Before the Lord we cannot present ourselves in just any way. The king came in to see the guests, and noticed a man who was not wearing a wedding garment; and he said to him, "Friend, how did you get in here without wearing a wedding garment?
The invitation comes to us -every day- to approach the Eucharistic banquet, so carefully prepared. We know habits, attitudes, mistakes, facets of our character, which perhaps do not correspond to the high honor that Jesus Christ gives us.
We must examine ourselves; let us not present ourselves before the Lord dressed in rags, because we are in danger of disguising our defects and justifying our actions. "To welcome on earth persons constituted in dignity, there are lights, music, gala costumes. To welcome Christ in our soul, how should we prepare ourselves? Have we ever thought about how we would conduct ourselves if we could only receive communion once in a lifetime?" We would stay awake all night, we would know well what we would say to him, what petitions we would make to him..., all the preparations would seem little to us..... This is how we should receive him every day.
The guest who did not have the wedding garment certainly heard the invitation, he went to the wedding with joy, but he did not take into account what this call demanded. We cannot receive the Lord in just any way: distracted, inattentive, not knowing well what we are doing. Every good Communion supposes first of all to receive the Lord in grace. Our Mother the Church teaches and warns us that "no one should approach the Holy Eucharist conscious of mortal sin, no matter how contrite he may appear to be, without first going to sacramental Confession.
Such a high gift also requires that we prepare ourselves as best we can in soul and body: frequent Confession, even if there are no serious faults; fostering desires for purification; increasing acts of faith, love and humility at the moment of receiving the Lord, etc.
"Love is repaid with love.... Love, in the first place, for Christ himself. The Eucharistic encounter is, in fact, an encounter of love "9. Frequent communion should never mean lukewarm communion. And he who does not prepare himself, who does not do what is in his power to prevent the Lord from finding him distracted when he comes to his heart, falls into lukewarmness. It would be a great lack of delicacy to approach Communion with one's imagination set on other things. Tepidness is a lack of love, not going to Communion with the proper dispositions. We know that we will never be sufficiently disposed to receive the One who comes to our soul as He deserves, because our poor dwelling place does not give us more; but the Lord does expect those details that are within our reach. "If any distinguished person or person occupying some high position, or some rich and powerful friend were to announce to us that he was coming to visit us in our house, with what solicitude would we clean and conceal everything that might offend the sight of this person or friend! Wash away first the stains and filthiness that he who has executed evil deeds has, if he wants to prepare for God a dwelling place in his soul."