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The soul tending to Christian perfection ought to live more and
more by the Eucharist, not only by assistance at Mass but by frequent
and even daily Communion. This is our reason for speaking of this
living bread and of the conditions of a good and then of a fervent
Communion. THE EUCHARIST, THE LIVING BREAD COME
DOWN FROM HEAVEN For the salvation of all of us in general, our Lord
could not have given Himself more than He did on the cross; and He
cannot give Himself to each one of us in particular more than He has
done in the Eucharist. Because He knew our deepest spiritual needs, He
said to us in His promise of the Eucharist: "I am the bread of life.
He that cometh to Me shall not hunger: and he that believeth in Me
shall never thirst. . . . I am the living bread which came down from
heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever; and the
bread that I will give is My flesh, for the life of the world. . . .
For My flesh is meat indeed. . . . He that eateth My flesh and
drinketh My blood abideth in Me, and I in him." (1) The Eucharist is
thus the greatest of the sacraments, for it contains not only grace,
but the Author of grace. It is the sacrament of love, because it is
the fruit of love that gives itself and because it has for its
principal effect to increase in us the love of God and of souls in
God. The reception of the Eucharist is called Communion, or the
intimate union of the heart of God with the heart of man. This union
nourishes the soul and supernaturally vivifies it more and more and,
so to speak, deifies it, by increasing in it sanctifying grace, which
is a participation in the inner life of God: "For My flesh is meat
indeed." All created life needs to be fed: plants draw their
nourishment from the secretions of the earth; animals feed on plants
or other living creatures; man nourishes his body with material and
appropriate food; he nourishes his mind with truth, especially divine
truth; he should nourish his will with the divine will to be
accomplished daily in order to reach eternal life. In other words, man
ought to find his nourishment especially in faith, hope, and love. The
acts of these virtues obtain for him, through merit, an increase in
supernatural life. But the Savior offers him still another and more
divine food; He offers Himself as the food of souls. To St. Augustine,
Christ said: "I am the food of the strong; grow and thou shalt feed on
Me. But thou shalt not convert Me into thyself as the nourishment of
thy body, but thou shalt be changed into Me." (2)
In Communion, the Savior has nothing to gain: it is the soul that
receives, that is vivified, supernaturalized; the virtues of Jesus
Christ pass into it; it is, as it were, incorporated in Him and
becomes a more living member of His mystical body. How is this
incorporation and transformation effected? Especially because Christ,
present in the Eucharist, leads the soul to a purer and stronger love
of God. The effects of this food are well explained by St. Thomas,
who says: "This sacrament works in man the effect which Christ's
passion wrought in the world." (3) Then he adds: "This sacrament does
for the spiritual life all that material food does for the bodily
life, namely, by sustaining, giving increase, restoring, and giving
delight." (4) First of all, it sustains. He who in the natural order
does not take food or who takes insufficient food, declines; in the
spiritual order the same is true of the man who refuses the
Eucharistic bread which the Lord offers us as the best food for our
soul. Why deprive ourselves, without reason, of this "supersubstantial
bread," (5) which is the daily bread of our souls? As material bread
restores the organism by repairing its losses, the results of labor
and fatigue, so the Eucharist repairs the gradual loss of strength
which results from our negligences. As the Council of Trent says, it
frees us from venial sins, restores to us the fervor which we lost
because of these sins, and preserves us from mortal sin. Moreover,
ordinary nourishment increases the life of the body in a growing
child. Now, from the spiritual point of view, we ought always to grow
in the love of God and of our neighbor until death; thus we advance in
our journey toward eternity. That we may grow in this way, the
Eucharistic bread always brings us new graces. Thus supernatural
growth does not stop in the saints as long as they continue on their
way toward God: their faith becomes daily more enlightened and more
lively, their hope more firm, their charity more pure and ardent.
Little by little they advance from resignation in suffering to the
esteem and love of the cross. Through Communion all the infused
virtues grow with charity; and through ever more fervent Communions,
they may reach a heroic degree. The gifts of the Holy Ghost, being
permanent, infused dispositions connected with charity, also grow with
it. Lastly, as material bread is pleasant to the taste, the
Eucharistic bread is sweet to the faithful soul, which draws from it a
comfort and sometimes a spiritual well-being that is more or less
felt. The author of The Imitation says: "Confiding, O Lord,
in Thy goodness and in Thy great mercy, I come as a sick man to my
Savior, hungry and thirsty to the fountain of life, needy to the King
of heaven, a servant to my Lord, a creature to my Creator, and one in
desolation to my loving Comforter." (6) "Give Thyself to me, and it is
enough; for without Thee no comfort is of any avail. Without Thee I
cannot exist; and without Thy visitation I am unable to live." (7)
St. Thomas admirably expresses the mystery of Communion:
"O res mirabilis, manducat Dominum
Pauper, servus, et humilis!"
Communion is the sublime union of supreme wealth and poverty. And
yet, how sad it is that habit, degenerating into routine, often
prevents us from being attentive to the supernatural splendor of this
infinite gift! CONDITIONS OF A GOOD COMMUNION
The conditions of a good communion are indicated in the decree
(December 20, 1905) by which Pope Pius X exhorted all the faithful to
frequent Communion. This decree recalls first of all this principle:
"The sacraments of the New Law, while acting ex opere operato,
nevertheless produce a greater effect by reason of the more perfect
dispositions of those who receive them. . . . Care must be taken,
therefore, that an attentive preparation precede Holy Communion and
that a suitable thanksgiving follow it, taking into consideration the
faculties and condition of each person." According to the same
decree, the first and indispensable condition for drawing profit from
Communion is an upright and pious intention. On this point His
Holiness declared: "Frequent and daily Communion, greatly desired by
Jesus Christ and by the Catholic Church, should be so accessible to
all the faithful of every rank and condition, that anyone who is in
the state of grace and approaches the holy table with an upright and
pious intention, may not be separated from it by any prohibition.
Upright intention consists in this: that he who approaches the holy
table is not influenced by custom, by vanity, or by any human reason,
but desires to satisfy the good pleasure of God, to be more closely
united to Him by charity, and by means of this divine medicine to
remedy his infirmities and defects." Evidently the upright and pious
intention mentioned here must be supernatural, that is, inspired by a
motive of faith; it is the desire to acquire the strength to serve God
better and to keep from sin. If, with this principal intention, a
person had a secondary intention of vanity, such as the desire to be
praised, this secondary and nondeterminant motive would not prevent
the Communion from being good and would not render it bad, but it
would diminish its fruit. This fruit is so much the greater as the
upright and pious intention is purer and stronger. These principles
are positive. One very fervent Communion is, therefore, more fruitful
in itself alone than many, tepid Communions. THE
CONDITIONS OF A FERVENT COMMUNION In her Dialogue, St. Catherine
states the conditions of a fervent Communion by using a striking
figure:
If thou hast a light, and the whole world should come to thee in
order to take light from it, the light itself does not diminish, and
yet each person has it all. It is true that everyone participates more
or less in this light, according to the substance into which each one
receives the fire. Suppose that there are many who bring their
candles, one weighing an ounce, others two or six ounces, or a pound,
or even more, and light them in the flame; in each candle, whether
large or small, is the whole light, that is to say, the heat, the
color, and the flame; nevertheless thou wouldst judge that he whose
candle weighs an ounce has less of the light than he whose candle
weighs a pound. Now the same thing happens to those who receive this
sacrament. Each one carries his own candle, that is, the holy desire
with which he receives this sacrament, which of itself is without
light, and lights it by receiving this sacrament.(8)
How is this desire shown? The holy desire, which is the condition
of a fervent Communion, should manifest itself first in removing all
attachment to venial sin, slander, jealousy, vanity, sensuality, and
so on. This attachment is less reprehensible in poorly enlightened
Christians than in those who have already received much and are
ungrateful. If this negligence and ingratitude were to become
accentuated, they would render Communion less and less fruitful.
That Communion may be fervent, attachment to imperfections must be
combated; that is, attachment to an imperfect manner of acting, such
as characterizes the actions of one who, possessing five talents, acts
as if he had only three (modo remisso), and only struggles
feebly against his defects. Attachment to imperfections may also be
found in the seeking after permissible but useless natural
satisfactions, such as taking some refreshment which one can get along
without. The sacrifice of these satisfactions would be agreeable to
God; and the soul, by thus evidencing greater generosity, would
receive many more graces in Communion. It ought to remember that it
has as a model Christ Himself, who sacrificed Himself even to the
death of the cross, and that it ought to work for its salvation and
that of its neighbor by means similar to those which the Savior
employed. The removal of venial sin and imperfection is a negative
disposition. The positive dispositions for a fervent Communion are
humility (Domine, non sum dignus), a profound respect for the
Eucharist, a living faith, an ardent desire to receive our Lord, the
bread of life. All these positive conditions may be summed up as
hunger for the Eucharist. All food is good when we are hungry. A
rich man, accidentally deprived of food and famished, is happy to find
black bread; he thinks it is the best meal of his life and he feels
refreshed. If we hungered for the Eucharist, our Communion would be
most fruitful. We should recall what this hunger was in St. Catherine
of Siena; so great was it that one day when she had been harshly
refused Communion, a particle of the large host became detached at the
moment when the priest broke it in two, and was miraculously brought
to the saint in response to the ardor of her desire. How can we have
this hunger for the Eucharist? The answer lies in our being firmly
convinced that the Eucharist is the indispensable food of our soul and
in generously making some sacrifices every day. For those who are
feeble, substantial food is sought which will restore their health;
efforts are also made to raise the morale of the discouraged. The food
par excellence, which renews spiritual strength, is the Eucharist. Our
sensible appetites, inclined to sensuality and to sloth, need to be
vivified by contact with the virginal body of Christ, who endured most
frightful sufferings for love of us. We, who are always inclined to
pride, to lack of consideration, to forgetfulness of the greatest
truths, to spiritual folly, need to be illumined by contact with the
sovereignly luminous intellect of the Savior, who is "the way, the
truth, and the life." Our will also has its deficiencies; it lacks
energy, it is cold because it lacks love. This is the cause of all its
weaknesses. Who can restore to it the ardor, the flame necessary to
its life so that it may ascend instead of descending? The answer is
contact with the Eucharistic heart of Jesus, ardent furnace of
charity, immutably fixed in the good, and source of merits of infinite
value. Of its plentitude we must all receive, and grace for grace. We
have great need of this union with the Savior, which is the principal
effect of Communion. If we were profoundly convinced that the
Eucharist is the necessary food of our souls, we would have the
spiritual hunger which is found in the saints. To recover it, if we
have lost it, we must "take exercise," as they say to people who are
stricken with a languorous illness. Spiritual exercise in this case
consists in daily offering sacrifices to God; in particular we should
give up seeking ourselves in what we do; gradually, as egoism
disappears, charity will take the first, uncontested place in our
souls. We will cease to be preoccupied with the little nothings that
concern us in order to think more of the glory of God and the
salvation of souls. Then the hunger for the Eucharist will return. To
make a good Communion, we should also ask Mary to make us share in the
love with which she herself received the Eucharist from the hands of
St. John. The fruits of a fervent Communion are proportionate to the
generosity of our dispositions. We read in Holy Scripture: "He that
hath, to him shall be given, and he shall abound." (9) In the Office
of the Blessed Sacrament, St. Thomas relates that the prophet Elias,
who was being persecuted, stopped worn out in the desert and lay down
under a juniper tree to await death. He fell asleep; then an angel of
the Lord wakened him, showed him a loaf of bread under the ashes, and
a jug of water. He ate and drank, and with the strength that this food
gave him, he walked for forty days, even to Mount Horeb, where the
Lord was waiting for him. This is a figure of the effects of fervent
Communion. We should remember that each of our Communions ought to
be substantially more fervent than the preceding one, since each ought
not only to preserve charity in us, but to increase it, and
consequently dispose us to receive our Lord on the following day with
an even greater love than on the preceding day. As a stone falls so
much the more rapidly as it approaches the earth which attracts it,
so, says St. Thomas,(10) souls ought to advance so much the more
rapidly toward God as they approach nearer to Him and are more drawn
by Him. This law of acceleration, which is at one and the same time a
law of nature and a law of the order of grace, ought to be verified
especially by daily Communion. It would be verified if some attachment
to venial sin or to imperfection placed no obstacle to it. We see it
realized in the lives of the saints, who make much more rapid progress
during the last years of their lives than during the earlier years.
This is notably true of the end of St. Thomas' life. Such acceleration
in progress toward God was realized above all in Mary, the model of
Eucharistic devotion; each of her Communions was certainly more
fervent than the preceding one. God grant that there may be in us at
least a remote resemblance to this spiritual progress, and that, if
sensible fervor is lacking, substantial fervor, which is the
promptness of the will in the service of God, may not fail. The
author of The Imitation says: "For who, humbly approaching the
fountain of sweetness, does not carry thence some little sweetness? Or
who, standing by a great fire, does not derive therefrom some little
heat? And Thou art a fountain ever full and overflowing; Thou art a
fire always burning and never failing." (11) This source of graces
is so lofty and so fruitful that the properties of refreshing water
and the opposite qualities of burning fire may be compared to it. What
is divided in material things is united in the spiritual life, and
especially in the Eucharist, which contains not only abundant grace,
but the very Author of grace. In our Communions let us think of St.
John, who rested his head on the heart of Christ, and of St. Catherine
of Siena, who more than once drank long draughts from the wound of His
heart, which is ever open in order to show us His love. These
extraordinary graces are given by God from time to time to draw our
attention to what is most intrinsic and fruitful in daily Christian
life, to what would exist in ours if we only knew how to answer God's
call with generosity. EXAMINATION OF CONSCIENCE:
COMMUNIONS WITHOUT THANKSGIVING
"If thou didst know the gift of God!" John 4: 10 A number of
interior souls have told us of the sorrow they feel when they see, in
certain places, almost the entire body of the faithful leave the
church immediately after the end of the Mass during which they have
received Holy Communion. Moreover, this custom is becoming general,
even in many Catholic boarding schools and colleges where formerly the
students who had received Communion remained in the chapel for about
ten minutes after Mass, thus acquiring the habit of making a
thanksgiving, a habit which the best among them kept all their lives.
Formerly to show the necessity of thanksgiving, people were told how
St. Philip Neri had two altar boys, carrying lighted candles,
accompany a lady who left the church immediately after the end of the
Mass during which she had received Holy Communion. How many times this
well deserved lesson was told, and how often it bore fruit! But
nowadays people have acquired the habit of treating almost everybody,
superiors as well as equals and inferiors, and even our Lord Himself,
with easy familiarity. If this abuse continues, there will be, as
someone has said, many Communions and few real communicants. If
zealous souls do not set to work to stop this habit of unconcern, it
will go on increasing, gradually destroying all spirit of
mortification and of true and solid piety. And yet Christ Himself is
ever the same, and our duty of gratitude toward Him has not changed.
Is not thanksgiving for a favor received a duty, and ought it not be
proportionate to the value of the favor? When we give something
valuable to a friend, we are rightfully grieved if that person does
not take the trouble to send us a word of thanks. Yet this fault is
frequent today. And if this easy carelessness, which borders on
ingratitude, wounds us, what must be said of ingratitude toward our
Lord, whose gifts are incomparably more precious than ours? When,
after the miraculous cure of the ten lepers, only one of them returned
to thank our Lord, He asked: "And where are the other nine?" They had
been miraculously healed, but did not return to express their thanks.
In Communion we receive a gift far superior to the miraculous cure of
a physical disease; we receive the Author of salvation and an increase
of the life of grace, which is the seed of glory, or eternal life
begun. We receive an increase of charity, the highest of the virtues,
which vivifies, animates all the others, and is the very principle of
merit. Christ often gave thanks to His Father for all His benefits,
in particular for that of the redemptive Incarnation; with all His
soul He thanked His Father for having revealed its mystery to little
ones. On the cross He thanked Him while uttering His Consummatum
est. In the Sacrifice of the Mass, of which He is the principal
Priest, He does not cease to thank Him. Thanksgiving is one of the
four ends of the sacrifice, always united to adoration, petition, and
reparation. Even after the end of the world, when the last Mass has
been said and when there will no longer be any sacrifice, properly so
called, but only its consummation, when supplication and reparation
have ceased, the worship of adoration and thanksgiving will endure
forever, expressed in the Sanctus, which will be the song of the elect
for all eternity. With these thoughts in mind, we can easily
understand why for some time many interior souls have been having
Masses offered in thanksgiving, particularly on the second Friday of
the month, in order to make up for the ingratitude of men and of many
Christians, who scarcely know any more how to give thanks, even after
receiving the greatest benefits. If there is one favor, however,
which demands a special act of thanksgiving, it is the institution of
the Eucharist, through which Christ willed to remain substantially
among us that He might continue in a sacramental manner the oblation
of His sacrifice, and that He might give Himself to us as food to
nourish our souls in a better and more substantial way than the best
of food can nourish our body. Here it is not a question of feeding our
minds on the thought of a St. Augustine or of a St. Thomas, but of
feeding ourselves on Jesus Christ, on His humanity, on the plenitude
of grace in His holy soul, personally united to the Word and to the
Divinity. By the Eucharist, He gives Himself to us that he may
assimilate us to Himself. Blessed Nicholas of Flue used to say: "Lord
Jesus, take me from myself and give me to Thyself." Let us add: "Lord
Jesus, give Thyself to me, that I may belong entirely to Thee." The
Blessed Eucharist is the greatest gift we can receive; surely it
deserves a special thanksgiving. This is the purpose of the devotion
to the Eucharistic heart. If an author who offers you a good book is
rightly offended when he receives no expression of thanks from you,
much more painful is the ingratitude of one who fails to return thanks
after Communion, by which Christ gives Himself to us. Have the
faithful who leave the church almost immediately after receiving Holy
Communion forgotten that the Real Presence subsists in them as
sacramental species for about a quarter of an hour after Communion,
and can they not keep their divine Guest company for this short time?
(12) Christ calls us, He gives Himself to us with infinite love, and
yet we have nothing to say to Him and are not willing to listen to Him
for a few moments. Bossuet used to recall that the saints, in
particular St. Teresa, have often told us that sacramental
thanksgiving is the most precious moment in our spiritual life.(13)
The essence of the Sacrifice of the Mass is indeed in the double
consecration, but it is by Communion that we ourselves share in this
sacrifice of infinite value. As a result of our Communion, contact is
established between the holy soul of Jesus, personally united to the
Word, and our soul, an intimate union of His human intellect,
illumined by the light of glory, with our intellect, which is often
darkened, clouded, forgetful of our great duties, in some measure
obtuse in regard to divine things. A no less profound union of the
human will of Christ, immutably fixed in the good, is also established
with our wavering, inconstant will; and finally, a union of His most
pure sensibility with ours, which at times is so troubled. In Christ's
sensibility are the two virtues of fortitude and virginity, which
strengthen and render virginal the souls that draw near to Him. But
Christ speaks only to those who listen to Him, only to those who are
not voluntarily distracted. We should not only reproach ourselves for
our directly voluntary distractions, but also for those which are
indirectly so, as a result of our negligence in not considering what
we ought to consider, in not willing what we ought to will, in not
doing what we ought to do. This negligence is the source of a
multitude of sins of omission, which pass almost unseen in our
examination of conscience, because they are not something positive,
but rather the absence of what should be. Many persons who find no sin
in themselves, because they have committed no grievous sins, are full
of sins of omission, sins of indirectly voluntary and consequently
culpable negligence. Let us not neglect the duty of thanksgiving, as
is so often done today. What fruits can be derived from Communions
received with so little respect? Unfortunately in some countries
many priests themselves make, so to speak, no thanksgiving after their
Mass. Others confound their thanksgiving with the obligatory and more
or less recollected recitation of a part of the Office, with the
result that they no longer have enough personal piety to vivify from
within the official piety, as it were, of the minister of God. The
results are sad indeed. How can the priest who no longer sufficiently
nourishes the life of his own soul with the divine life, give it to
others? How can he relieve the profound spiritual needs of souls that
are famished, and who, after having recourse to him, sometimes go away sadder than ever,
asking themselves anxiously where they can find what they require?
Souls that hunger and thirst for God, souls that have received much
and that, in the midst of great difficulties, should give abundantly
to those about them in order to assist souls that are dying
spiritually, are sometimes told: "Do not take so much trouble. You do
more than is necessary." We may well wonder what is to become of zeal,
of the ardor of Charity, and how Christ's words are to be verified: "I
am come to cast fire on the earth: and what will I, but that it be
kindled?" "I am come that they may have life, and may have it more
abundantly." A truly pious person who used to reproach himself for
not thinking sufficiently during the day of Holy Communion which he
had received that morning, once received this reply to his expressed
concern: "We do not think of the meal that we had some hours ago."
That was the reply of practical naturalism, which lost sight of the
immense distance separating the Eucharistic bread from ordinary bread.
The state of mind evinced by such a statement is manifestly the direct
opposite of the contemplation of the mystery of the Eucharist: it
springs from the habitual negligence with which one receives God's
most precious gifts. In the long run, a person no longer sees their
value, which he knows only in a theoretical manner, and the counsels
that he gives in no way lead souls to intimate union with God; they do
not go beyond the level of casuistry, which is concerned only with
knowing what is obligatory in order to avoid sin. This state of soul
can lead far; one can thus forget that every Christian, each according
to his condition, must tend to the perfection of charity in virtue of
the supreme precept: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole
heart and with thy whole soul and with all thy strength and with all
thy mind." (14) Were they to follow this path, the priest and
religious would also forget that they have not only a general, but a
special obligation to tend to perfection in order that they may daily
perform their sacred functions with greater holiness and be more
closely united to our Lord. In certain periods of the history of
monastic orders, some religious, after celebrating their private Mass,
did not go to the conventual Mass even on feast days, unless it was
canonically indisputable that they were obliged to do so. If they had
made their thanksgiving in a proper manner, would they have reached
the point of judging in this fashion? Casuistry tended to prevail over
spirituality, which was considered a secondary matter. That day on
which we consider intimate union with God as something secondary, we
no longer tend to perfection; we lose sight of the meaning and the
import of the supreme precept: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with
thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with all thy strength,
and with all thy mind." Our judgment is then no longer the judgment of
wisdom; it no longer proceeds in any way from the gift of wisdom; we
have begun to descend the slope of spiritual folly. This is the goal
progressively reached through negligence in making a proper
thanksgiving. Remissness in regard to thanksgiving becomes
negligence in adoration, which would end by being only exterior,
negligence also in supplication and in reparation. We would thus more
and more lose sight of the four ends of the sacrifice in order to give
ourselves often to secondary matters which, moreover, lose their true
moral and spiritual value as soon as they are no longer vivified by
union with God. Every benefit calls for an expression of gratitude;
a measureless benefit demands a proportionate acknowledgment. Since we
are not capable of offering God gratitude proportionate to His gift,
we should ask Mary Mediatrix to come to our help and to obtain for us
a share in the thanksgiving she offered to God after the sacrifice of
the cross, after the Consummatum est, a share in the
thanksgiving she made after St. John's Mass, which truly continued in
substance on the altar the sacrifice of Calvary. Negligence so
frequent in thanksgiving after Communion springs from our insufficient
knowledge of the gift of God: "If thou didst know the gift of God!"
Let us ask our Lord humbly but ardently for the grace of a great
spirit of faith, which will permit us daily to realize the value of
the Eucharist a little better. Let us ask for the grace of the
supernatural contemplation of this mystery of faith, that is, the
experimental knowledge which proceeds from the gifts of understanding
and wisdom, and which is the cause of a fervent thanksgiving in the
measure in which we are more conscious of the greatness of the gift
received. |
