The Meal That Helps You To Heaven
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ONE
This is the room where Jesus performed His greatest miracle – and instructed that it be performed again and again.
This miracle – turning bread and wine into His body and blood for us to drink – is what the Church calls “The source and summit of the Christian life.” That means that the Eucharist is what is capable of being the foundation of our life as Christians, and also it can take us to the heights of sanctity. But, if we receive it wrongly, it can bring us to Hell.
1st Corinthians tells us: “For this is what I received from the Lord, and in turn passed on to you: that on the same night that he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took some bread, and thanked God for it and broke it, and he said, ‘This is my body, which is for you; do this as a memorial of me’. In the same way he took the cup after supper, and said, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Whenever you drink it, do this as a memorial of me.’ Until the Lord comes, therefore, every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you are proclaiming his death, and so anyone who eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will be behaving unworthily towards the body and blood of the Lord. Everyone is to recollect himself before eating this bread and drinking this cup; because a person who eats and drinks without recognizing the Body is eating and drinking his own condemnation. In fact that is why many of you are weak and ill and some of you have died. If only we recollected ourselves, we should not be punished like that. But when the Lord does punish us like that, it is to correct us and stop us from being condemned with the world.”
And there went forth, from this table on the night so long ago, men whom that eucharist would make saints, and one whose heart that first communion opened up to the devil. And so it goes today.
TWO
Most of the people who sat at the table in this room actually did become saints.
a. Eleven of them, in fact, became heroes for Christ
i. And it was the Eucharist that gave them the power to be saints
b. To witness to Christ, to suffer for Christ, to reflect and meditate on the goodness of God and the meaning of the mysteries
c. From the beginning, we read in the Book of Acts, they continued to “break bread” – it was the Eucharist which sustained the early Church, which kept her filled with faith and power and saints.
THREE
Think of all the great saints the Church has canonized – it was the Eucharist that gave them the grace, the power, the intimacy with Jesus which led to their sanctity.
i. Francis of Assisi, Therese of Lisieux, Thomas More, Joan of Arc, Mother Teresa
1. They didn’t have anything more than you have
2. They had the whole Jesus, given to them in the most intimate manner possible
a. And so do you
b. He made them saints. You have the same opportunity all Jesus’ followers have had ever since that first Holy Thursday
FOUR
There is enough grace in one Eucharist to make you a saint. Then why aren’t we? Because it is possible to receive the Eucharist and not assimilate what we have eaten.
We don’t receive the benefit we could because we cling to sins that block the grace from entering our soul. These need to be confessed. Then if we want to keep our soul open, make the habit of a daily examination of conscience and regular confession – at least monthly.
FIVE
Receiving the Eucharist should go hand in hand with daily meditation and a resolution. Prayer (meditation) opens the soul to receive the grace of the Eucharist .
Every meditation should end with a practical concrete resolution to live out what we’ve meditated upon. If we do these two things:
a. Make the habit of a daily examination of conscience and regular confession
b. Daily meditation with a resolution we actually practice
c. And we persevere in these
d. We will become a saint!