Clear ideas for clean hearts (Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time. Cycle B)

During these last four weeks we have been meditating on the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John. Once again the liturgy of the Church wants to help us understand the importance of the real presence of the Lord in the Eucharist. We need Jesus to be inside of us at communion. We need his protection against the nightmares of our times. We need His Strength to fight against the bogeymen. We need to eat His Body and drink His Blood, and be so overwhelmed by His Love that our world view is transformed by His Presence within us, and our presence within Him. We need to chew upon Him, grind Him with our teeth. That’s what Jesus tells us to do in the exact translation of today’s gospel. We need to drink His Blood and feel His warmth through our veins. We need something tangible, Someone tangible, to hug us, to protect us and to strengthen us to join Him in the fight against the horrors of our world. We need to receive communion. We need the Presence of Our Lord to protect us from the evil that attacks us and the death that has a grip on the world. We need the Bread of Life. We need to be open to the grace and power of Christ, we have to allow him into our hearts; we have to let him change us. If we come to mass with our hearts closed to the one above, if we remain locked in to our own preoccupations, we could receive Holy Communion a thousand times and it wouldn’t make a bit of difference. It is all a question of attitude. If we come to mass with the right attitude, if we come seeking forgiveness of our sins, if we come with a desire to do better towards our fellow human beings, if we come with the wish to worship God and to pay due reverence to our Saviour, then with these attitudes we can rightfully expect a transformation to gradually take place in our lives. There are of course some rules about receiving Holy Communion, we cannot simply receive Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament any and every time we come to mass. The most important rule is that we should not be conscious of serious sin. If we come to mass in a state of sin then first we must be reconciled by going to the Sacrament of Confession and only then receive the Eucharist. If we have this idea in our heads, that we should show him reverence and give him all the honor that is his due, then we should have no fear when it comes to approach the altar and receive him in Holy Communion. Our relationship with the Lord will have deepened and we will see him as a companion on our journey through life. We will see him as the one who loves us and sustains us with the gift of his body and blood • AE