Other Considerations and Modes of Preparation, Very Useful for Holy Communion

AMONG other considerations wherewith we may prepare ourselves for Holy Communion, a very proper one is the memory of the Passion, considering the immense love wherewith the Son of God offered Himself for us on the Cross. For one of the chief reasons why Christ our Redeemer instituted this Divine Sacrament was that we might have an ever-living memorial of His Passion; and so He bade us remember it every time we celebrated. Do this in memory of me (Luke xxii. 19). And the glorious Apostle St. Paul repeats the same to us: As often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye shall show forth the death of the Lord (I Cor. xi. 26). And so St. Bonaventure strongly advised this devotion, that every time we go to Communion we should reflect upon some stage of the Passion; and he says that he made use of this practice himself and that thereby his soul melted away in love of God.

The blessed St. Chrysostom says that he who goes to Communion should make account that every time he communicates he puts his mouth to that precious wound in the side of Christ and sucks His blood, partaking of all that by that blood He has won for us. St. Catherine of Siena, every time that she communicated, made account that she went as she did when she was an infant to the breast of her mother. Others, considering how this Sovereign Sacrament is a memorial of the Passion of Christ, imagine Christ crucified and make a Calvary of their heart, and plant there the Lord’s Cross, and embracing it gather in their mouths the drops of blood that fall from thence. Others make account that they find themselves at the supper at which Christ our Redeemer supped with His disciples on the night of His Passion, as though they were seated there with the apostles, and received at His hand His holy body and blood. And this is no mere study and representation of that supper, but in sober truth it is the selfsame supper and the selfsame banquet; and the selfsame Lord, Who then gave His body to His apostles, the same now gives it to us, by the ministry of His priests, with the same love wherewith He then gave it.

It is also a very good preparation to exercise ourselves in the consideration of the following points. First, who is the Lord that is coming? He is the Creator of all things, King and Lord of heaven and earth, God of infinite majesty and perfection. Secondly, to whom is He coming; that is, to me, who am dust and ashes and have many times offended Him. Thirdly, for what end is He coming; that is, to communicate to me the fruit of His Passion and the most precious gifts of His grace. Fourthly, what moves Him to come; that is, not for any interest of His own, since He is Lord of all things and has need of nothing, but out of pure love and desire of the salvation of my soul, that it may be ever accompanied by His grace. Fifthly, to exercise oneself in acts of the three theological virtues, faith, hope, and charity.

And since we cannot worthily prepare ourselves to receive the Lord unless He gives it to us so to do, we must beg Him to prepare and trim our soul with humility, purity, love, and reverence as befitting, alleging to that end that common plea: Lord, if a rich and powerful king were to seek lodging in the house of a poor widow, he could not expect her to furnish the place for him to repose in, but would send beforehand his furniture and servants to put it in order. Do so, then, Thou, O Lord, with my soul, since Thou art coming to lodge therein; send Thy furniture before Thee, and Thy angels to adorn and put it in fitting order to receive such a Lord and such a Spouse, according to that saying of the Apocalypse: J John saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from heaven, adorned for God [dnd tot deot] as a spouse dressed for her bridegroom (Apoc. xxi. 2). Then turning to the sovereign Virgin and to the saints for whom we have special devotion, let us humbly beg of them to secure the fulfilment of this petition.

Besides these preparations, we will add here another very easy one, very useful, and very consoling. When you fail to attain that fervor and those inflamed desires which you wish, and which it were reasonable you should have to ° receive so great a Lord, practise yourself in conceiving a great will and desire of conceiving such desires, and thereby you shall supply what is wanting to you; for God beholds the heart, and will receive and accept what you desire to feel as though you actually felt it, according to the saying of the prophet: God hath heard the desire of the poor: his ear hath heard the preparedness of their heart (Psalm ix. 14). Blosius says that God taught this devotion and mode of preparation to St. Mechtildis. The Lord said to her one time: When thou art to receive Holy Communion, desire to the glory of My name to feel all the desire and love wherewith the most inflamed heart ever burned to unite itself with Me, and in that way thou mayest approach Me, since I will set My eyes on that love and take it as thou desirest to feel it. The same is read of St. Gertrude. One day that this saint was preparing to receive the Most Holy Sacrament, she was much pained at not being so well prepared as she could wish, and begged the glorious Virgin Mary and all the saints to offer to God for her all the preparation and merits with which any one of them any day had been prepared to receive Him; whereupon the Lord said to her: “Actually before the courtiers of heaven thou appearest with that preparation thou hast asked for.” Thus it will be a very good disposition and preparation to desire to receive this Most Holy Sacrament with that fervor and love wherewith the greatest saints approached it, and to desire and beg the Lord that whatever is wanting to us, He may supply by the merits and virtues of Jesus Christ and His saints. We may make use of the same method for our thanksgiving, as we shall presently say; and in the treatise On Prayer we mentioned this method of supplying for our defects.

With these and the like considerations we should awaken in ourselves that actual devotion wherewith the saints say we should approach Holy Communion, sometimes using one, sometimes another, as each shall find it best. But it is to be observed that to prepare ourselves in this manner, and do the part that we ought, it is necessary to take some time to spend thereon. Our Father Francis Borgia, in the treatise he composed on Preparation for Holy Communion, assigns three days for preparation and three days afterwards for thanksgiving, and gives many considerations and exercises to occupy one for those three days. And it would be a very good means to live all the week, and all one’s life, in devout recollection; partly in expectation of receiving so great a Lord, partly in memory of the benefit received. For the mere thought, “Tomorrow I am to go to Communion,” or the remembrance, ‘Today or yesterday I went to Communion,” is enough to move the mind to recollection. But if the time that we take for this preparation be not so much as that, at least it may be expected that on a Communion morning we should spend our meditation, or part of it, in one or other of the aforesaid considerations. And it will be a great help the night before Communion, when we are going to bed, to have some care or thought to the effect that “tomorrow I am going to Communion,” and as often as we awake in the night, to let it be with the same thought. For if for our daily meditation our holy Father requires this in the Additions which he gives to help the same, with how much more reason may we do it for the day on which we are to receive so august a Sacrament?