This reflection is taken from the writings of St. Alphonsus de Liguori, Bishop and Doctor of the Church, from his book, PREPARATION FOR DEATH. St. Alphonsus has written this book in order to teach us to die well, but how shall we do so if we do not reflect on that great hour of eternity and prepare and pray? Scripture warns us, “In all thy works remember thy last end, and thou shalt never sin.” Ecclus. 7:40. Scripture quotations will be taken from the Douay Rheims Bible, which can be found at this site, drbo.org. Remember man that one day you shall die, you shall appear before Jesus Christ, and you will be judged for all the good or evil you have done in your life, even “every idle word,” that you will be damned for all eternity, or, you will be saved for all eternity. “O that they would be wise and would understand, and would provide for their last end.” Deut. 32:29. In that sad story, Cry of a Lost Soul, which can be found online, she said, “All those in hell either did not pray, or did not pray enough. To pray is the easiest thing man can do on earth, and God has tied up salvation to this very easy thing. Especially to her who is the Mother of Christ, who name we never pronounce. Devotion to her rescues numberless souls from the devil, whom sin would infallibly give to him.” Why? Because we have offended Jesus Christ so many times by our sins that He will not give us the graces we need because we have made ourselves unworthy so that St. Augustine said, “There are many graces God wants to give to us but we are not worthy. The only way He will give them to us is through His Blessed Mother.” Now, let us consider the great value of frequent Holy Communion for the sanctification and salvation of our soul.
How much Jesus Christ desires to unite Himself to us.
Let us consider the great ardor with which Jesus Christ desires that we should receive him in Holy Communion. “Jesus knowing that his hour was come.” (1) But how could Jesus Christ call the night on which His bitter passion should commence, “His hour?” He calls it ‘His hour’ because on that night he was to institute this divine sacrament in order to unite himself entirely to his beloved souls. This desire made him say, ”With desire I have desired to eat this pasch with you.” (2) Words by which the Redeemer wished to show us the great ardor with which he desired to unite himself to each of us in this sacrament. ‘With desire I have desired.’ Words which, according to St. Laurence Justinian, proceeded from his immense love for us. “This is the language of the most burning love.” The Redeemer wished to give himself to us under the appearance of bread, that all might be able to receive him. Had he given himself to us under the appearance of costly food, the poor would not be able to receive him, and had he instituted the Holy Sacrament under the appearance of any other cheap food, this perhaps would not be found in all parts of the world. Jesus wished to leave himself under the species of bread, because it costs little, and is found in every country; so that all persons in all places may find him and receive him.
Through his great desire that we should receive him, the Redeemer not only presses us to receive him by so many invitations: “Come, eat My bread, and drink the wine which I have mingled for you.” (1) “Eat, O friends, and drink, and be inebriated, My dearly beloved.” (2) but He also commands us to receive him, “Take ye, and eat: this is My body.” St. Matt. 26:26. (3) Moreover, he endeavors to allure us to the holy table by promises of eternal life. “He that eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, hath life everlasting…He that eateth this bread shall live forever.” St. John 6:55, 59. He also threatens to exclude from paradise all who neglect to receive him in the holy sacrament. “Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall have no life in which.” Verse 54. (Pretty good reason for non-Catholics to come into the true Church). These invitations, promises, and threats all proceed from the ardent desire of Jesus Christ to unite himself to us in this sacrament. And this desire springs from the great love which he bears us; for, as St. Francis de Sales says, “The end of love is nothing else than to be united with the object of love.” And because in this Sacrament Jesus Christ unites himself entirely to the soul – “He that eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, abideth in Me and I in him,” verse 57. Therefore , He desires so ardently that we should receive him. Our Lord said one day to St. Mechtilde: “The bee does not cast itself on the flower from which it sucks the honey, with as much ardor as I come to a soul that desires to receive me.”
Oh! If the faithful understood the great blessing which Holy Communion brings to the soul! Jesus is the Lord of all riches; for His Father has made him master of all things. “Knowing that the Father had given Him all things into his hands.” St. John 13:3. Hence, when Jesus Christ comes to a soul in Holy Communion, he brings with him immense treasures of graces. “Now all good things,” says Soloman, speaking of the Eternal Wisdom, “came to me together with her.”
St. Denis says that the Most Holy Sacrament has the greatest efficacy in sanctifying the soul. And St. Vincent Ferrer asserts that the soul derives greater profit from one Communion, than from fasting a week on bread and water. The Communion, as the Council of Trent teaches, is that great remedy which delivers us from venial sins, and preserves us from mortal sins. Hence, St. Ignatius, martyr, has called the Most Holy Sacrament, the medicine of immortality. Innocent III. has said that, by his Passion, Jesus Christ has delivered us from the punishment of sin; but by the Eucharist, He preserves us from the commission of sin.”
Moreover, this sacrament kindles the fire of divine love. “He brought me into the cellar of wine; he set in order charity in me. Stay me up with flowers, compass me about with apples; because I languish with love.” Cant. 2:4. St. Gregory of Nyssa says that Holy Communion is this cellar of wine, in which the soul is so inebriated with divine love, that she forgets the earth and all creatures; it is thus the soul languishes with holy charity. The Venerable Father Francis Olimpio, of the Order of Theatines, used to say that there is nothing that so powerfully inflames the soul with divine love, as Holy Communion. God is love, and a fire of love. “God is charity.” 1 John 4:8. “My God is a consuming fire.” And this fire of love the Eternal Word came to light upon the earth. “I am come to cast fire on the earth; and what will I that it be kindled?” Oh! What burning flames of holy love does Jesus kindle in the souls who receive him in this sacrament with a desire of being inflamed with his love. St. Catherine of Sienna saw, one day, in the hands of a priest, Jesus, in the Holy Sacrament, like a furnace of love; and wondered that the hearts of all men were not set on fire and reduced to ashes by the flames which issued from the Holy Eucharist. St. Rose of Lima used to say that, in receiving Jesus Christ, she felt as if she received the sun. Hence she sent forth from her countenance rays which dazzled the sight, and the heat emitted from her mouth after Communion was so intense, that the person who reached her a drink felt her hand scorched as if she approached a furnace. In visiting the Most Holy Sacrament, St. Wencelaus, king and martyr, was inflamed, even externally, with such a degree of heat that the servant who accompanied him, when obliged to walk on the snow, trod in the footsteps of the saint, and thus felt no cold. “The Eucharist,” says St. John Chrysostom, “Is a fire which inflames us, that, like lions breathing fire, we may retire from the altar being made terrible to the devil.” The Holy Sacrament is a fire which inflames the soul to such a degree, that we ought to depart from the altar breathing such flames of love that the devil will no longer dare to tempt us.
But some will say: I do not communicate often because I am cold in divine love. But, says Gerson, he who acts in this manner is like the man who refuses to approach the fire because he feels cold. The greater then, our tepidity, the more frequently we ought to receive the Most Holy Sacrament, provided we have the desire to love God. “If,” says St. Francis de Sales, (in his Devout Life, chap. XXI), you are asked why you communicate so frequently, say that two sorts of persons ought to communicate often – the perfect and the imperfect: the perfect to preserve perfection, and the imperfect to acquire perfection.” St. Bonaventure says, “Though you feel tepid, approach, trusting in the mercy of God. The more a person feels sick, the more he stands in need of a physician.” And Jesus Christ says to St. Mechtilde: “When you are to communicate, desire to have all the love any soul has ever had for me, and I will accept your love in proportion to the ardor for which you wish for it.”
St. Louis de Montfort recommended asking the Blessed Mother to lend us her heart to receive Our Lord in Holy Communion. If you think about it, if Our Lord were coming to your house today, and it was unfit for him, but you had the means, would you not go out and rent a beautiful hall for him, beautifully decorated and all, to make a fitting reception for him? Mary in a spiritual sense, is that beautiful hall, gloriously decorated with all the most sublime virtues! Here is a suggested prayer, or use one of your own:
O dearest Mother, please let me borrow thy Immaculate Heart, thy golden heart of charity, in place of my sinful heart, to receive thy Divine Son Jesus, that He may be received into a heart that is most pure, humble, charitable, obedient, patient, kind, compassionate, magnanimous, and exceeding in all other virtues. Please help me to receive the living Christ from the altar of the Mass with something of your reverence and love, and make my heart a fit abiding place for the adorable Body and Blood of Jesus in Holy Communion. Amen.
In this reflection we have attempted to show the great need and advantage of Holy Communion for the soul. However, in our day, there are countless desecrations of the Eucharist, especially from Communion in the hand, where unconsecrated hands are constantly touching the Host. St. Thomas Acquinas said, “Out of reverence for the Sacrament, nothing touches it except what is consecrated…the priest’s hands, the chalice, etc.” This is the teaching of the Council of Trent. It was “out of reverence” that the Ark of the Covenant, in the Old Testament, was forbidden to be touched, and Oza touched it, and God struck him dead for it! Pope Paul VI, in Memoriale Domini said, “The traditional manner of receiving,” (On the tongue), was to be retained.” Desecrations of countless particles which break off in people’s hands, and the people do not look in their hands, so Our Lord finds himself being dropped all over the place, possibly being trodden underfoot by the people following! “Have mercy on me, O God, for man has trodden me underfoot.” Psalms 55:2.
The clergy themselves do not inform the people to look in their hands. In 45 years, I’ve yet to hear a single priest inform people to look in their hands for Particles, and remember, the Council of Trent said if it is visible, that is Jesus Christ there! Hosts have oftentimes been found on the floor, in pews, stolen from churches for black Masses, and all sorts of abominations and sacrileges! To top it all off, women are now permitted in all churches to come immodest and indecently dressed, contaminating the House of God, tempting others in their presence, distracting at Mass, committing sacrilegious Communions! All with the silent consent of the clergy! Contrary to the Decree on Modesty by Pope Pius XI; tinyurl.com/tdakwyaj.
What should we do, who are aware of all these abominations? We should pray, we should do penance, and we should receive Our Lord often in reparation for these heinous crimes against his Divinity, especially on the Frist Fridays of the month,* and make reparation as the Angel of Portugal taught the children of Fatima. He came with the Blessed Sacrament, left it suspended in the air with the Host above the chalice bleeding into the chalice, ( a Eucharistic miracle). He then got down on the ground, bowing low with his head to the ground, saying these words: “O Most Holy Trinity, Father , Son, and Holy Ghost, I adore Thee profoundly. I offer Thee the most precious Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges, and indifference, by which He is grievously offended. By the infinite merits of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg the conversions of poor sinners.” Three times he says this prayer with the children. Then he arises, gives the Holy Communion to the children and says, “Take and drink the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, horribly outraged by the sins of ungrateful men.” Let us do likewise.
There have been many Eucharistic miracles throughout the centuries to confirm Our Lord’s teaching on the Holy Eucharist, that it is indeed his real body and blood, just as he taught. “The Lord worked with the apostles, and confirmed the word with signs that followed.” St.Mark 16:20. Three sources regarding the teaching on the Eucharist: The Church, which has taught this truth for almost 2,000 years; the Holy Bible which backs up what the Church teaches; and the Eucharistic Miracles, which confirm the other two. We have no excuse not to believe this teaching on the Eucharist. Those who deny this truth are heretics, and they will have no hope on the day of judgement. Heretics, St. Paul says, ”go by their own judgement,” and not the teaching of the Church. ”A man that is a heretic, after the first and second admonition, avoid: Knowing that he, that is such an one, is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned by his own judgment.” Titus 3:10-11. A heretic makes Jesus Christ a liar because he refuses to believe what he said. ”He that believeth in the Son of God, hath the testimony of God in himself. He that believeth not the Son, maketh him a liar: because he believeth not in the testimony which God hath testified of his Son.” 1 John 5:10; and St. John in his Gospel says this man will not see life (heaven), but the wrath of God abideth on him (hell). ”He that believeth in the Son, hath life everlasting; but he that believeth not the Son, shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.” St. John 3:36.
*St. Martin of Tours has a First Friday/First Saturday Mass and devotions every month in reparation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Mass at 7PM with prayers and devotions following till midnight, with opportunity for confession, and midnight Mass in reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. In the Louisville, Ky area. If you have found this article helpful, please consider sharing it with others.