Hearts on fire; feet on the move...Pope Francis
We as Catholics know that we must be in the state of grace (free of mortal sin, also called serious sin) to receive Holy Communion. This is probably the most important question we can ask ourselves. It requires a basic knowledge of our faith and of sin. We have to know what the most common mortal sins are, how they are committed as we form our conscience (with knowledge). One helpful solution is called the "3Rs": Rosary daily, Reconciliation once a month and Receiving Jesus often and with power.
Our Lady of Fatima gave us the Five First Saturdays as well, which come with confession each of the 5 months.
We have to go to confession before we receive Holy Communion if we have a mortal sin on our soul. Further, if we are in mortal sin, we should come to the Sacrament of Reconciliation as quickly as possible and say the Act of Contrition right away. The concept of state of grace is so crucial - how can we live a life pleasing to God if we don't understand this concept that determines if we are (as best we can as humans know) pleasing to God. We need this litmus test before receiving each time and really every day of our lives we should ask; "Am I in the state of grace?"
(1 Cor 11 27-30) "Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord.* 28 A person should examine himself,* and so eat the bread and drink the cup. 29 For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment* on himself. 30 That is why many among you are ill and infirm, and a considerable number are dying. 31 If we discerned ourselves, we would not be under judgment; 32 but since we are judged by [the] Lord, we are being disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world."
"The bread which I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world" (St. John vi., 52). In more than one way, as We have elsewhere declared, is Christ "the life." He Himself declared that the reason of His advent among men was this, that He might bring them the assured fulness of a more than merely human life. "I am come that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly" (St. John x., 10). Everyone is aware that no sooner had "the goodness and kindness of God our Saviour appeared" (Tit. iii., 4), than there at once burst forth a certain creative force which issued in a new order of things and pused through all the veins of society, civil and domestic. Hence arose new relations between man and man; new rights and new duties, public and private; henceforth a new direction was given to government, to education, to the arts; and most important of all, man's thoughts and energies were turned towards religious truth and the pursuit of holiness. Thus was life communicated to man, a life truly heavenly and divine. And thus we are to account for those expressions which so often occur in Holy Writ, "the tree of life," "the word of life," "the book of life," "the crown of life," and particularly "the bread of life." Leo XIII Mirae Caritatis