Greetings in Christ!
We’re finishing up quite the run in the Church calendar: Easter is complete, we’ve prayed the Pentecost Feast and celebrated the Trinity and now we are at one of my All-Time Favorites – Corpus Christi: the celebration of the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ.
As Catholics, we are a Eucharistic People. We believe that, at every Mass, we enter into the Last Supper with Jesus and the Disciples and we receive the fullness of Christ; body, soul and divinity.
This makes us the most blessed of all people.
We honor Jesus for His great gift to us and we respond by receiving with joy and reverence.
A quick reminder on how we receive Jesus in the Eucharist. We can receive in two different ways, as far as I can recall.
We can receive on the tongue. If we do this, I recommend you open your mouth, lift your chin and extend your tongue.
We can receive on the hands. If so, you’ll need both hands. In this case, make a throne with your dominant hand on the bottom and your passive hand on top. Extend your hand (so the priest can see your intent) and receive. Please try to avoid receiving on one hand, if you can avoid it.
I’ve noticed we have no small amount of parishioners who receive kneeling. To help with this, I will put a kneeler in front of the priest at Mass. Please read this well: I am not doing this to “make more people” receive the Eucharist kneeling. I am simply trying to serve well those who do. We tested the kneeler at daily Masses and have learned it is still easy for those who receive on the tongue or the hand to go even with the kneeler in front of the priest.
So, again, I am not trying to change the manner in which you receive. I am trying to help those who want to receive while they kneel.
The Eucharist is a gift of love and of total self giving. Our call is to celebrate this mystery and rejoice in the kind of love that God has for us, which would compel Him to give us His Very Self.
The challenge we are offered in the Eucharist is to see that Christ enters and transforms us every time we see it. This Eucharist binds us together and makes us what we receive: The Body of Christ.
This absolutely MUST transform the way we talk to each other and about each other as we see that the love and respect we owe the Eucharist is the love and respect we owe each other.
May Christ in the Eucharist fill our hearts with Joy!
I love being your priest. I thank God for you all daily.
fjk
