1.Attend Mass with renewed dedication. Give Jesus your complete attention as God’s Word is proclaimed and especially throughout Eucharistic Prayer and Communion Rite. Consider daily Mass attendance beyond regular Sunday attendance. Or find more time to pray with the Mass readings between Sundays.

2. Go to Eucharistic Adoration, Benediction or make a private holy hour. Praying before the Blessed Sacrament in the monstrance or the tabernacle increases our longing to receive Communion. You can also make a spiritual communion anywhere, anytime. Learn how: Catechist.com/act-spiritual communion/.

3. Go to confession. If burdened by serious sin (mortal sin), then penance and reconciliation are needed to partake of the Eucharist. These two sacraments are vitally connected and necessary for our conversion. (If you’ve forgotten what to do or how to go to confession, tell the priest and he’ll guide you through it.)

4. Study key Scripture verses. See Matthew 26:26-29; Mark 14:22-25; Luke 22:19-20; John 6:33, 50- 51, 63-64; 1 Corinthians 10:18-21 and 11:23-26.

5. Read what the Church teaches about the Eucharist. Review the Catechism of the Catholic Church, see paragraphs 1322-1419. Read it online at Bit.ly/CCC1322.

6. Sing or listen to time-honored hymns by St. Thomas Aquinas.The Eucharist inspired Thomas to write Panis Angelicus, Tantum Ergo Sacramentum and Adoro Te Devote and more. Search for lyrics and melodies online or in your church hymnal.

7. Invoke Mary’s faithful help. “[T]here is a profound analogy between the fiat which Mary said in reply to the angel, and the ,amen which every believer says when receiving the body of the Lord” (St. John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, par. 55). The same humanity and divinity of Jesus in the womb of Mary is present under the signs of bread and wine in the Eucharist.

8. Call on saints renown for eucharistic devotion. Learn about St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Margaret Mary, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Alphonsus Liguori, St. Peter Julian Eymard, St. Katharine Drexel and St. John Neumann. St. Thérèse of Lisieux declared: “The best means to reach perfection is through receiving Holy Communion frequently. Experience sufficiently proves it in those who practice it.”