The gospel reading for today’s Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ is about the miraculous multiplication of the loaves and fishes performed by Christ, in order to feed more than 5,000 people who had somehow forgotten their material needs in order to listen to the teachings of Christ.
Christian tradition has always interpreted this as a kind of prefiguration of the Holy Eucharist, which Christ instituted in order to nourish His followers spirituality.
The Holy Eucharist is the body and blood of Christ. Even if the appearances of bread and wine continue, we believe that the reality behind these appearances is Christ.
This happens through the “transubstantiation”—there is a change of the substance of the bread and wine into the substance of the body and blood of Christ. This is made possible by the almighty power of God and His expressed will, when He instituted the sacrament of the Eucharist.
The Eucharist was instituted by Christ in order to be our spiritual nourishment. Since we are not pure spirits but a composite of matter and spirit, even the highest spiritual realities have to reach us through physical realities.
Love always seek union. When we love someone, we try to be close to that person. Our love for Jesus Christ seeks a physical closeness with Him, and this is possible on Earth through the sacrament of the Eucharist.
How do we receive Our Lord in communion? We must receive communion with true devotion. The first requirement for this is that we receive communion in the state of grace. To receive communion while being at enmity with God because of mortal sin would be a great disrespect for Him.
It is also a great deception because communion is supposed to be a sign of friendship and union with God, and this is not compatible with a state of mortal sin. That is why the Church has always taught that if someone were to be conscious of mortal sin, he should first be reconciled with God through the sacrament of penance, before he may receive communion.
Furthermore, we should receive communion with faith and fervor, and not merely out of routine and convention. To receive communion with faith, we can make acts of faith in the real presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.
To receive communion with fervor, we must desire to be truly united to Him. Some people receive communion merely to be seen by other people, and to be taken for a decent and good person. So instead of getting closer to God, they offend Him even more, and they end up fooling no one else but themselves.
Today’s solemnity is a good occasion to renew our faith in the Blessed Sacrament and to prepare ourselves well for that intimate and physical meeting with Our Lord, who is present in the Blessed Sacrament to be our spiritual nourishment.