware, Deeply Aware

“Receive Communion…and be deeply aware of the One who visits you, infinite love, divine madness; of One who not only became man like ourselves, but who became bread. After you receive Communion, ask Jesus, the God you hold prisoner in your soul, to stay with you throughout the day so that you may love Him and give Him thanks.”

 (St. Teresa of the Andes , excerpt from Letters of Saint Teresa of the Andes, Michael D. Griffin, o.c.d., tr.)

Eucharistic Reflection - Indifference To Holy Communion

"You who only communicate rarely are like someone between two sleeps. You know that Jesus Christ is truly in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, that this food is absolutely necessary for your poor soul. Nevertheless, one sees in you little desire. There are long intervals between your

Confessions and Communions.

You decide to go because of a great feast or a jubilee or a mission, or because others are going, and not because your poor soul needs it. Not only do you not try to merit this happiness, but you do not even envy those who taste it more often. Thus you imitate the Jews. 

They are reproached for refusing shelter to Jesus Christ on the first Christmas night although they did not know Him. You treat Him with the same discourtesy, you who neglect to receive Him into your hearts in Holy Communion. 

Do not forget that at the Particular Judgment Jesus Christ will judge us on all the good we could have done. He will show you all the sacraments that you could have received during your life. How many more times you could have received His Body and His Blood if you had wished to lead a better life. Ah, great God!" 

(From The Eucharistic Meditations of the Cure of Ars)

Eucharistic Reflection - Be A Living Tabernacle

"On the day that we receive Holy Communion we should endeavor to keep our hearts as living tabernacles of our Eucharistic Jesus, and then visit Him often with acts of adoration, love, and gratitude; this is what divine love will teach us."

Saint Paul of the Cross 

Eucharistic Reflection - The Unworthy Reception of Holy Communion

[If you have not read (and completed) Father Donald H. Calloway's  30 Day Eucharistic Revival - A Retreat with St. Peter Julian Eymard - go get a copy now and begin! Father courageously writes the Truth - Truth that too many others have been unwilling or afraid to speak - Truths upon which authentic and lasting Eucharistic Revival must rest.

Read this excerpt and you will understand:

“…God’s goodness should not be taken advantage of or abused. In our times, some in leadership positions, warn people not to ‘weaponize the Eucharist’ and offer very confusing messages by seemingly encouraging everyone to receive Holy Communion, regardless of the state of their soul. For example, people living in unnatural relationships, those committing intrinsically disordered actions, and those who are in adulterous relationships are encouraged to receive Holy Communion. This is wrong. Such thinking is very dangerous and destructive to souls and their ultimate well-being. We must never forget what Saint Paul told the early Christians in Corinth about sacrilegious reception of the Holy Eucharist see 1 Corinthians 11:26-30). Our Retreat Master [Saint Peter Julian Eymard] makes a very strong point on this matter: ‘Sinners who receive Him unworthily crucify Him in their soul and unite themselves to a demon, who are their own sovereign master’.

Without a doubt, the Eucharist is not a prize for the perfect. Every devout Catholic understands that. Every pious follower of Jesus also knows that the Eucharist is nourishment for the weak and a powerful medicine for the soul, but they also know that Holy Communion is not food to be given to those in mortal sin. Unworthy reception of Holy Communion does no good to a person who receives it in a state of mortal sin. In fact, it does the opposite. Unworthy reception of the Eucharist greatly harms the soul and their relationship with God and the Church. Unworthy reception of Holy Communion does not heal a person but rather compounds sin leading to confusion and scandal. That is not what God wants, and people should not take advantage of God's goodness in such a manner.

God's goodness is meant to be respected and treasured, not abused and insulted. This is why God's goodness provides us with the ability to go to Confession. Repentance through the Sacrament of Reconciliation (Confession) is the medicine applied first for the soul in mortal sin, not Holy Communion.  God's goodness in the Eucharist wants to be consumed, but in the proper order and manner. Good medicine applied to the wrong wound does no good. Confession reconciles those in mortal sin to God and puts them back in the state of grace so that they can partake of the goodness of God in the Eucharist. It doesn't work the other way around.”

(From 30 Day Eucharistic Revival – A Retreat with Saint Peter Julian Eymard by Father Donald H. Calloway, MIC)

 

Eucharistic Reflection - Jesus Had You Before His Eyes

(Image Source: Hands at Mass)

"Dear Eucharistic soul: In that hour [of the Last Supper] Jesus thought of you. Have no doubt about it. He thought of you in particular, and had you before His eyes. He understood that, without that small, white, consecrated wafer, which you adore and which you receive every morning, you would feel lonely, very lonely, in your exile here below. He knew that your heart would hunger and thirst for love and be the prey of unmitigated nostalgia for heaven. He knew that on the road through life you would find many a cause for grief and, behind a smiling appearance, would have to conceal many a galling sorrow. 

And for your sake, dear soul, lest you be orphaned and without a loyal friend in whose understanding heart you might pour out the overflowing bitterness of your heart, Jesus overlooked all those sacrileges, profanations and ingratitudes and, in that night, instituted the Eucharist for you—understand this well!—just for you. And for your sake He has remained in that small, white, consecrated Host which you receive each morning. Do you understand now, dear soul, how much you are loved by the Christ of the Cenacle and of the Eucharist?"

Father Jose Guadalupe Trevino

Eucharistic Reflection - Without Him

"Without the Holy Eucharist there would be no happiness in this world; life would be insupportable. When we receive Holy  Communion, we receive our joy and our happiness. The good God, wishing to give Himself to us in the Sacrament of His Love, gave us a vast and great desire, which He alone can satisfy. 

 

In the presence of this beautiful Sacrament, we are like a person dying of thirst by the side of a river — he would only need to bend his head; like a person still remaining poor, close to a great treasure — he need only stretch out his hand. He who communicates loses himself in God like a drop of water in the ocean. They can no more be separated."

(St. John Vianney)

Eucharistic Reflection - Let God Not Find Our Souls Alone

 “And since so few people now hear the words, 'Come to Me, all you who labor and are burdened,' let each of us, when he approaches the Holy Table, look upon himself as the delegate of all those he loves or has loved, living or dead. When God makes His way into our souls, He does not find us alone. All those from whom we proceed and who have gone to sleep before us may receive, in Purgatory, some benefit of grace pervading us, their living children, when we pray for them. And all our friends who are kept away from the Source of grace by sin, indifference, ignorance, and incredulity - those who have helped us and those we have harmed - are present in our thoughts in this ineffable instant."

Francois Mauriac, Catholic Nobel Prize laureate in Literature