Receiving the Eucharist is the most important, beautiful, and powerful experience we can have. Heaven meets earth  when we receive the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus and experience a one-flesh union with our Creator. But sometimes distractions, doubts, or the simple routine of receiving the Eucharist can prevent us from experiencing Communion to the fullest.

And while the sacrament of Confession is one of the best ways we can prepare to receive Jesus, there are some other ways we can prepare, before Mass and during, to encounter and receive the Jesus in the Eucharist. Fr. Ed Broom, stopped by Morning Air® this week to share some tips to better prepare for Holy Communion.

Renew Your Belief
We have to constantly renew our belief that when the priest lifts up the Host, and he consecrates the Host, it’s called transubstantiation. That really and truly, substantially, Jesus is present in His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. And, you know, we learn in catechism but sometimes we forget. So it’s a good idea to keep renewing and fortifying our faith in this great mystery.

Dive Deeper
It’s a good idea to do good spiritual reading, to nourish your mind. I just finished a mini-course in theology in our parish, and one of the things I was talking about was the documents of Vatican II, and the four dogmatic constitutions: Dei Verbum, Sacrosanctum Concilium, Gaudium et Spes, as well as Lumen Gentium. And Sacrosanctum Concilium is the dogmatic constitution on the Mass, and I think every well-educated Catholic should read that. Once you read that, you really understand how sublime is the mission of the Mass.

Call Upon the Saints
The saints are our models. And the saints had a great love for the Church, a great love for the Blessed Mother, but also a great love for the Most Holy Eucharist. If you’ve ever read the life of Dominic Savio, written by John Bosco, you’ve got a chapter where Dominic Savio goes to Mass and then Don Bosco is looking for him in class, because they go to Mass early in the morning and afterward they have classes all day.

So they went into the church and Dominic Savio had one foot on top of the other, his arms crossed, and he was in a Eucharistic state of ecstasy for about four hours. He was only about 13 years old. And how easily we can have difficulty spending four to five minutes in thanksgiving – and here this teenager was in Eucharistic ecstasy for four hours.

Focus on the Heart of Jesus
In a real way, not in a metaphorical way, but in a real way we receive the heart of Christ. Last month we celebrated the month of the Sacred Heart. But when you receive the Eucharist you receive also the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and in the Sacred Heart of Jesus you have the most sublime and noble sentiment.

The only time that Jesus describes His heart is in Matthew 11:28-30 when He says, ‘I am meek and humble of heart.’ So when you receive the Eucharist, you are receiving the heart of Christ with all the most sublime virtues.

Reach Out and Touch the Lord
We’re struggling for holiness, but the short path to holiness is contact with Christ. Contact with Christ in His Mystical Body, which is the Church, and we’re sanctified through the sacraments. So a worthy reception of the Eucharist will fortify within us all the virtues. And the greatest virtue is charity, but also humility is a very important virtue. Because we recognize that in humility we have to just depend upon God and not upon ourselves.

Listen to the full conversation with Fr. Ed Broom below:

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