RECEIVING COMMUNION WITH JESUS
«Blessed are those called to the supper of the Lamb». Thus says the priest while he is showing the Eucharistic bread to the people before starting its distribution. What echo do these words have in those who hear them?
Many undoubtedly feel themselves blessed for being able to come up for communion with Christ and for nourishment of their life and faith. All too many get up automatically to do once again a gesture that is routine and empty of life. An important number of people don’t feel called to participate and therefore don’t experience any dissatisfaction whatsoever.
And yet going to communion for a Christian can be the most important and central gesture of their whole week, if it’s lived out in its full expression and dynamism.
The preparation starts with the singing or recitation of the Our Father. Each one doesn’t prepare themselves on their own to go to communion individually. We go to communion by all of us forming a family that, beyond tensions and differences, wants to live fraternally, calling on the same Father and each one of us encountering the others all together in the same Christ.
This isn’t about praying an Our Father within the Mass. This prayer acquires a special depth at this moment. The priest’s gesture, with hands open and extended, is an invitation to adopt a trusting attitude of invocation. The petition resounds in a different manner as we go to receive communion: «give us bread» and nourish our life in this communion; «Your kingdom come» and Christ comes to this community; «forgive us our trespasses» and prepare us to receive God’s Son…
The preparation continues with the sign of peace, a gesture that’s fascinating and full of power, that invites us to break our isolation, distance and selfish lack of solidarity. This rite, which is preceded by two prayers asking for peace, isn’t just a gesture of friendship. It expresses our commitment to go about spreading «the peace of the Lord», healing wounds, getting rid of hate, recovering the feeling of fraternity, awakening solidarity.
The invocation «Lord, I am not worthy», said with a humble faith and with the desire to live more faithfully for Jesus, is the final gesture before we approach singing to receive the Lord. Our hands extended and open, express the attitude of someone poor and needy, who opens self to receive the bread of life.
The grateful and trusting silence that makes us conscious of Christ’s closeness and his living presence in us, the prayer of the whole Christian community, and the final blessing bring this communion to its conclusion. Wouldn’t our faith be reaffirmed if we find ourselves receiving communion with more depth?
José Antonio Pagola
Translator: Fr. Jay VonHandorf
