Bread of Life - Self-Gift

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If the Eucharist is the Bread of Life, then we need to change the way we look at our lives, especially on Sundays.  I’m preaching a truth that we all need to hear, but especially the people who are not in the room.  For Jesus says “unless you eat the flesh and drink the blood…” and yet the reality is that 75% of Catholics in the United States don’t make it to Mass regularly.  It’s not a priority, so they are spiritual zombies like we talked about last week.

The Eucharist isn’t magic.  God doesn’t bulldoze us.  He desires our free response, and so He allows us even to reject Him. This explains That type of person ends up being someone who eats the Bread of Life but doesn’t live it - perhaps even trying to live a life of duplicity - as if sin and God can be friends within our hearts.  —And in light of the news over the past weeks, I think especially especially for priests or other church leaders who do harm through a life that in serious ways does not conform to Jesus, a life with a dark side that ends up causing more harm than good.  “Whoever causes one of these little ones to sin…” Jesus says, and indeed it is a tragedy to see how some of the Church’s representatives have failed to help others, even here in this parish in the past from what I’ve heard.  No, clearly the Eucharist isn’t God’s magical way to force us to change.  We must be willing to be changed.

Communion will not affect you unless you let it.  And the biggest part of letting it, letting Him, work within you, is to grow in intimacy with Jesus.  If you know Jesus deeply and personally, the Eucharist will transform you.  You will start to become a different person, you will become Him, and through that, you will become the best version of yourself.  We may also need to get to Confession, for the Eucharist will not help us at all if we take it when not prepared, for Saint Paul says “whoever eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself.”

The Seven Secrets of the Eucharist would be a great book to help you unleash the power of the Eucharist in your life.