Denver Catholic

DC_June 13, 2020 Digital Edition

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continued prayer during this pandemic involves asking God to increase my love and appreciation for this sacrament ... How can I be a witness and better accept this cross in hopes of sharing this teaching with others?" (61). She encourages us to develop a deeper spiritual hunger for God, especially in his presence in the Eucharist. If Teresa Tomeo's insights are hot off the press, Angelico Press has provided us with a classic of Eucharistic wisdom, published for the first time in English: Mother Mectilde de Bar's Mystery of Incomprehensible Love (Angelico, 2020). Although not a commonly known figure, Mother Mectilde, a 17th century French Benedictine abbess, founded the first religious order dedicated to Eucharistic adoration. The book collects her teaching on the Eucharist collected from various writings, letters, and addresses to her community, providing rich gems of devotion. She also recognizes the importance of desire, especially when we're not able to receive the Eucharist: "If you cannot communicate sacramentally, communicate by desire and love" (63). In fact, she connects our desire to God's generosity, as he responds to our reaching out to him: "It is aston- ishing to see the goodness of a God always ready to give Himself every time we desire to receive Communion. He never refuses" (39). Cultivating this desire meets with God's own desire for us. He longs for us and wants to draw us into his life through Communion. "He desires to be consumed by us to establish His divine life in us, so that, by this holy of His divine flesh, He may make us entirely one with Himself; and by this means, He communicates to us all that He is as God, exalting us to share in the divine nature" (107-08). How do we share in the divine nature? When we become one flesh with Christ, he gives us his entire self. We have to prepare ourselves to receive this gift, letting go of any- thing that stands in the way of drawing closer to Christ. The Eucharist becomes a source of transformation the more we conform our desire to God's and depend on him for everything. Mother Mectilde advises us: "Our intension for Holy Communion should be to do what God desires of us and to sacrifice ourselves to this adorable will, which should be our rule, our strength, our light, our fervor, and our perfection, and bind our- selves to this as closely as we can" (50). The Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian life. Having been deprived of this most precious gift, as we return to Mass, let's approach this sacrament with a renewed and deeper desire, recognizing Christ's divine presence and surrendering to the power of his grace.

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