AWESOME Excellent Explanation of the Eucharist: 5 Steps to Growing in Your Eucharist Devotion How can we grow in our devotion to the Eucharist? 1. Desire. Ask yourself how much you really want to understand and grow closer to the Lord in the Eucharist. The first step is always the desire, the inner decision to allow His presence to be more real in your life. 2. Faith in the mind. Take the time to learn about the sacrament. The Catechism of the Catholic Church is always a good start. 3. Faith in the heart. Remember that love is only understood loving. We must strive for a deeper understanding of the sacrament, but it will always remain a mystery. That’s why we must learn to develop an affection relationship with the Lord in the Eucharist. Go before him and thank Him for his love, for his mercy, for the ways that he acts in your life and the lives of other. Then do the same from your end, express (writing many times helps) your own love and feelings for him. For a better idea, here is an excerpt from a novices conversation with Saint Therese of Lisiuex. It is a beautiful example of this more affectionate relationship (in the case with the cross): «I was grieving bitterly over a fault I had committed. “Take your Crucifix,” she said, “and kiss it.” I kissed the Feet. Is that how a child kisses its father? Throw your arms at once round His Neck and kiss His Face.” When I had done so, she continued: “That is not sufficient—He must return your caress.” I had to press the Crucifix to both my cheeks, whereupon she added: “Now, all is forgiven.”» 4. Faith in action. Each authentic encounter with Christ in the Eucharist must change us. After receiving or praying in his presence, try to pick out a concrete act that you can do to bring Christ to others. 5. Learn from others. Something that has been very helpful for me is to read other’s accounts about their relationship with the Eucharist. One of the most beautiful examples can be found in Saint John Paul II’s Encyclical, Ecclesia de Echaristia: To contemplate the face of Christ, and to contemplate it with Mary, is the “programme” which I have set before the Church at the dawn of the third millennium, summoning her to put out into the deep on the sea of history with the enthusiasm of the new evangelization. To contemplate Christ involves being able to recognize him wherever he manifests himself, in his many forms of presence, but above all in the living sacrament of his Body and Blood. The Church draws her life from Christ in the Eucharist; by Him she is fed and by Him she is enlightened. The Eucharist is both a mystery of faith and a “mystery of light.” Whenever the Church celebrates the Eucharist, the faithful can in some way relive the experience of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus: “their eyes were opened and they recognized him” (Lk 24:31). . . . I cannot let this Holy Thursday 2003 pass without halting before the “Eucharistic face” of Christ and pointing out with new force to the Church the centrality of the Eucharist.
Posted on: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 01:16:51 +0000
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