In our Maronite Etro prayer of Thursday night, we pray:      “O Lord, may our bodies be temples for your presence and our souls your dwelling places, may our mouths be sanctuaries for your praise and our hearts pleasing incense. May our minds witness to your marvels; for you and in you we shall surpass each other, in your mercies may we be completed and in your grace may we be protected, now and forever.”
   With prayerful hearts we celebrate today our children  William Budde,  Joseph Klaine,  Charbel Massey, Gratziella Massey  and  Vaughn Morris, who are receiving their First Holy Communion. The Lord Jesus Christ will come to them in his full body, blood, soul, and divinity, drawing them into himself unto life everlasting. He will give them a foretaste of the eternal banquet of heaven, seating them at his table and feeding them with His own self. 
   Jesus Christ taught the Holy Eucharist with conviction, fully knowing it would get Him crucified. In fact, most of his disciples left him when he insisted on it, as you can read in John 6:35-69. How many bishops and priests today would insist on any Catholic teaching that would turn 90% of their “friends” into enemies? But that is what the great High Priest Jesus did. Thank God we have a High Priest! And his name is Jesus Christ.
   Our current weakness results from ignorance. If most Catholics do not know that God is truly present in the Eucharist , why would we come to Church? How to regain faith in the Eucharist? Among many ways, I suggest what I have shared before in a previously, a simple step: regaining the Eucharistic fast. In 1957 the fast from midnight was shortened to three hours, and in 1964 it was reduced to just one hour, which is kind of a joke:   it means only that I can’t eat on the way to Church. It means that I can have a donut just before walking into the sacristy for the 10:30am Divine Liturgy! Rather than cursing the darkness, however, let’s light a candle. Let’s begin to practice the three-hour fast again, better yet the midnight fast (the sick, the elderly, should be prudent), offering any inconveniences and bodily sufferings to the crucified and risen Christ, Our Lord and Redeemer. We simply won't believe that the Holy Eucharist is not just a "wafer" if we don't do what Christians and believers in other religions have always done: to fast.