Holy Communion Renews the Christian Life – Metropolitan Athanasios (Part 1)

In this audio recording, Metropolitan Athanasios of Limassol, Cyprus, talks about the necessity of Holy Communion in the Christian life, the importance of spiritual preparation, and how the Eucharist shapes the believer’s relationship with Christ.

English translation: Vasileia. Watch the full video on their channel:

Met. Athanasios:

The essence of a true Christian life is the preparation, through the mysteries of the Church and her ascetic life, through the struggles against passions and sins and through repentance to be led to the Holy Communion and commune of Christ’s body and blood. This is the culmination of our relationship with Christ, at least on a practical level.

When someone has spiritual obstacles, which have been established by our Church rules and our spiritual fathers pointed out, then he can’t commune of Christ’s body and blood. There are specific spiritual obstacles which won’t allow us to commune of our Lord’s body and blood, not as a punishment, not in the sense of using this as a form of punishment so to say—like some people say: “I’ve been punished with abstention from Communion”—but it’s something rather beneficial, because we aren’t ready to commune of the body and the blood of Christ if we have committed certain sins pointed out by the rules of the Church.

You may ask why. Because this encounter with Christ is the most important event, but in order for Holy Communion to work in a positive way in our soul and for us be able to assimilate this event, then we have to be properly prepared. Let’s give an example. Suppose we go out in the sun, in the countryside and we want to see the disk of the sun. But in order to do that we need very dark glasses which will enable us to look at the sun. Otherwise, if we want to look directly at the sun, although it is so brilliant and beneficial to us, but without our glasses—without preparation—we’ll certainly go blind or suffer some damage. This is what happens with the Holy Communion too, we could say.

If someone receives the Holy Communion, without the right preparation, without being properly prepared, then the Holy Communion doesn’t turn into light and joy and kingdom of God and eternal life inside us, but the person who communes turns this presence of God into eternal fire, into eternal hell, I would say. So, it’s possible for someone to literally burn himself by the Holy Communion. In the same way one can be saved, one can be illuminated and be filled with divine zeal and divine love; if one isn’t ready for the Communion, he can literally burn himself.

This is why the Church prepares us through spiritual exercise and abstention from serious sins which the Church points out that they don’t help us approach Christ, and of course through Confession and repentance (the Church prepares us). So, we should be approaching the Holy Communion always with great repentance and humbleness. One must realize and feel what he’s about to do when he’s heading towards the Holy Communion. One must feel that he’s going to be united with Christ, to receive His Body and His Blood inside and become one with Christ. And certainly Christ is inculpable of any impurity and sin. And we can’t receive Christ inside us when we haven’t prepared ourselves through an analogous spiritual exercise and cleansing.

This is why, as I told you, the Church through the spiritual Fathers can advise us: “You know, you’d better not receive the Holy Communion.” This shouldn’t disappoint us in any way thinking: “Oh, the priest punished me.” No, the priest didn’t punish you. The priest helped you. Just like a baby cannot eat hard food, for example, food that older people eat, because such food would harm the baby. Food which is solid and hard cannot help a baby’s system. A baby has to eat soft food suitable for his age. We won’t serve meat for example or any solid and hard to digest food because the baby does not possess the ability to digest such food. In the same way, when a spiritual father discerns that a certain person must not receive the Holy Communion for certain spiritual reasons, he will suggest that this person waits for some time so as to be better prepared for the reception of Christ’s Blood and Body inside him.

Now you may ask: “But are all these who receive the Holy Communion ready?” God have mercy on us. Me first of all and then yourselves. God have mercy on us. You know, when I was an abbot in Maheras, every Sunday I used to say to people: “All those of you who are about to receive the Holy Communion, please do so, only the ones who have prepared yourselves properly through confession, fasting, prayers.” But then I said to myself: “But what am I saying to these people?” Do all the ones who come for the Holy Communion think that they have prepared themselves the way they should have done? Is it like we deliver a certificate of readiness before the Holy Communion? In that case, the first one to be lost in here would be myself. And then all others would follow me too! Because, who is truly ready? Who is the one who is worthy of this divine fire? Who is worthy of receiving this lit charcoal? Who is worthy of approaching Christ? No-one.

This is why this mystery is offered to us in a hidden form. In the form of bread and wine. Although the Blood and Body of Christ is truly there, since we cannot commune of the actual human flesh and blood in its real taste and appearance, we receive it hidden in the form of bread and wine. This is why the idolaters accused Christians of being man-eaters in the first centuries. It’s because they heard that the Christians drank of Christ’s blood. So they said: “Truly they do that? Then they are cannibals, they drink human blood.” They couldn’t understand what was going on. Just like some simple grannies who say to their grandchildren, “Open your mouth to drink of Christ’s blood.” Is there a child who would like to drink blood ever? Well, in reality it’s truly Christ’s blood hidden in this mystery. And if God allowed the eyes of our soul to see what exactly we are receiving, then we would all vanish, no-one would ever dare approach.

Yet Christ, because of His immense love for mankind, hid His body and blood in the bread and the wine so to say, because the Holy Communion is a great need for us. We cannot live without this. The one who thinks that he can live without receiving the Holy Communion, this person has been deceived. There’s no way one can have a spiritual life, a true Christian life without the mysteries of the Church. And above all without the Holy Eucharist. It’s impossible. You may be a good person, you may become a good child, you may become a great philosopher, you may become a humanitarian, an altruist, an almoner, a volunteer or whatever, but this won’t make you a person in Christ.

The only way to become a person in Christ is to live and experience the mysteries of the Church. This is the reality. This is why we can’t live as Christians, if we don’t go to Church first of all. And, by “going to Church” we don’t mean that we go to the Church to listen only. We don’t go to the Holy Liturgy so as to listen nor do we go so as to watch. The Holy Liturgy isn’t a theatrical play we go to watch. Nor is it an opera we go to enjoy the music. The Holy Liturgy is the partaking of the Body and the Blood of Christ, so we go to the Holy Liturgy so as to commune of the Body and the Blood of Christ. This is why we go. And this is the purpose of our presence in the Holy Liturgy and the purpose of being present in the Holy Communion.

Why is it necessary for us? Because this is the only way we can live and not die. I mean we can live according to God’s commandments (in Christ). In the same way we bear the post-fall consequences in our human existence because we were born by our fore-fathers and we have all these post-fall elements on us, and we are born again through Baptism and through the Holy Chrismation we are revived and strengthened, and through the Holy Communion we become one Body. We are united with Christ and we become real children of God. This can’t be done otherwise, it’s a reality which is impossible to function in any other way. This is the only way. Only when you are united with Christ you live in Christ (according to His will). Otherwise, a Christian life will only be a philosophical and theoretical condition which won’t last for long.

Certainly the one who doesn’t participate in the Holy Liturgy and doesn’t receive the Holy Communion can theoretically be a good person but gradually at some point his condition will deteriorate and end up being a worldly good person and nothing else.

Now, how do we get prepared? We get prepared the way our Holy Church handed down to us, giving us the right “medicines” which help us get prepared, like the confession of our sins, and also our prayers, fasting, which is specifically established by our Church, when and how we fast. For example, we fast during Lent, like we do right now, and we fast before Christmas and before the Holy Apostles’ feast day, before the Dormition of the Theotokos and before some other feast days. We fast on Wednesdays and Fridays throughout the year, with some exceptions, and when we fast according to the rules of the Church, we can certainly commune, as far as the fasting side is concerned, on any given day of the year that we are present at the Holy Liturgy, provided we fast on that day, we abstain from any food. We consume no food on that morning.

We don’t need to fast on any other day, unless our spiritual father suggests that we should fast the night before, or for some days etc as a personal spiritual exercise. But this is something personal, it’s not a general rule. A Christian who fasts on the specific fasting days established by the Church, then no other fasting days are required before the Holy Communion, except for the day of the Holy Communion. I mean that from the moment we wake up until we receive the Holy Communion, we eat or drink nothing at all. This may seem like a simple and external so to say issue, but it involves nevertheless all the advantages fasting offers to people as a great spiritual and physical exercise which purifies us people and cleanses our body, our mind and soul, it strengthens our will. It prepares us for the renouncement of sin and the old man. It helps us refuse to do lots of things, to learn to say no to whatever tempts us to commit a sin or to fall into passions.

But what virtually gets us prepared for the Holy Communion is the cultivation of repentance and humbleness in our souls. This is what we need: to be preparing ourselves through repentance and humbleness. The one who learned to walk on this spiritual path is truly the person who found the key to God’s door. Repentance, humbleness and contrition of the heart are the virtues which render us worthy before our God. Because whatever else we might do, unfortunately, being restricted in our human nature, I don’t think that works alone could make us stand before God. Which one of us has done so many works of virtue so as to be pure? And not only works of virtue, but be sinless too? I admit I’m not. I don’t know if there’s anyone here who is pure and sinless—let him raise his hand and say he is! Is there anyone? Not even one? It doesn’t matter!

So, if there’s no one pure and sinless, what or who can help us stand before God? Only humbleness and repentance. We approach God—like we chant in that beautiful Service in the Church which we should all read before our Communion, “The Order of Preparation for Holy Communion” as it’s called—which contains lots of prayers we should read the night before or the day before, where we admit our disease, our weakness, our impurity, our sinfulness, but at the same time we testify our hope, saying that: “Yes, I’m such and such person, I’m worse than prostitutes and the prodigal son, worse than the tax collectors, worse than the thief, and all people.” And our fathers, didn’t just pretentiously say all these things, being sentimental when using such melodramatic words, but they truly experienced all these things and at the same time they felt and experienced the mercy of God. “Although I am the way that I am, I place my hope in your mercy.”

And as an example, the same way Christ never sent away the prostitute, the thief or the Prodigal son, the tax collector, the bleeding woman, and all the ones mentioned there in the prayers, so do all these examples give us hope and a motive to go and receive the Holy Communion—not by placing our hopes in our purity, but by placing our hopes in the Lord’s mercy and benevolence, acknowledging our own weakness. Just as we go to a doctor and beg him to heal us, we are about to die, and we know that only this doctor could save us. And we say: “Doctor, please save me or else I’m going to die.” And we feel that we’re close to death and the end is near, and we beg our doctor to heal us; in the same way, with this attitude, we should be going to the Holy Communion, feeling that the doctor of body and soul (Christ) is going to heal us with His presence.

The Holy Communion isn’t an award for our good deeds or for our good and moral Christian lifestyle. It’s not an award. The Holy Communion is a medicine. It’s an equipment for eternal life. It’s a medicine for the healing of our wounded existence when we are ready to welcome this medicine in our lives through repentance and humbleness. So, what could help us stand before God is humbleness and repentance.

If we pay the proper attention to this specific issue in our lives, my dear children, and make it our life purpose to commune of Christ’s body and blood at least every Sunday—at least every Sunday, unless we have been ordered otherwise by our spiritual father—and if we prepare ourselves with prayers and all the rest of the equipment we mentioned, then Christ will become a permanent dweller in our hearts. And when Christ abides in someone’s heart, then one gets cleansed, illuminated and brightened, and becomes a real child of God. Then one can defeat all that’s happening around him, his fears, his insecurities, his anxiety, his loneliness. He defeats all these mentioned, but above all death. This is because he transcends all corruptible things and enters the reality of eternal life.