"Therefore in eucharistic Communion we receive Christ, Christ Himself; and our union with Him, which is a gift and grace for each individual, brings it about that in Him we are also associated in the unity of His body which is the Church." Source: Pope St. John Paul II, LETTER DOMINICAE CENAE OF THE [...]
"Jesus Christ will raise up our bodies as much more glorious as we shall have more often and more worthily received Him. There is nothing we do which adorns the body more for Heaven than Holy Communion. At the day of Judgment, the body of Our Lord will shine through our glorified body. His adorable [...]
"Just as the Church 'makes the Eucharist' so 'the Eucharist builds up' the Church; and this truth is closely bound up with the mystery of Holy Thursday. The Church was founded, as the new community of the People of God, in the apostolic community of those Twelve who, at the Last Supper, became partakers of [...]
"As Communion is the end here below of all the mysteries of Jesus Christ's life, let it be the end of your life, also. It alone is worthy of being your end, the end in which you will abide in which you will take your rest, for it alone perfectly gives you Jesus Christ, and [...]
"The safeguarding and promotion of ecclesial communion is a task of each member of the faithful, who finds in the Eucharist, as the sacrament of the Church’s unity, an area of special concern." Source: Pope St. John Paul II, Papal Encyclical: Ecclesia De Eucharista, 4/17/2003
Saint John Chrysostom, with his stirring eloquence, exhorted the faithful: “I too raise my voice, I beseech, beg and implore that no one draw near to this sacred table with a sullied and corrupt conscience. Such an act, in fact, can never be called ‘communion’, not even were we to touch the Lord’s body a [...]
"The celebration of the Eucharist, however, cannot be the starting-point for communion; it presupposes that communion already exists, a communion which it seeks to consolidate and bring to perfection." Source: Pope St. John Paul II, Papal Encyclical: Ecclesia De Eucharista, 4/17/2003