By uniting us in the most intimate manner with Jesus Christ, the Source of all Divine graces, it imparts to us innumerable graces, especially these:
1. It preserves and increases sanctifying grace;
2. It weakens our evil inclinations, and gives us a desire and strength to be virtuous;
3. It cleanses us from venial and preserves us from mortal sin; and
4. It is to us a pledge of our future resurrection and everlasting happiness (John vi. 55).
48. Does every one receive in Holy Communion the graces it is intended to give?
No; he who receives Holy Communion unworthily — that is, in the state of mortal sin — brings damnation upon himself.
'Whosoever shall eat this Bread or drink the Chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the Body and of the Blood of the Lord. But let a man prove himself, and so let him eat of that Bread, and drink of the Chalice; for he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the Body of the Lord' (1 Cor. xi. 27-29). — Comparison with the Ark of the Covenant, which brought happiness and blessing upon the pious Israelites, but misfortune and a curse upon the impious Philistines.
49. What sin does he commit who dares to communicate unworthily?
1. He commits, like Judas, a horrible sacrilege, because he is guilty of the Body and of the Blood of the Lord (1 Cor. xi. 27); and
2. He renders himself guilty of the blackest ingratitude, because he treats his Divine Redeemer with the foulest indignity in the very same instant in which he is favored by Him with the greatest proof of His immense love (Ps. liv. 13).
50. What are frequently the consequences of an unworthy Communion, even in this life?
Blindness and hardness of heart, and sometimes also sudden death, and other temporal punishment.
