The Benefits of Receiving the Eucharist - Holy Family School of Faith

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Our salvation is not a one-time deal. We sin every day therefore we stand perpetually in need of salvation. Salvation is an ongoing process of falling and rising and falling and rising again. All the power of salvation flows from the Cross of Jesus and His sacrificial death and Resurrection. Because He knew we would need this saving power in our lives to continuously rise us after we fall, He provided a miracle – Jesus makes the saving event of His death and resurrection present in each Mass. We can take part and receive all the benefit just by going to Mass, offering ourselves to God with a contrite and humble heart and receiving Jesus in the Eucharist.

The Catechism explains it this way: “When the Church celebrates the Eucharist, she commemorates Christ's death and resurrection, and it is made present: the sacrifice Christ offered once for all on the cross remains ever present. "As often as the sacrifice of the Cross by which 'Christ…has been sacrificed' is celebrated on the altar, the work of our redemption is carried out." (1364) “The Eucharist is thus a sacrifice because it re-presents (makes present) the sacrifice of the cross, because it is its memorial and because it applies its fruit.” (1366) That is why CCC 1367 can say “The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice.” And “In the Eucharist the Church is as it were at the foot of the cross with Mary, united to the offering and intercession of Christ. (1370)

Every time the Mass is celebrated, the CCC says that "the work of our redemption is carried on" and we "break the one bread that provides the medicine of immortality, the antidote for death, and the food that makes us live for ever in Jesus Christ." (1405)

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Holy Communion separates us from sin. The body of Christ we receive in Holy Communion is "given up for us," and the blood we drink "shed for the many for the forgiveness of sins." For this reason the Eucharist cannot unite us to Christ without at the same time cleansing us from past sins and preserving us from future sins (CCC 1393)

Here the Catechism is referring to venial sin and not mortal sin. Mortal sin indicates that it has caused spiritual death – we have lost God’s life within us which can only be restored through the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

For a sin to be mortal three conditions must together be met:

A.  The act is gravely sinful – which means we have broken one of the Ten Commandments;

B.  and this act was done with full-knowledge

C. and deliberate consent.

However, receiving the Eucharist cleanses us from past sins and strengthens us against future sins. St Ambrose writes: For as often as we eat this bread and drink the cup, we proclaim the death of the Lord. If we proclaim the Lord's death, we proclaim the forgiveness of sins. If, as often as his blood is poured out, it is poured for the forgiveness of sins, I should always receive it, so that it may always forgive my sins. Because I always sin, I should always have a remedy.

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Going to Mass and receiving the Eucharist is the greatest way to thank God.

The sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross is an infinite and perfect sacrifice of Thanksgiving to God the Father. His sacrifice is made present in the Mass so that we may unite our thanksgiving to Jesus. Our weak and small thanksgiving is joined to that of Jesus taking on infinite value. Therefore, there is no greater way to give thanks to God than by going to Mass.

The Eucharist is a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the Father, a blessing by which the Church expresses her gratitude to God for all his benefits, for all that he has accomplished through creation, redemption, and sanctification. Eucharist means first of all "thanksgiving." CCC 1360

The story of forgetting Teresa at home. We live just across the parking lot from our Church. When all five kids were in the house it was not uncommon for us to go to different Masses. One Sunday Sandy and I rushed off, late as usual, and laughed when we saw most of our kids sprinkled in different sections of the Church. But as we were walking home it dawned on us – where is Teresa – she was 7 at the time. Then we began to argue about who was going to a second Mass with Teresa later that day when we crossed the threshold of our home. Teresa hearing us said: Well, dad, don’t you have enough to be thankful for to go to two Masses today? She got me. The Mass is the greatest way to thank God.

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The Mass is a prayer of infinite power because it is the infinite act of intercession made by Jesus on the Cross. If you know people we are in spiritual or material need – then go and join your prayer to the infinite prayer of Jesus for them. The greatest power you can apply to a loved one for conversion, for physical, mental or emotional healing or for whatever need they have is to go and offer the Mass for them.   

In the Eucharist the sacrifice of Christ becomes also the sacrifice of the members of his Body. The lives of the faithful, their praise, sufferings, prayer, and work, are united with those of Christ and with his total offering, and so acquire a new value. Christ's sacrifice present on the altar makes it possible for all generations of Christians to be united with his offering. CCC 1368

So go to Mass and when the gifts are placed on the Altar, place all the loved ones and all their needs on the Alter. Then offer yourself unconditionally to God as a gift and sacrifice united to that of Christ and offer it for all those in need… especially for me dear friends.

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Finally – God is the only One who can satisfy our desire for infinite, perfect and everlasting happiness. God offers Himself to us in the Eucharist. If we want to be happy – then in the end we will only find it in Jesus.

In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really and substantially contained. (374)

Diary of Faustina 1385 After Communion today, Jesus told me how much He desires to come to human hearts. I desire to unite Myself with human souls; My great delight is to unite Myself with souls Know, My daughter, that when I come to a human heart in Holy Communion, My hands are full of all kinds of graces which I want to give to the soul. But souls do not even pay any attention to Me; they leave Me to Myself and busy themselves with other things. Oh, how sad I am that souls do not recognize Love! They treat Me as a dead object.