Our Need For Daily Holy Communion
- By Anne Van Tilburg
- Published 03/8/2008
- Mass
- Unrated
For our purpose, this means through the daily reception of Holy Communion by a believing Catholic. But they must be believing Catholics. Catholics must believe that when they receive the Holy Eucharist, they receive the same Jesus Christ, Who was conceived by the Virgin Mary at Nazareth. They must believe that the Eucharist they receive is the same Jesus Christ Who worked the miracles of raising a naturally dead Lazarus back to physical life, and a spiritually dead Dismas back to the spiritual life on Calvary. They must believe that daily Holy Communion is not a luxury but a necessity. Why?
Because Jesus told us: "Without Me you can do nothing." We need Jesus Christ every day. That is the first meaning of the petition of the Lord's Prayer. "Give us this day our daily bread." St. Pius X makes this plain when he tells us what is frequent Communion. It is daily Holy Communion. One question still remains: how do we grow in the faith which underlies the daily reception of Holy Communion? We grow in this faith by daily spending some time in adoration before the Most Blessed Sacrament. I see no choice. Jesus Christ is on earth in the Holy Eucharist. In the Tantum Ergo we sing, "Praestet fides supplementum sensuum defectui..." (Let faith supply for what the senses fail to see)
What do the sense fail to see? They fail to see a man Who we believe is the incarnate God. How important is this? Considerably important. To believe in the Real Presence means to believe that God became man; that this Man, conceived and born of Mary, and Who died and rose from the dead, is nevertheless on earth in the Blessed Sacrament. He is with us in the Tabernacle. He is within us when we receive Him in Holy Communion. When we receive Him, He is just as truly, fully, physically in us as He was in Mary's womb during the 9 months She carried Him. Mary believed in the Real Presence of Jesus in her body during the Visitation. That is why the moment Her greeting sounded in Elizabeth's ears the unborn John was sanctified in his mother's womb.
Mary is our modal of faith in the Real Presence. Except for her faith, we would not have the incarnation or the Eucharist, or the Real Presence. But given Her faith, we know what wonders Jesus will work through us, provided we believe.
Because Jesus told us: "Without Me you can do nothing." We need Jesus Christ every day. That is the first meaning of the petition of the Lord's Prayer. "Give us this day our daily bread." St. Pius X makes this plain when he tells us what is frequent Communion. It is daily Holy Communion. One question still remains: how do we grow in the faith which underlies the daily reception of Holy Communion? We grow in this faith by daily spending some time in adoration before the Most Blessed Sacrament. I see no choice. Jesus Christ is on earth in the Holy Eucharist. In the Tantum Ergo we sing, "Praestet fides supplementum sensuum defectui..." (Let faith supply for what the senses fail to see)
What do the sense fail to see? They fail to see a man Who we believe is the incarnate God. How important is this? Considerably important. To believe in the Real Presence means to believe that God became man; that this Man, conceived and born of Mary, and Who died and rose from the dead, is nevertheless on earth in the Blessed Sacrament. He is with us in the Tabernacle. He is within us when we receive Him in Holy Communion. When we receive Him, He is just as truly, fully, physically in us as He was in Mary's womb during the 9 months She carried Him. Mary believed in the Real Presence of Jesus in her body during the Visitation. That is why the moment Her greeting sounded in Elizabeth's ears the unborn John was sanctified in his mother's womb.
Mary is our modal of faith in the Real Presence. Except for her faith, we would not have the incarnation or the Eucharist, or the Real Presence. But given Her faith, we know what wonders Jesus will work through us, provided we believe.
Excerpts from: Father John A Harden, S.J. Ave Maria Magazine.