Are you aware of what Jesus intends for you when you receive Holy Communion? - Daily Reflections August 16,2015

YOU BECOME WHAT YOU EAT   “Every person who partakes of any blood shall be cut off from his people,” the Law of God says in the Book of Leviticus (7:27). In other words, a Jew who drank blood was automatically excommunicated for the rest of his life. It is good to know this so that we realize how shocking Jesus’ words for Jewish ears were. Why was it a mortal sin to drink or eat something that contained blood? The Old Testament teaches that blood was thought to be the seat of life. And life was considered a quasi-divine matter. Drinking or eating blood therefore would mean eating God.        But that’s exactly what Jesus had in mind. We say, “You become what you eat.” To become God was what Jesus intends: We should become more and more like Him. “Be holy as I am holy,” God tells the Israelites, and Jesus goes one step further: Become divine as I am divine.        This leads us to a very serious reflection. How often have we received the Body of Christ in Holy Communion? How often have we “eaten His flesh and drank His blood”? None of us would be able to give the number of times, but how much have we become Christ-like and holy?        Could it be that the Eucharist has become so much a routine that we do not realize anymore what we are receiving there in the white Host? Has “going to Mass and receiving Communion” become a ritual we take for granted so that it hasn’t any effect on our lives?        St. John Paul II wrote, “Every commitment to holiness, every activity aimed at carrying out the Church’s mission, must draw the strength it needs from the Eucharistic mystery and, in turn, be directed to that mystery as its culmination. In the Eucharist we have Jesus, we have His redemptive sacrifice, we have His resurrection, we have the gift of the Holy Spirit, we have adoration, obedience and love of the Father. Were we to disregard the Eucharist, how could we overcome our own deficiency? (Ecclesia de Eucharistia, 60). Fr. Rudy Horst, SVD   REFLECTION QUESTION: Are you aware of what Jesus intends for you when you receive Holy Communion?   Lord, thank You for the greatest gift possible — Yourself. Make me worthy of it and let receiving You have the effect You intend — me becoming more like You.