The Church in the United States has launched a three-year focus on belief in and greater devotion to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.
Many reasons could be cited for why increased attention on the Eucharist is needed, but the greatest reason is our need for love.
The most dramatic reality of the Holy Eucharist is that Jesus gives Himself to us in the greatest act of love, death on a cross. God’s limitless love is ours in Holy Communion. And yet, many face a real challenge in believing in Jesus’ Real Presence in the Eucharist. They struggle to believe that such love is real.
People do not encounter unconditional love often. The idea of a God who forgives and is ready to welcome us back into friendship with Him, no matter what, is not something everyone can relate to.
For some people, the missing link to belief in the Real Presence might not be missed time for catechesis or religion class, but the absence of love.
Experiencing the love of others helps us grasp the love of God.
This is one reason why supporting family life is so important. Parents, especially parents of young children, need our support to help them create homes where love can be nurtured. Children learn unconditional love, in an irreplaceable way, from their parents. All of us can help families, by prayer or works of charity, so that it becomes easier to know the love of God in the home.
How can we make it easier for the people we know to receive the love of God in the Eucharist? What acts of love or works of mercy can we do so that they will be more likely to turn to God’s mercy or better disposed to receive the love of God?
While we might know of this radical self-gift of Christ, unto death, for our salvation, we must let the effects of this love change us. This is a vocation we all share, the call to ongoing conversion. We live this by letting God love us and expressing His love to our neighbor and back to God in worship.
By sharing God’s love with others, we become instruments that make it easier for their hearts to be open to God’s loving Presence in the Holy Eucharist. We live out this charity by practicing the spiritual and corporal works of mercy and by persevering in the practice of the moral virtues.
We learn how to put this charity into action from Jesus in sacred Scripture and by being with Him in the Eucharist. We imitate Mary by pondering His words in our hearts and carrying out whatever He tells us.
As Pope St. John Paul II wrote, “The Eucharist becomes of itself the school of active love for neighbor.” (Dominicae Cenae, 1980, 5)
Recalling Jesus’ words, “By this love you have for one another, everyone will know that you are my disciples” (John 13:35), John Paul continues: “The Eucharist educates us to this love in a deeper way: it shows us, in fact, what value each person … has in God’s eyes, if Christ offers Himself equally to each one, under the species of bread and wine.
“If our Eucharistic worship is authentic, it must make us grow in awareness of the dignity of each person. The awareness of that dignity becomes the deepest motive of our relationship with our neighbor.” (Dominicae Cenae, 6)
Our Holy Father, Pope Francis, also reminds us of this inner dynamic of the Holy Eucharist that points us to go out to others. “The Eucharist,” he tells us, “makes us assimilate His way of living, His ability to break himself apart and give Himself to brothers and sisters, to respond to evil with good.
“He gives us the courage to go outside of ourselves and bend down with love toward the fragility of others. As God does with us. This is the logic of the Eucharist: We receive Jesus Who loves us and heals our fragilities in order to love others and help them in their fragilities; and this lasts our entire life.” (Angelus Address, June 6, 2021)
From Jesus in the Holy Eucharist, we learn a love of neighbor. May our own example of charity inspire others to turn to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.
Sister John Paul Maher, OP, is principal of Worthington St. Michael School and a member of the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist.
