03-18-2021, 07:47 PM
MEDITATION 8: DISREGARD FOR THE BREAD FROM HEAVEN
“I AM with you said Jesus, the living Bread come down from heaven. He who eats this Bread
shall live forever.”
I believe, I adore, because you have the words of eternal life. No one else can give it to me, and
I know that apart from you there is only feebleness and decay. Grant, O Jesus, that I may fear above
all things the indifference which, keeping me at a distance from the Holy Table, would deprive me
of an increase of life divine and lead me progressively to death.
1. INDIFFERENCE TO HOLY COMMUNION IS SOMETIMES A SIGN OF TEPIDITY.
You who only communicate rarely are like someone between two sleeps. You know that Jesus
Christ is truly in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, that this food is absolutely necessary for your poor
soul. Nevertheless, one sees in you little desire.
There are long intervals between your Confessions and Communions. You decide to go
because of a great feast or a jubilee or a mission, or because others are going, and not because your
poor soul needs it. Not only do you not try to merit this happiness, but you do not even envy those
who taste it more often. Thus you imitate the Jews. They are reproached for refusing shelter to
Jesus Christ on the first Christmas night although they did not know Him. You treat Him with the
same discourtesy, you who neglect to receive Him into your hearts in Holy Communion. Do not
forget that at the Particular Judgment Jesus Christ will judge us on all the good we could have
done. He will show you all the sacraments that you could have received during your life. How many
more times you could have received His Body and His Blood if you had wished to lead a better life.
Ah, great God!
2. INDIFFERENCE TOWARDS HOLY COMMUNION PUTS OUR SALVATION IN DANGER.
Here are Christians who are poor in spiritual goods, who are subject to a thousand infirmities,
who are weak and languishing. My God! how then can they remain three, four or five and six
months without giving this heavenly food to their souls.
Beside the beautiful Sacrament, they are like someone who is dying of thirst beside a river, and
would only have to bend his head to drink, or like a man who remains poor beside a treasure, who
need only stretch out his hand.
Having a remedy so efficacious for curing their soul and a food so capable of conserving its
health, how is it that they let it die of misery? My God! what misfortune and what blindness!
Alas! let us say it groaning. One spares nothing for a body which sooner or later will be
destroyed and eaten by worms, and a soul created to the image of God, a soul that is immortal, is
despised and treated with the greatest cruelty. Is it not, in effect, to treat it without pity, to let it die
of starvation, refusing it the bread of life which alone can sustain it?
But, we are peaceful and happy in this state. Yet you risk being surprised by death and cast into
hell.
Is it because the devil is your master? If your faith was not dead, what confusion you would feel
at seeing your father, or mother or brother or sister, or one of your neighbours go to the Holy
Table to be fed with the adorable Body of Jesus Christ, and you, yourself, abstaining from it! O my
God! what a misfortune! So great that one cannot understand it!
“I AM with you said Jesus, the living Bread come down from heaven. He who eats this Bread
shall live forever.”
I believe, I adore, because you have the words of eternal life. No one else can give it to me, and
I know that apart from you there is only feebleness and decay. Grant, O Jesus, that I may fear above
all things the indifference which, keeping me at a distance from the Holy Table, would deprive me
of an increase of life divine and lead me progressively to death.
1. INDIFFERENCE TO HOLY COMMUNION IS SOMETIMES A SIGN OF TEPIDITY.
You who only communicate rarely are like someone between two sleeps. You know that Jesus
Christ is truly in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, that this food is absolutely necessary for your poor
soul. Nevertheless, one sees in you little desire.
There are long intervals between your Confessions and Communions. You decide to go
because of a great feast or a jubilee or a mission, or because others are going, and not because your
poor soul needs it. Not only do you not try to merit this happiness, but you do not even envy those
who taste it more often. Thus you imitate the Jews. They are reproached for refusing shelter to
Jesus Christ on the first Christmas night although they did not know Him. You treat Him with the
same discourtesy, you who neglect to receive Him into your hearts in Holy Communion. Do not
forget that at the Particular Judgment Jesus Christ will judge us on all the good we could have
done. He will show you all the sacraments that you could have received during your life. How many
more times you could have received His Body and His Blood if you had wished to lead a better life.
Ah, great God!
2. INDIFFERENCE TOWARDS HOLY COMMUNION PUTS OUR SALVATION IN DANGER.
Here are Christians who are poor in spiritual goods, who are subject to a thousand infirmities,
who are weak and languishing. My God! how then can they remain three, four or five and six
months without giving this heavenly food to their souls.
Beside the beautiful Sacrament, they are like someone who is dying of thirst beside a river, and
would only have to bend his head to drink, or like a man who remains poor beside a treasure, who
need only stretch out his hand.
Having a remedy so efficacious for curing their soul and a food so capable of conserving its
health, how is it that they let it die of misery? My God! what misfortune and what blindness!
Alas! let us say it groaning. One spares nothing for a body which sooner or later will be
destroyed and eaten by worms, and a soul created to the image of God, a soul that is immortal, is
despised and treated with the greatest cruelty. Is it not, in effect, to treat it without pity, to let it die
of starvation, refusing it the bread of life which alone can sustain it?
But, we are peaceful and happy in this state. Yet you risk being surprised by death and cast into
hell.
Is it because the devil is your master? If your faith was not dead, what confusion you would feel
at seeing your father, or mother or brother or sister, or one of your neighbours go to the Holy
Table to be fed with the adorable Body of Jesus Christ, and you, yourself, abstaining from it! O my
God! what a misfortune! So great that one cannot understand it!