It is the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, given to us as food for the sanctification of our souls and bodies. "He that eateth my Flesh, and drinketh my Blood, hath everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day." [Footnote 1]
[Footnote 1: St. John, vi., 55.]
What is Holy Communion? It is to receive the best of friends, who comes to advise us, to cheer and to encourage us. A friend who has power to protect us. Who loves to dwell in our hearts as in a castle, where He may fight for us against the enemies of our soul.
What is Holy Communion? It is a pledge of Heaven, and a foretaste of it. Union with God by a perfect love, will be our happiness for all eternity, and this is begun on earth in Holy Communion. As St. Peter says, it is to be made "partakers of the Divine nature." [Footnote 2]
[Footnote 2: 2 Peter i., 4.]
What is Holy Communion? It is the parting gift of one who loves us better than our mother. He chose the time when He was about to leave us, to give it an additional value. He made it the memorial of His Passion. As in times past, He had given the rainbow as a perpetual remembrance of His mercy, so He willed that the Blessed Sacrament of His Body and Blood, should be a perpetual remembrance of the redemption of the Cross, "Do this in remembrance of Me."
What is Holy Communion? It is the best of all the good gifts of our good God.
II.—What then is it to receive this Holy Communion unworthily? It is to be grievously wanting in reverence to the holiest of all holy things. When you see a person put a thing to an improper use, what do you say? Why, that is too bad; you say. Why, you must be out of your head. Suppose you saw a girl in service, scrubbing the floor with a beautiful camel's-hair shawl, what would you say? Suppose you saw me filling the water stoups at the door, and for that purpose dipping out the holy water, from a pail, with the very chalice I had just used in Mass, what would you say? Why, you would exclaim, how very shocking! what an irreverent Priest! Now why would you say this? Because when God made your soul, He put into it a reverence for certain things, above others. But what does an unworthy communion do? It does this. It takes the Blood of Christ, and pours it down a sink that is more loathsome than a city sewer, for what is so loathsome to God, as a soul in mortal sin? Corruption of matter is good, for God made it, but moral corruption is an abomination to Him.
This one does who conceals a mortal sin in confession.
What is an Unworthy Communion? It is to crucify Jesus over again. What does St. Paul say? "They who have tasted of the Heavenly Gift and are fallen away, crucify to themselves the Son of God, and make a mockery of Him." Now, which is worse, to leave off keeping a man's company, or to play the false friend with him? But this a man does who receives Holy Communion unworthily. The spirit of his act is as if he went up to the throne of God, and caught hold of those Blessed Hands and Feet, and said, "come down to earth and be tormented once more." He would pull off the crown of glory from that Blessed Head, and press down again upon that Brow the crown of thorns.