Of Another Main Fruit Which We Should Gather from Holy Communion, Which Is te Offer and Resign Ourselves Entirely into the Hands of God; and of the Preparation and Thanksgiving to Be Made Conformably Thereto

ONE of the principal results that we ought to secure from Holy Communion is to resign ourselves and place ourselves entirely in the hands of God, like a little clay in the hands of the potter, that He may do with us what He wishes, as He wishes and when He wishes, and in what manner He wishes, without excepting or reserving anything. The Son of God offered Himself in sacrifice entirely to His Father, giving for us all His blood and His life; and every day He gives Himself to us as food in this Most Holy Sacrament, His whole self, His body, blood, soul, and divinity; it will only be reasonable that we should offer and deliver ourselves over wholly and entirely to Him. This some say is the proper meaning of communicating—to share and share alike, to do with God as He does with you. He gives to you and shares with you all He has; do you give Him all you have.

The same should also be our thanks after Holy Communion. What shall I render to the Lord for all he hath rendered to me? (Psalm exv. 12). What for so many favors and benefits, especially for that which I have just now received? Do you know what He wishes you to offer Him? What we have just been saying all along: Son, give me thy heart (Prov. xxiii. 26). That holy man [Thomas A Kempis] puts this very well: “What more do I ask of thee than that thou wouldst make it thy endeavor to resign thyself to Me entirely? Whatever else thou givest Me besides thyself, I care nothing for it, for I seek not thy gift, but thee. As it would not be enough for thee to have all other good things besides Me, so nothing can please Me, whatever thou givest, if thou offer not thyself. Offer thyself to Me, and give thyself wholly for God, and thy offering shall be acceptable” (‘Imitation of Christ,” iv. 8). St. Augustine says that what displeased God in the sacrifice which Cain offered Him, and the reason why He did not accept the sacrifice at his hands as He did at those of his brother Abel, was because he did not make a fair division with God, since he gave God something of what was his without giving and making over himself—dans Deo aliquid suum, sibi autem se ipsum. He says that they do the same who offer God something else, but offer not their own will. “The kingdom of heaven asks no other price but yourself. It is worth exactly what you are. Give yourself, and you shall have it.”

This, then, is the offering and entire resignation of ourselves into the hands of God that should occupy and hold our attention after Holy Communion. And the resignation should not be only in general, but we should break the matter up and descend to particular cases, resigning and conforming ourselves to the will of God as well for sickness as for health, for death as for life, for temptation as for consolation, specifying that for which each one thinks he would feel greater repugnance and difficulty, offering himself for it to the Lord in thanksgiving, leaving out no place, nor office, nor grade, however lowly and abject it be; this should be done until nothing occurs to us for which we do not feel our will quite in conformity and union with that of God. To this end there is a very good and devout prayer put by our Father in the Book of Spiritual Exercises. ‘Take, O Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my whole will, all that I have and possess. Thou hast given it to me; to Thee, O Lord, I return it; all is Thine, dispose of it according to Thy entire will. Give me Thy love and Thy grace, for that is enough for me.”

Here we should also exercise and put ourselves in action, making acts of various virtues, particularly those we stand most in need of, because all the flavor of anything that anyone needs or requires may be found in this divine manna, having the flavor of everything delicious to the taste (Wisdom xvi. 20). It has the flavors of all virtues. Thus one time you can put yourself in action and exercise yourself in one virtue, and another time in another, always keeping an eye on what you most need. If you feel the need of humility, contrive to make it give you the taste of humility, since you will find a good pattern and taste there of that, seeing the Son of God clad in the accidents of bread, which as being but accidents are more poor and lowly than the swaddling clothes and clouts in which His Mother wrapped Him at Bethlehem. And what greater humility, what deeper abasement, can be imagined than that God should make Himself as food for us to eat Him—that we should spread on that table of the altar there the altar cloths, the corporals as table linen, the paten for a plate, the chalice for a drinking-cup, that we should handle Him with our hands, and receive Him into our mouth and stomach! What greater abasement could there be of God, what greater exaltation of man? In some sort humility shines forth here more than in the work of the Incarnation. Exercise yourself, then, and make acts hereupon until you feel your soul being saturated and soaked through and through. Offer to the Lord in thanksgiving your contempt of all the honor and esteem of the world, and embrace the prospect of being disparaged and held of small account for His love.

It is likewise very good to come down to certain particular and trifling things, and offer them to the Lord in thanksgiving. Everyone knows more or less his own faults, and realizes what is the greatest hindrance to his spiritual advancement and what it is that occasions his most ordinary falls. Let him try at every Communion to sacrifice and offer to God something of that in thanksgiving. You are fond of self-indulgence and your own comforts, and wish nothing to be wanting to you; make an offering to the Lord and mortify yourself in that, today in one thing and another day in another. You are fond of talking and losing time; mortify yourself in that, and offer it to the Lord in another Communion. You are so fond of your own will that, not to encounter a little mortification and trouble, you refuse to give pleasure or do a service to your brothers, and sometimes speak to them in a harsh and disagreeable way; take care to overcome yourself in that, and offer it to the Lord in another Communion. And as we said in treating of meditation, that it is a good thing to propose in it something to do that very day, so, too, at Communion it will be very good to form a resolution to overcome and mortify yourself in something that very day and offer that mortification to the Lord in thanksgiving. Make account that this is what the Lord asks of you in return for the favors and benefits you have received; that God asks nothing else of us, no other return but that we should amend our lives and correct whatever we know to be displeasing to His Divine Majesty. This is the best thanksgiving that we can make after Communion, and the most agreeable service that we can offer. The three ways of doing things that we have spoken of above may be applied to thanksgiving: the first, by inward acknowledgment of benefits; the second, by extolling and thanking our benefactor in words; the third, by deeds; and this third is the best thanksgiving. This, then, is what we say now. Our whole effort must not go in considerations; good as they may he, deeds are better, and considerations should be made to come to deeds.

I say the same of preparation for Communion. Though this special preparation which we usually make by certain considerations before Communion is very good, and no one ought to omit it, since the reverence of so high a Sacrament requires everyone in this respect also to do his best; yet the best and chiefest preparation must be a good life, and daily improvement in the perfection of our daily actions, so as to approach this Divine Sacrament with greater and more spotless purity, according to that saying of those glorious Fathers and doctors of the Church, Ambrose and Augustine: “Live in such fashion that thou mayest deserve to receive this Most Holy Sacrament daily’—Sic vive ut quotidie merearis accipere. So Father Master Avila, in a letter that he wrote on this subject to a person under his direction, says: “The preparation for Holy Communion should be a well-ordered course from week-end to week-end all one’s life.” He exemplifies this by a saying of a servant of God who said that he never made any special preparation for Holy Communion, because he did all he could every day. This is a very good preparation, much better than recollecting oneself just for one quarter of an hour after, and remaining as tepid and unmortified and imperfect as before.

This is the principal preparation, and this is the principal thanksgiving, and this must also be the principal fruit that we gather from Holy Communion. As we say of meditation that the principal preparation for it must be the mortification of our passions, recollection of our senses, and custody of our heart, and that this also is the fruit that we should gather from meditation, and the one should aid the other; so also a good and holy life, doing all things to the best of one’s power in order to please God, must be the principal preparation for receiving Holy Communion, and also the principal fruit to be gathered from it. One must aid the other, and one Communion must be a preparation for another. And as we say that making a good meditation and drawing profit therefrom does not mean having many consolations and emotions, nor finding many reflections and grand contemplations, but it means a man’s coming out from it very humble, patient, detached, and mortified; so also the goodness of a Communion and the fruit of it is not to be measured by the multitude of reflections suggested, however good and holy they may be, nor by sweetnesses and consolations, but by the mortification of the passions and the greater resignation and conformity to the will of God thence ensuing.

Hence follows a most consoling reflection, and it is that it is always in our power to make a good Communion and gather much fruit from it, inasmuch as with the grace of the Lord it is always in our power to offer ourselves and resign ourselves into the hands of God and to mortify and correct ourselves in what we know is displeasing to His Divine Majesty. Do you, then, do that and you will gather much fruit from Communion; go on every day conquering and mortifying and amending yourself in something. Let the idol of Dagon fall down in presence of the Ark of the Covenant (I Kings v. 3)—that idol of honor, that idol of self-indulgence and seeking after your own comforts, that idol of self-will—let it all fall flat to the ground in reverence to this Lord. Oh, if we made our Communions in this manner, mortifying ourselves and amending ourselves every time in something, no matter how small, how our soul would thrive!

St. Jerome applies to this effect the saying of the Wise Man about the valiant woman: She hath studied the corners and hidden recesses of her house—that is the examination and preparation required for approaching this divine table —and hath not eaten her bread in idleness (Prov. xxxi. 27), hath not eaten her bread in vain. When one gathers fruit from Holy Communion in the manner that we have said, he does not eat his bread in vain, but what he eats does him good. But woe to him that has eaten this bread in vain for many years, without having overcome himself or mortified one single passion or one evil tendency! He must be very ill, since what he eats does him no good. Let everyone, then, enter into himself and study the corners of his soul, look at the passion or tendency or inclination that does most hurt and creates most disturbance, and go about getting rid of that and mortifying that until he can say with the Apostle: J live, not I now, but Christ liveth in me (Gal. ii. 20); words which St. Jerome explains: “TI live, not I now; I live no longer, I that formerly lived under the Old Law, I that persecuted the Church; but there lives in me wisdom, fortitude, peace, and all the rest of the virtues; he who has them not, cannot say, Christ liveth in me.”