Communion with the Lord

Gospel: John 6: 44-51

Receiving the bread of life is more than a mere physical action like an ordinary meal.  While communion takes place within the context of a simple meal, the deeper meaning of the action requires our discernment.  For to receive communion is to seek to be in communion with the Lord, to desire to imitate the Lord in our entire being.  To share the table with the Lord, to receive the Lord, the bread of life, is to be in communion with the Lord.

This communion extends to our entire life.  It is to seek to be the Lord in our entire being, to be the presence of love and mercy in the world as Jesus himself had done.  It is to put aside our life of ego, self-interest, and materialism.  We cannot receive the bread of life as merely a self-interested practice that enables us to go about our materialistic lives.  To commune with the Lord is to put on a new identity, a new person who lives for others and not for ourselves.

Communion is the pathway to a new life, to the way to eternal life that can only take place if we seek full communion with the Lord, to seek to be like the Lord in all things.  Today is a day for us to reflect on the meaning and importance of communion in our lives.  In receiving communion are we seeking this oneness with the Lord, this self-identification with the Lord in becoming more like him in all we think, in all we say, in all we do?