A Communion in Hope

Today we begin the great season of waiting. As we say in every Mass: “we wait in
joyful hope for the coming of our Lord, Jesus Christ.”

Indeed, our whole lives are caught up in Christ and in a great Mystery which is already, but not yet. Christ is as present in the Eucharist, in his Body and Blood as he was when he walked the roads of Galilee, while as we eat his Body and drink his Blood, we wait for him to come again in glory. Thus, as we “celebrate devoutly here below” these Sacred Mysteries, we await “the prize of eternal redemption.”

The world is passing away, as Saint John reminds us. I’m reminded of this whenever I walk through an old cemetery and look at what once was a beautiful and expensive monument to some once famous person. Today, you can no longer read their name and the stone is worn and covered with moss.

Only what comes from God and is joined to God lasts, and as a pledge of immortality and a promise of his coming, we receive the very Body and Blood of the Lord. Indeed, as the Prayer after Communion reminds us, even “as we walk amid passing things, [the Lord teaches] us by them to love the things of heaven and hold fast to what endures.”