Walking the path to God in community

We have now experienced how God can lead us if we open ourselves to him and to his work. However, these are experiences that do not correspond to everyday life. Jesus not only wants to lead us into an exclusive one-to-one relationship with him, but he also wants to integrate us humans into a mutually strengthening network of neighbourly love. This is also the prerequisite for his message of the loving Father in heaven to be preserved and passed on across all times and generations. He knows that in times of need and challenge, only communities are able to strengthen people among themselves so that they can remain true to their faith in God. This applies to entire nations as well as to individuals. If they are left alone, it is often very difficult for them to live out their faith, especially if they find themselves in an environment that is hostile to their faith.

Knowing this, Jesus has always promised us his special help when we meet and try to walk together in the ways of God: "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them". At his last communion with his disciples, he also gave us the task of meeting together again and again in communion in order to celebrate this Eucharist anew in his memory. This is the central basis for us to be able to carry the message of the Gospel and the faith in our resurrection, through all  times and through all the confusion of history and to pass it on from generation to generation. We should therefore not walk the path of faith alone, but in community with others, in the knowledge that this corresponds to Jesus' wishes.

 

The celebration of the Eucharist

Jesus gave us the celebration of the Eucharist, on the one hand as a reminder of his actions and on the other as a source of strength that helps us to put the content of the Gospel into practice in our lives and to become credible witnesses for him.

While in Protestant and free-church communities, people meet in communion celebrations in remembrance of Jesus' words "do this in remembrance of me", with the Word of God taking centre stage, in the Catholic Church the Eucharist is celebrated at Mass. There are differences of belief here, which we must accept in brotherly love.

In the Catholic Church, we believe that Jesus gave us the opportunity to experience the closeness of God in an unrivalled way. At his last supper before his death, Jesus took bread and wine and gave it to his disciples with the words: "Take and eat, this is my body, take and drink, this is my blood - do this in remembrance of me!". When we come together to celebrate the Eucharist in his memory, we are therefore allowed to receive the Lord's body in communion, in that small piece of bread of which Jesus said: "Look, this is my body!" We therefore believe in the real presence of God in the Eucharist, as described by St Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 11: 23-30).

What is the meaning of this? - In the Eucharist, God makes himself small out of love and hands himself over to us humans. This is an unsurpassable sign of how much he respects our freedom: it is not he who determines when he wants to meet us in the Eucharist, but we humans determine when we are ready for a "communion" with God and he, the Almighty, submits to our will and waits for us. This is pure love in its ultimate expresion. God offers to become part of our lives, the bread we receive becomes part of us. It is therefore up to us to decide whether we also want to become one with Jesus in the context of communion and allow ourselves to be sanctified by him so that we can learn with him and through him to love people as he loves them.

It would be good to seek this encounter with God with a pure heart. Respect for the Almighty alone demands that we do not seek an encounter with him casually and in a sinful state. St Paul urgently warned us not to eat and drink the body and blood of the Lord unworthily: "For whoever eats and drinks it without remembering that it is the body of the Lord brings judgement on himself by eating and drinking."

If we live in sin, it is therefore better and more sincere not to receive Jesus in the Eucharist. To live against the clear will of God and still want to receive him because, for example, everyone goes to communion as part of a church service, is a sign of our disregard  for his greatness and our disrespect for the love with which he wants to meet us. We should become aware of this fact and endeavour to seek forgiveness of our sins beforehand. We have the opportunity to do this through the sacrament of confession. If this is not possible, we should at least sincerely present our guilt to God and ask for forgiveness.

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