In our parish, we have developed the habit of receiving communion frequently. This is a good thing, in that we can keep ourselves connected to God. If we come to receive communion we both make ourselves accountable and also seek God's help, healing and salvation.
     But most often we receive communion casually, without any preparation, and without reckoning what it is that we receive and we commit to by receiving. This is not good. So it is that we must remind ourselves what communion is all about.
     Let us begin with the question of "salvation." What is salvation? When we think of salvation in the secular, non-religious sense, we think of rescue out of life-threatening circumstances. The fireman saves a child from a burning building, or a perhaps a brave person rescues someone from a situation of torture or abuse. We don't like to think of our lives as being that threatened. We don't like to think that we can be or are so weak as to be utterly dependent on "someone else" to deliver us. We fall into the trap of machismo, acting as if we were thoroughly independent beings.
     But the reality is that we are radically dependent on the God who created us and continues to sustain us despite all the man-made evil that goes on in the world. And we must admit that there is an awful lot of evil and weakness in the world. We are weak through domination by one or another passion: greed, stinginess, gluttony, drinking, lust, etc. Sometimes we are weak through illness. Eventually we are all weak in the face of death and the ways it, even at a distance, reduces the way we live. We may even be stricken by more radical evil through gossip, slander, deception, violence, theft, etc. Even if we do none of these things ourselves, we must acknowledge that our happiness is built on others' oppression: the abused child who makes cheap clothing in the third world; the poor farmer whose children starve (or get sold into slavery or prostitution) while providing Americans an excess of food; the new immigrant who lives in constant fear of deportation while working in sweatshops. The world is messed up! But instead of coldly saying "that's just the way the world is," we must repent and grieve over evil.
     To repent, we turn our spirit, soul and our bodies from all the things which contribute to evil and focus on the One who has saved us through the cross and resurrection: Jesus Christ. He did not defeat evil by participating in it, but was the image of human repentance from evil. He did not become an emperor or dictator: He shamed the "powers" of this world by showing that he had no need of their ephemeral domination-God is beyond that. He became "weak" to give us strength in weakness. He was silent before the face of human, unrighteous judges.
     Salvation, for Christians, is inseparable from repentance. When Jesus began preaching, he said: "Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand." In the Gospels, Jesus rewards those who acknowledge their need for his help; he does not help those who feel that everything is good as it is, as his enemies did. When we receive communion, we acknowledge that we need the help of Jesus Christ, our Savior. We should understand that with communion-his presence-comes unspeakable, indescribable help. He purifies us of all evil. But this purification does not last long if we don't continue to pray and seek to do good and to participate in the life and love he has prepared for us.
     Indeed, we will have a very hard time "repenting," facing God (and receiving communion), if we know that we are filled with sins that we have not brought out, examined and asked God to take away from us. We do this is by making Confession of our sins in front of the priest, who can witness the truth of our desire to change, and can assure us of God's help and "cleansing" of our sins.