Old Jim

Jim had been a slave before the Civil War, and after the war worked as a paid servant in Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland. Every day he used to spend at least an hour before the Blessed Sacrament in the chapel. He did this because he wanted to prepare himself well for his Holy Communion the following morning. There before the tabernacle he made fervent acts of faith, hope, charity, and contrition but all in his own way.

Because Jim was unable to read, the seminarians wondered how he spent his time. One day one of the seminarians asked him, “Jim, what do you do in the chapel? What prayers do you say?”

“Why, I just goes into the chapel and I says to Jesus: ‘Lord, here’s old Jim.’ Then I keep quiet and listen to the Lord. Then after a while I says to Him again: ‘Lord, here’s old Jim, just dropped in to see You, that’s all.’”

Jim’s death was very edifying. Just after he’d received the last sacraments, and while Christ was still in him as Holy Viaticum, he lifted himself up in his bed, and his hands folded, a smile on his lips as he gazed toward heaven, he feebly uttered but distinctly these words, “Lord, it’s old Jim, just dropped in to see You.” Then he dropped back on his bed. He dropped in for a visit that would never end.

Jim’s preparation for Holy Communion must have been very pleasing to Jesus because it came from the heart. A lot of long prayers aren’t necessary. Jesus most especially wants your love. If you make your Communions well, Jesus will reward you as He did Jim—the sight of Him for all eternity.

This story causes me to wonder how most of us prepare for Communion. When many Catholics enter their parish church and go to their pew, after genuflecting to our Lord in the tabernacle (if they bother at all), they get down on their knees—ostensibly to prepare for Mass and Holy Communion. More often than not, though, they look around the church and are distracted, doing things that don’t resemble any sort of prayer.

Holy Communion is the nourishment of our souls by receiving the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ and the Holy Eucharist (John 6:53). Christ mandated that we receive Him in the Eucharist for the life of our soul.

There are numerous fruits of Holy Communion. The chief fruit, of course, is an intimate, interior union with Christ. Just as Matrimony is the sacrament that weds a man and woman, the Eucharist is the sacrament that weds us to Christ.

Holy Communion also produces other fruits. It produces an increase in sanctifying grace, and increases the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity. It also remits venial sin. Holy Communion weakens concupiscence, the propensity to sin that comes from our broken human nature. It also adds strength to the force of our will, preserves us from falling into mortal sin, and helps us to joyfully accept the duties and sacrifices that our Catholic life demands.

Finally, Jesus pledged to us in John 6:54 that by receiving Holy Communion worthily we can be assured of the resurrection and heavenly bliss. Holy Communion is the single greatest love story in the history of man, and that love affair is between God and man.

All of these benefits of Communion are directly contingent on two things, though: receiving Him worthily (free of mortal sin), and with the proper dispositions. The only way we can have the proper dispositions for receiving Holy Communion is to make a good preparation. This includes, as old Jim showed us, making fervent acts of faith, hope, charity, and contrition for our sins.

Based on what I said earlier about Catholics kneeling in their pews before Mass, I can’t help but wonder if most of us take Communion for granted. Do we really make a fervent preparation to receive the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus (the very same Jesus who died on Calvary for all of us), or are we just going through the motions? 

Purveyors of darkness who’ve infiltrated the Catholic Church over the last sixty years have done all they can to make the Catholic lay faithful to see the Eucharist as just ordinary bread. They’ve done a pretty doggone good job of it too. That’s why seven out of ten Catholics deny the Real Presence. But you must accept and believe—as a matter of dogmatic and Catholic faith—that the Eucharist is the real Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ. Anyone who rejects that places himself/herself outside the Catholic Church, and consequently has only one eternal destination after death: hell.

The thing that really surprises me is when people react to what I just wrote by saying, “You don’t know that God will send me or anyone else to hell just because I don’t agree with a Church teaching. You’re just being arrogant and legalistic.”

No, I’m not. In every generation for the last 2000 years, the Catholic Church has echoed Jesus in the gospels and Paul in his epistles that to reject anything Jesus and His Church teaches will send the person rejecting those things to hell. Sure, there are things that we can hold an opinion about and disagree with this theologian or that priest. But we must accept all dogmas and settled doctrines or go to hell. The Eucharist and the Real Presence are dogma.

In article after article over the years I’ve shown from sacred scripture, the writings of the Fathers of the Church, and papal and Vatican documents that the Real Presence must be accepted by Catholics as truth, but proves the reality of this dogma. Perhaps you’ve missed those articles. I really don’t see how all of them could have been missed, but I acknowledge that it’s possible. So if any of you reading this disagree with anything I’ve written here, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me at Joe@CantankerousCatholic.com. I’ll be happy to prove that the Real Presence is… well, real.

For those of you who do believe in the Real Presence, I implore you to begin putting some fervor in your preparation for Holy Mass and Holy Communion. There are eternal implications!