The First Reading from the Mass shows God's invitation to mankind from ancient times: Come and eat my bread and drink my wine.... This banquet is an image frequently used in Sacred Scripture to announce the coming of the Messiah, full of good things, and in a particular way it is a prefiguration of the Holy Eucharist, in which Christ gives himself to us as Food; and of this food St. John speaks to us, taking up the final words of Jesus in the synagogue of Capernaum, where he announced the ineffable gift that he would leave to mankind. I am the living bread which came down from heaven, Jesus tells us: whoever eats of this bread will live forever. And a little further on he adds: He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.... This is the bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did, who ate it and died: he who eats this bread will live forever.
Communion, as food for the soul, increases the supernatural life of man; at the same time, and as a consequence, it gives defenses to resist what in us is not of God, that which opposes full union with Christ. It helps to combat the inclination to evil and strengthens against sin; it increases the joy that comes from God, fervor and fidelity to one's vocation. By kindling charity and awakening contrition for our faults, it erases venial sins of which we are repentant and preserves us from mortal sins.
Moreover, the Holy Eucharist is not only nourishment for the soul on its journey towards God, but also a pledge of eternal life and a foretaste of Heaven. A pledge is the sign that is given as a guarantee of the fulfillment of a promise. In Communion we already have a foretaste of the glorious life and the guarantee of attaining it, if we do not betray our fidelity to the Lord.
In an ancient Antiphon of Eucharistic worship, we pray: O sacred banquet, where Christ is received... the soul is filled with grace, and we are given a pledge of future glory. The banquet is an image often used in Sacred Scripture to describe the joy and happiness that we will attain in God. The Lord himself announced that he would no longer drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it with you again in my Father's kingdom4. He refers to a new wine because there will no longer be the need for common food and drink: we will have Christ forever in a living union, without end, without the veils of faith. Now, in Communion, we have the foretaste and the guarantee of this definitive union, and "it also makes all the members of the Mystical Body present beyond distance and beyond death, because space and time are suppressed in the glorious Christ present there.
What a joy to be able to be with Christ and to enter in some way into Heaven already here on earth! "Increase your faith in the Holy Eucharist. -We have God with us, we can receive Him every day and, if we wish, we speak intimately with Him, as one speaks with a friend, as one speaks with a brother, as one speaks with a father, as one speaks with Love "