What happens when we receive the Eucharist?

We have the opportunity to receive communion every time we participate in Mass. We approach, we receive, and we go back to our pew. Do we appreciate what just happened? Do we know what we received? Do we understand the implications of what we have just done? Do we even know what the church teaches about Eucharist?

Back in 2019, there was a pew study done which revealed that only 31% of Catholics know and believe in the Eucharist. This is a shocking number. However, if even one person who professes themselves Catholic doesn’t know or believe what the Church teaches on this central teaching of our faith it is too many.

The bishops saw these results and responded by saying we need a revival. We need a time for healing, formation, conversion, and unification. This only became more evident through and after the pandemic. Many people were clamoring for a return to receive communion while others just have not found their way back. Why?

Our society is broken and people are looking for ways to fill a need/a longing. We need healing and so many are looking in the wrong places/destructive places not understanding that Jesus/God is ultimately the only place to fill that longing. While there are many places where we can find God, our easiest, most tangible way is Eucharist, and the Real Presence found in the Blessed Sacrament. The Church as the Body of Christ should be a place for healing. Do we Catholics understand this? Have we felt/experienced that healing?

Do we know who we are as Catholics? Pope Benedict XVI said in Deus Caritas, “Being Christian is not a result of an ethical choice or a lofty ideal. It is a fruit of an encounter with a person.” Do we know that what we receive is the person of Christ and encounter with the living God? Our very identity comes from this encounter/this relationship. Until we really learn who we are in this identity, we will not be able to go out and draw other in. What is your identity? Where do you get your identity? Do we identify with this Eucharistic Encounter?

If Eucharist and the Mass is the source and summit, of who we are and from where we come and go, then we need to understand all this better.

It is with all this in mind that we invite you, this community, to dive in and join in this pilgrimage to revive our belief in Eucharist, to go deeper in our formation and understanding, to open ourselves up to Eucharistic encounters with God, and to reinvigorate our devotion, prayer, and worship.

Do you want more? Join us and/or search for and share what you find that sparks your fire within. Join the EUCHARISTIC REVIVAL!