MEDITATION 11: THE BLESSED EUCHARIST LESSENS IN US OUR TENDENCY TO EVIL
WE read in the Gospel that when Jesus Christ went into St. Peter’s house, he asked Him to
cure his mother-in-law who was sick of a violent fever. Jesus Christ commanded the fever to leave
her, and instantly she was so completely cured that she was able to serve them at table.
The fever, says St. Ambrose, is our avarice, our anger, our sensuality. These passions boil up in
our flesh, and agitate the soul, the spirit and the senses. They have their remedy in the Blessed
Eucharist, the food and strength of the Christian soul. Let us thank Our Lord for this healing and
sanctifying gift.
THE HOLY EUCHARIST WEAKENS OUR INCLINATIONS TO EVIL.
The precious Blood of Jesus Christ which flows in our veins, and His adorable Body which is
blended with ours, can it do less than destroy, or at least greatly diminish the attraction towards
forbidden pleasures that the sin of Adam has left in us.
This is so true that when one receives Jesus Christ one feels a new taste for the things of
Heaven, and a new contempt for created things.
Tell me, how could you let pride find its way into a heart that is about to receive a God,
humiliated even to annihilation? Can one consent to think anything of one’s self! On the contrary,
would he not find matter enough to cause him to abase and despise himself? A heart that is about
to receive a God who is so pure, who is holiness itself, will it not feel born in it an invincible horror
of all sins of impurity, and would it not rather let itself be cut in pieces rather than consent, I do
not say to a bad action, but even to a bad thought?
A tongue which a short time ago has been so happy as to bear its Creator and Saviour, could it
dare to lend itself to lascivious words, to sensual kisses? No, without doubt, it would never dare to
act thus.
Eyes which just now desired so earnestly to contemplate their Creator, who is more pure than
the sun’s rays, could they after such happiness, look on indecent objects? That would seem to be
impossible.
THE BLESSED EUCHARIST, PLEDGE OF LIFE ETERNAL AND OF THE GLORIOUS RESURRECTION
What was the cause of the resurrection of Lazarus? It was because he had often received Our
Lord into his house. The Saviour loved him so much that He shed tears when He saw that he was
dead. How then could He leave in the humiliation of the grave, those whom He has honoured by
His visit in Holy Communion, who have longed for Him and who have received Him into a pure
heart inflamed with love. He has said: “I am the Resurrection and the Life. He who eats My Flesh
and drinks My Blood shall live eternally, and I will raise him up at the last day.”
1. THE PLEDGE OF ETERNAL LIFE.
Holy Communion is for us the pledge of eternal life, so that it guarantees heaven to us. It is a
pledge sent from Heaven to tell us that it will one day be our dwelling place.
Oh I if we could really understand how much Jesus Christ loves to come into our hearts! Once
He is there, He would wish never to leave it. He can no longer separate Himself from us during our
life nor after our death.
Consider St. Teresa, she received Holy Communion frequently and fervently. By this means,
she became so pleasing to God that one day Jesus Christ appeared to her, and said to her that she
pleased Him so much that if there was not a heaven already, He would create one for her alone.
She appeared one day accompanied by Jesus Christ to a religious. This religious was astonished
and she asked:
“Why, O Jesus, is Teresa with You?” The Saviour answered that Teresa during her life had
been so united to Him by Holy Communion that He could not separate Himself from her.
Oh, how beautiful will be a soul that has often and worthily received the good God! It will be
united to the soul of Our Lord. Then it will enjoy a happiness pure and perfect. It will shine like a
beautiful diamond, because God will be reflected in it.
When the soul of a Christian who has received Our Lord enters Paradise, it adds to the joy of
heaven. The Angels and the Queen of Angels come to meet it because they recognise the Son of
God in this soul. Those who receive. Holy Communion at the moment of death are very fortunate.
At the particular judgment which takes place immediately after death God the Father sees His Son
in them! He cannot condemn them, Oh! no.
2. HOLY COMMUNION - PRINCIPLE OF THE GLORIOUS RESURRECTION.
Jesus Christ will raise up our bodies as much more glorious as we shall have more often and
more worthily received Him. There is nothing we do which adorns the body more for Heaven than
Holy Communion.
At the day of Judgment, the body of Our Lord will shine through our glorified body. His
adorable Blood through our blood, as we see gold shine in copper and silver in lead.
Can one doubt it when we realise how close is the union effected between Jesus and the
devout communicant? If then, whilst He was still passible and mortal, Jesus Christ raised the dead
by His mere touch, how will He not raise us up, we, who have eaten His Flesh and drunk His
Blood.
What happiness for the just when at the last day the soul all embalmed with the fragrance of
Heaven will come to seek its body to enjoy God for all eternity! Then our bodies will come out of
the earth as linen which has been washed in dye. The bodies of the just will shine as beautiful
diamonds, as globes of love.
What a cry of delight when the soul comes to unite itself with the glorified body, to this body
which will be no longer for it an instrument of sin nor a cause of suffering.
It will revel in the sweetness of love as the bee does in the flower.
If a little leaven, says St. Francis of Sales, makes a great mass of dough to rise, if a spark suffices
to set a house on fire, if a seed put into the earth makes it fertile and productive of other seeds,
have I not reason to hope that your Holy Body coming into mine, when the time comes, will raise
it up from its corruption, will glorify it and bring it forth again immortal, impassible, agile, subtle,
resplendent, and furnished with all the glorious qualities that it can hope for.
MEDITATION 13: THE BLESSED EUCHARIST THE SOURCE OF JOY
What must have been the joy of the aged Simeon when pressed to his heart, overflowing with
love, the Infant Jesus who still more inflamed his love so that he cried out:
“Now Lord, let me die.” Assuredly, he was in an ecstasy. it we, are we not more happy than
Simeon? He could only keep Jesus for a short time, we can keep Him always we will. He comes not
only into our arms, but into our art.
1. THE EUCHARIST, SOURCE OF JOY AND SWEETNESS.
Oh, who will ever understand the happiness of the Christian who receives Jesus Christ into his
heart, who us becomes a little heaven. He alone is as rich as all heaven put together.
Qh! happy home where these Christians live. What reverence ought we to have for them
during the whole Ly! To have in this house a second tabernacle where the good God has been
present in Body and Soul.
O Man, how happy thou art, but how little thou dost understand this happiness. Didst thou
but understand it, you could not live. Oh! no. Truly you would not be able live! You would die of
love! That God gives Himself thee, thou canst carry Him away with thee if thou wilt, whither thou
wilt. He is one with thee. Ah! a heart that is once been seized in the holy embrace of its Saviour can
never find happiness out of Him.
One Easter Sunday, after Holy Communion, St. Teresa is rapt in God. Having come to herself,
she found her mouth full of the precious Blood of Our Lord, which communicated so much
sweetness to her that she thought she would die of love. I saw my divine Saviour, she writes, who
said to me: “My daughter, I wish that this adorable Blood which causes thee so much love, may be
employed save you. Never fear that My mercy will be wanting to you. When I shed this previous
Blood, I only experienced pain and bitterness, but to you it will only bring sweetness and love.”
Several times when she had the great happiness of receiving Holy Communion, the Angels
came down in a crowd from heaven, and seemed to delight in uniting with her to praise Our Lord
whom she bore in her heart.
2. EFFECTS OF THIS SPIRITUAL SWEETNESS.
It repairs the strength and appeases the hunger of the soul, and enables it to carry out joyfully
and with fervour all the duties of the Christian life.
When you have had the happiness of receiving the good God, you feel, for some time, a joy
and comfort in your heart. Pure souls are always in that state, this union is their strength and their
happiness. Oh! how sweet is this life of union with the good God! It is heaven on earth. There are
no more troubles, no longer any crosses!
Without the Blessed Eucharist there would no longer be any happiness in this world, life
would be unbearable. When we receive Holy Communion we receive our joy and all our good.
O, my children! the Blessed Victoire used to say why do you crawl along in the way salvation?
Why have you so little courage to work to merit the great happiness of going to the Holy Table, and
to eat there the Bread of Angels, which gives such strength to the weak. Oh! if you knew how this
heavenly Bread sweetens the sorrows of life! Oh! If once you had tasted how kind and generous
Jesus Christ is to those who receive Him in Holy Communion! . . . Go, my children, eat this Bread
of the strong and you will return filled with joy and courage, you will desire more sufferings, pains
and combats in order to please Jesus Christ.
When Our Lord comes to a pure soul, He is pleased. He fills it with joy and gladness. He
bestows on it this generous love which makes it do and suffer all to please Him. If one could
understand all the blessings contained in Holy Communion nothing else would content the heart
of man. The miser would no longer run after his treasures, nor the ambitious after glory. Everyone
would shake the dust of earth from their feet and would fly towards heaven.
MEDITATION 14: DISPOSITIONS OF SOUL FOR HOLY COMMUNION
When Jesus Christ instituted the Blessed Eucharist, it was in a room well furnished, to teach
us how we ought to take care to adorn our soul’; with virtues in order to receive Him in Holy
Communion. Let us thank Our Lord for this instruction.
The first ornament of the soul who wishes to communicate is the state of Grace, the next is
freedom from any affection for venial sin.
1. TO BE IN A STATE OF GRACE TO RECEIVE COMMUNION WORTHILY.
(a) Let a man prove himself, says St. Paul, before coming to the Holy Table: and then let him
eat and drink of this chalice. Because he who eats and drinks this chalice unworthily, eats and
drinks his own condemnation not discerning the Body of the Lord.
We must, before going to the Holy Table, be sure that we have spent sufficient time in
examination of conscience in order to discover our mortal sins, and that we have a great sorrow
also, that our confession has thus been entire. We must have a firm determination to do, by the
grace of God, all that we can, not to fall into sin again.
If we have not confessed entirely or sincerely, in receiving Holy Communion we would put
Jesus Christ at the feet of the devil. What an enormity!
When we go to receive the Body of Jesus Christ in Holy Communion, we should be ready for
death and ready to appear with confidence before the tribunal of Jesus Christ.
(b) Those who go to Holy Communion without having purified their hearts, ought to be afraid
of incurring the chastisement of the servant who dared to sit at table without a wedding garment.
The Master ordered his officials to bind his hands and feet, and to cast him into the outer
darkness. Even thus Jesus Christ will say at the hour of death to those who have the misfortune of
receiving Him into their hearts unworthily. “Why have you had the audacity to receive Me when
you were stained with so many sins ?” No, never forget that to communicate we must be truly
converted, and have a sincere determination to persevere.
(d) You would not embrace a King if your mouth gave out a fetid odour, and you embrace the
King of heaven with a soul more fetid still! No outrage could be greater. Do you not see with what
care, decency and splendour even the Sacred Vessels are kept. How much more pure and shining
ought our souls to be! Because the Sacred Vessels do not share in the mysteries that they enclose,
they are not conscious of them. There is no real union between them and Him who is in them. For
us it is otherwise. We must, then, in order to receive the Sacred Host purify our minds and make
our souls all holy.
2. TO BE FREE FROM AFFECTION FOR VENIAL SIN, IN ORDER TO GATHER ABUNDANT FRUIT FROM COMMUNION.
Before giving His adorable Body and precious Blood Jesus washed the feet of the Apostles to
show us that we must be free from sin, even the slightest, and that we should have no affection for
them. The purity of Jesus is so great that the least fault prevents us from being united to Him as
completely as He would wish.
Venial sin, it is true, does not make our Communion unworthy, but it is the reason why we
profit so little from it. See, for instance, how many Communions you have made. Are you any better? No, perhaps.
Why? Because you retain nearly always the same imperfections. You have a horror of big sins which
would kill your soul, but for all these acts of impatience, these murmurings when some trouble or
some annoyance or contradiction befalls you, for these little evasions in speech.
You wish everyone should love you, and have a good opinion of you. You do not make the
least effort to correct yourself.
Set to work to destroy in yourself all that is not pleasing to Jesus Christ, to speak willingly to
those who have caused you pain, to be pleased to see them, to love them sincerely, to practise the
perfect renouncement of yourselves and you will see how your Communion will carry you forward
with great strides towards Heaven. The more you do it, the more you will feel yourself detached
from sin and carried to God.
MEDITATION 15: THE DISPOSITION OF SOUL FOR HOLY COMMUNION
Zacheus, having heard about Jesus Christ desired ardently to see Him. As he could not,
because of the great crowd, he climbed a tree. But Our Lord saw him: “Zacheus come down
because I wish to spend today in your houseZacheus made haste to come down and ran to
prepare as well as he could to receive theSaviour. When Our Lord came in He said: “This day is
salvation come to this house.” Zacheusmoved by the great kindness of Jesus Christ who had
come to stay in his house, cried out: “Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor, and if I
have wronged anyone I will restore him fourfold.”
O Jesus, give me the ardent desires of this sinner, his lively faith and immense joy in receiving
You, and when You come into my heart bring it also salvation.
1. TO HAVE A LIVELY FAITH.
As this sacrament is a sacrament of faith, we must believe firmly that Jesus Christ is really
present in the Holy Eucharist, that He is there living and glorious as He is in heaven. In former
times, before giving Holy Communion, the priest, holding the Sacred Host between his fingers,
said aloud: “Do you believe, my brethren, that the adorable Body and precious Blood of Jesus
Christ is truly in this Sacrament ?” Then all the faithful answered: “Yes, we believe it.” Let us have
the same faith.
2. TO HAVE A GREAT DESIRE TO BE UNITED TO JESUS CHRIST.
Observe the earnestness of the Magi in seeking Jesus Christ in the manger. See holy Magdalen,
as she eagerly seeks the risen Saviour. Do you seek Jesus Christ with the same desire, the. same
ardour, and nothing will hinder you from receiving Him. Long to communicate because there is
nothing so great as the Eucharist. Put all the good works against one good Holy Communion. By
one Communion you give more glory to God than by giving a hundred thousand francs to the
poor.
Have a desire to go to Communion because it is the only food which suits perfectly your soul.
Oh, if Christians could understand the language of Our Lord, who says to them: “In spite of
thy misery, I wish to see very near to Me this beautiful soul that I have created for Myself. I have
made it so great that I alone can fill it. I have made it so pure, that only My Body can nourish it.”
St. Catherine of Siena cried out in her transports of love: “O my God! O my Saviour! Ah, what
excess of love and goodness for creatures to give yourself with so much eagerness!; and in giving
Yourself, you give all that You have, all that You are! My loving Saviour, I beg you to water my soul
with your precious Blood, nourish my body with your adorable Flesh, so that my body and my soul
may belong only to Thee, and aspire only to please You and to possess You.”
St. Catherine of Genoa was so eager for this heavenly bread, that she could not see it in the
priest’s hands without feeling as if she would die of love; so very great was the desire she felt to
possess It, she exclaimed: “Oh Lord, come to me! My God, come to me! I can wait no longer. Oh!
My God come, please, to the depth of my heart. No, my God, I can wait no longer. You are all my
joy, all my happiness, and all the nourishment of my soul.”
3. TO HAVE A RIGHT INTENTION.
There are some people who go to Holy Communion to gain the esteem of the world. It avails
them nothing. Others go out of habit. Poor Communions, they have not the right intention.
Go to Communion to obey Jesus Christ, who has commanded you to do so, under pain of not
having eternal life.
Go to Communion to obtain the graces that you need, humility, patience, purity.
Go to the Holy Table to unite yourself to Jesus Christ so that He will make of you other
Christ’s, which happens to those who receive Him worthily.
When you go to Holy Communion you should always have an intention, and say when about
to receive the Body of Our Lord: “O my good Father, who art in heaven, I offer you, at this
moment, your dear Son, such as He was when He was taken down from the Cross, and laid in the
arms of the Holy Virgin, and as she offered Him to You in sacrifice for us. I offer Him to You by
the hands of Mary, to obtain such or such graces, faith, charity, humility.” My children, listen well
to that. Every time I have obtained a grace, I have asked it like this, I have never been disappointed.
4. TO PREPARE WITH FERVOUR.
During the days before Communion, desire to communicate as worthily as possible to have as
much love as all the saints put together. Your mere desire will be rewarded. Do all your actions as a
preparation for Holy Communion. Converse with Jesus Christ who reigns in your heart by His
grace. Think how He will come on the altar and from there into your soul to visit it and to enrich it
with all sorts of good things and happiness. Implore the Blessed Virgin, the angels and the saints to
pray to the good God for you and prepare you to receive Him. The day of your Communion, come
to Holy Mass a short time before it begins. Hear it still better than at other times. Have your beads
or your office book, that your mind and heart may be all the time at the foot of the tabernacle; that
it may long continually for the happy moments when Our Lord will come; that your thoughts may
not be of this world, but all of heaven, and be so lost in God that you seem to be dead to the
world. Make acts with all possible fervour to reanimate in your soul, faith, hope and a great love for
Jesus Christ, who will come soon to make of your heart his tabernacle, or if you wish a little
heaven. My God, what a happiness, what an honour for such miserable creatures like us!
After you have made your acts of preparation, you must offer your Communion for yourself or
for others.
MEDITATION 16: UNWORTHY COMMUNION
UNWORTHY Communions are made very often. How many there are who have the temerity
to come to the Holy Table with sins unconfessed or disguised in Confession. How many have not
the contrition that the good God demands of them, and keep a secret will to commit sin again and
not to make every effort to correct themselves. How many do not avoid the occasions of sin when
they could do so, and bring to the Holy Table enmities in their heart! If ever you have been in these
dispositions when going to Holy Communion, you have been guilty of sacrilege. Horrible crime on
which we are going to meditate.
1. THE UNWORTHY COMMUNICANT IS A TRAITOR AND A HYPOCRITE.
Having lied to the Holy Spirit in Confession by hiding or disguising some sin, he dares, this
wretch, to take his place among the faithful about to eat this bread, with a hypocritical look of
respect! Ah! no, no, nothing prevents the monster; he goes forward to bring about his reprobation.
In vain this loving Saviour, seeing him come to Him, calls out from the tabernacle as to the
perfidious Judas: “My friend, whereto art thou come ?” Why my friend, do you betray your God
and Saviour with a sign of peace! Stop, stop, my son, ah! for mercy’s sake spare Me! But no, no,
neither the remorse of conscience nor the loving reproaches which his God makes to him can
prevent his criminal steps. Ah, he goes forward, he is going to pierce his God and Saviour! Oh,
heavens, how terrible! Can you support without trembling this miserable murder of your Creator?
Ah! is it not the crime of crimes and the abomination in the holy place.
2. THE UNWORTHY COMMUNICANT IS AN UNGRATEFUL PERSON.
“Why do you persecute Me?” Jesus Christ said to the Jews. “Is it because I have opened the
eyes of the blind, made the lame walk, cured the sick and raised the dead? Is it a crime to have
loved you so much?” Such is the language that Jesus Christ speaks to those who profane His
adorable Body and precious Blood. The greatness of their ingratitude is shown in that they outrage
their benefactor through the greatest of his benefits, even worse, they use Himself to insult Him.
Jesus Christ says to us by the mouth of one of the prophets: “If this affront had been offered to Me
by enemies, by infidels who had never had the happiness of knowing Me, or even by heretics born
in error, there might have been some reason for it. But you, He says to us, whom I have set in the
bosom of My Church, you whom I have enriched with My choicest gifts; you who by Baptism have
become My children and heirs to My kingdom! What! is it you who dare to outrage Me by this
horrible sacrilege? What! you can still break the heart of the best of fathers, who has loved you even
unto death. Well! ungrateful ones, are you not satisfied with all the tortures that have been
inflicted on My innocent Body during My sorrowful passion? Oh! for mercy’s sake, spare your God
who has loved you so much; why do you wish to give Me to death a second time, by receiving Me
into a heart stained with sin?”
3. THE UNWORTHY COMMUNICANT IS A PARRICIDE.
Would you know what he does? Listen well so that you may understand your cruelty towards
Jesus Christ. What would you say of a man whose father was about to be led to the place of
execution, if he found that the executioners had not the power to hang him, should say to them:
“You have not the strength. Here are my arms, let them serve you to hang my father”? Such an
action would make you shudder with horror. That would be as it should be. Ah, well, if I dare, I
would say to you that that is still nothing if we compare it with the appalling crime those commit
who communicate unworthily. What indeed is natural death, even violent death, if we compare it
to that which the sinner inflicts on Jesus Christ in the Eucharistic. The Jews persecuted Jesus
Christ during His mortal life, but the unworthy communicant is the dwelling place of His glory.
While Jesus Christ was on earth, there was only one Calvary where He could be crucified, but
here there are as many crosses as there are sacrilegious hearts. Jesus Christ died only once a natural
death, but this death that you inflict on Him by unworthy Communions, ah! when will they end!
O what a long agony!
On Calvary, even the most insensible creatures seemed to be afflicted by the death of the
Saviour, and seemed in some way to wish to share in His sufferings. But here, nothing of all that
appears. He is insulted, outraged, murdered and slaughtered by a vile nothing, and all is done in
silence. The sun is not darkened, and the earth does not tremble, the altar is not torn down. This
good God so unworthily outraged, can He not complain even more justly than from the tree of the
Cross, that He is abandoned? Ought He not to cry out: Ah I my Father, why have You abandoned
Me to the fury of My enemies? Must I then die every moment? My God, how can it be that a
Christian can have the audacity to go to the Holy Table with sin in his heart, and so put You to
death there? There is neither Cross nor Calvary, as formerly, he says to the demon, but I have
found something to take its place. How? replies the demon, very astonished. it is my heart. Be
prepared. I am going to seize Jesus. He has sent you to Hell, now take your revenge, slaughter Him
on this cross. O my God, can one think of this without trembling with horror? No, no, if there
were a thousand hells that would not be enough to avenge such a crime. Alas, says St. Paul, the
unworthy communicant eats and drinks his judgment (1 Cor. x. 29). O terrible misfortune! It is
not on paper that the decree of reprobation of these sacrilegious ones is written, but in their own
hearts. At the hour of death Jesus Christ will come down with a torch in His hand into the
sacrilegious hearts, and will find there His adorable Body, so often profaned, which will cry to
heaven for vengeance. O divine Saviour, will the anger and power of your Father be strong enough
to cast down these miserable Judases into the depths of the abyss.
UNWORTHY Communions are made very often. How many there are who have the temerity
to come to the Holy Table with sins unconfessed or disguised in Confession. How many have not
the contrition that the good God demands of them, and keep a secret will to commit sin again and
not to make every effort to correct themselves. How many do not avoid the occasions of sin when
they could do so, and bring to the Holy Table enmities in their heart! If ever you have been in these
dispositions when going to Holy Communion, you have been guilty of sacrilege. Horrible crime on
which we are going to meditate.
1. THE UNWORTHY COMMUNICANT IS A TRAITOR AND A HYPOCRITE.
Having lied to the Holy Spirit in Confession by hiding or disguising some sin, he dares, this
wretch, to take his place among the faithful about to eat this bread, with a hypocritical look of
respect! Ah! no, no, nothing prevents the monster; he goes forward to bring about his reprobation.
In vain this loving Saviour, seeing him come to Him, calls out from the tabernacle as to the
perfidious Judas: “My friend, whereto art thou come ?” Why my friend, do you betray your God
and Saviour with a sign of peace! Stop, stop, my son, ah! for mercy’s sake spare Me! But no, no,
neither the remorse of conscience nor the loving reproaches which his God makes to him can
prevent his criminal steps. Ah, he goes forward, he is going to pierce his God and Saviour! Oh,
heavens, how terrible! Can you support without trembling this miserable murder of your Creator?
Ah! is it not the crime of crimes and the abomination in the holy place.
2. THE UNWORTHY COMMUNICANT IS AN UNGRATEFUL PERSON.
“Why do you persecute Me?” Jesus Christ said to the Jews. “Is it because I have opened the
eyes of the blind, made the lame walk, cured the sick and raised the dead? Is it a crime to have
loved you so much?” Such is the language that Jesus Christ speaks to those who profane His
adorable Body and precious Blood. The greatness of their ingratitude is shown in that they outrage
their benefactor through the greatest of his benefits, even worse, they use Himself to insult Him.
Jesus Christ says to us by the mouth of one of the prophets: “If this affront had been offered to Me
by enemies, by infidels who had never had the happiness of knowing Me, or even by heretics born
in error, there might have been some reason for it. But you, He says to us, whom I have set in the
bosom of My Church, you whom I have enriched with My choicest gifts; you who by Baptism have
become My children and heirs to My kingdom! What! is it you who dare to outrage Me by this
horrible sacrilege? What! you can still break the heart of the best of fathers, who has loved you even
unto death. Well! ungrateful ones, are you not satisfied with all the tortures that have been
inflicted on My innocent Body during My sorrowful passion? Oh! for mercy’s sake, spare your God
who has loved you so much; why do you wish to give Me to death a second time, by receiving Me
into a heart stained with sin?”
3. THE UNWORTHY COMMUNICANT IS A PARRICIDE.
Would you know what he does? Listen well so that you may understand your cruelty towards
Jesus Christ. What would you say of a man whose father was about to be led to the place of
execution, if he found that the executioners had not the power to hang him, should say to them:
“You have not the strength. Here are my arms, let them serve you to hang my father”? Such an
action would make you shudder with horror. That would be as it should be. Ah, well, if I dare, I
would say to you that that is still nothing if we compare it with the appalling crime those commit
who communicate unworthily. What indeed is natural death, even violent death, if we compare it
to that which the sinner inflicts on Jesus Christ in the Eucharistic. The Jews persecuted Jesus
Christ during His mortal life, but the unworthy communicant is the dwelling place of His glory.
While Jesus Christ was on earth, there was only one Calvary where He could be crucified, but
here there are as many crosses as there are sacrilegious hearts. Jesus Christ died only once a natural
death, but this death that you inflict on Him by unworthy Communions, ah! when will they end!
O what a long agony!
On Calvary, even the most insensible creatures seemed to be afflicted by the death of the
Saviour, and seemed in some way to wish to share in His sufferings. But here, nothing of all that
appears. He is insulted, outraged, murdered and slaughtered by a vile nothing, and all is done in
silence. The sun is not darkened, and the earth does not tremble, the altar is not torn down. This
good God so unworthily outraged, can He not complain even more justly than from the tree of the
Cross, that He is abandoned? Ought He not to cry out: Ah I my Father, why have You abandoned
Me to the fury of My enemies? Must I then die every moment? My God, how can it be that a
Christian can have the audacity to go to the Holy Table with sin in his heart, and so put You to
death there? There is neither Cross nor Calvary, as formerly, he says to the demon, but I have
found something to take its place. How? replies the demon, very astonished. it is my heart. Be
prepared. I am going to seize Jesus. He has sent you to Hell, now take your revenge, slaughter Him
on this cross. O my God, can one think of this without trembling with horror? No, no, if there
were a thousand hells that would not be enough to avenge such a crime. Alas, says St. Paul, the
unworthy communicant eats and drinks his judgment (1 Cor. x. 29). O terrible misfortune! It is
not on paper that the decree of reprobation of these sacrilegious ones is written, but in their own
hearts. At the hour of death Jesus Christ will come down with a torch in His hand into the
sacrilegious hearts, and will find there His adorable Body, so often profaned, which will cry to
heaven for vengeance. O divine Saviour, will the anger and power of your Father be strong enough
to cast down these miserable Judases into the depths of the abyss.
MEDITATION 17: DISPOSITIONS FOR HOLY COMMUNION
Communion! Oh, what an honour God does to His creature. He rests on his tongue, passes by
his palate as by a little road, and stops in his heart as on a throne.
Let your modesty be known to all, in your dress, in your looks, in your attitude, in your walk,
because the Lord is near.
To the dispositions of soul necessary for a good Communion must be added certain
dispositions of the body which this sacrament demands.
1. ONE MUST BE SUITABLY CLOTHED.
One must be suitably c1othed, not richly clad, but respectably. It is not becoming in young
people to make a display of vanity in going to receive a God humiliated and despised. My God! My
God! what a contradiction:
they seem to make no difference between the Holy Table and a ball or dance.
It is also disrespectful to Jesus Christ to communicate with one’s clothes soiled or torn. See
that they are clean. Change your linen if you can. Have your hair, face and hands in good
condition. The majesty of the King of Glory who wishes to come into our hearts demands at least
this care. But labourers should not hesitate to come to the Holy Table in their working clothes if
they are in a hurry, and if they are obliged to be at work immediately after receiving Holy
Communion. According to the thought of a Father of the Church, what Christ desires is not
garments of silk, embroidered with gold, but souls of gold.
2. KEEP YOUR BODY PERFECTLY PURE.
Your body is not a profane thing, but something holy, august and sacred. It is the dwelling
place of Jesus Christ, and the temple of the Holy Ghost. Even though the material violation of the
body cannot wrest from the soul the flowers of its virginity, strive with all your might to preserve
your mind, your imagination, your senses, and even your flesh, from all stain, even involuntary. St.
John Chrysostom says that the mouth which receives Jesus Christ, and the body in which He rests
ought to be as pure as the rays of the sun. Your exterior ought to convey to all who see you, that
you are preparing for something great. Approach the Holy Table with great modesty. Kneel down
and try to enkindle your faith, so that you may be sensible of the greatness of your happiness. Take
care not to look about you. Keep your eyes lowered and your hands joined, and say the Confiteor.
While you are waiting for Communion, stir up in your heart a great love for Jesus Christ, and
humbly beg Him to deign to come to your poor and miserable heart.
