Volume II, Treatise VIII, Chapter XII

Another Fruit We Ought to Reap from Holy Communion, Which Is, to Resign Ourselves Entirely into God’s Hands. of the Manner Wherein We Ought to Prepare Ourselves, in Order to Obtain It, and of the Thanksgiving We Ought Afterwards to Make,

One of the greatest fruits we should endeavour to reap from holy

communion, is entirely to resign ourselves into God’s hands; as a

little earth, into the hands of a potter; that he may dispose of us

as he pleases, when he pleases, and in what manner he pleases;

without any reserve or exception. The Son of God has entirely

offered himself as a sacrifice for us to his eternal Father; has shed VOL. 0. 24 all his blood for us upon the cross, and daily bestows upon us his soul, body and blood, together with his divinity, in the sacrament of the altar. Is it not, therefore, very just, that we should also make an entire oblation of ourselves to him? To communicate properly, is to communicate ourselves to God, as he has communicated himself to us: ‘ he has communicated to us,” says St. Austin, “all he has; communicate also to him all you have, and abandon yourself entirely to him.”—(De civit. Dei.)

According to this, the thanksgiving we ought to make after communion, will be to say, ‘ what shall I give unto God for all the benefits he has bestowed upon me?”’ (Psalms 115:3) What shall I give him for the many graces I have received from him; and chiefly for this, which I have just received? Would you know what he would have you give him? He would have you give him your heart—“my son,” says he then to you, “give me thy heart.” (Proverbs 23:26) -For as he says in Thomas-a-Kempis, what do I desire of you, but that you should give yourself entirely to me? I make no account of any thing you can give me besides yourself; I desire not your presents;.that which I care for is yourself; and as nothing is able to satisfy you without me; so nothing also that you can offer me, is able to please me without you. St. Austin says, that what made the sacrifice of Cain displeasing to God, and caused it to be less acceptable to him than that of Abel, was, because Cain did not make such a division with God as he should have done, “and that giving something of his own to God, he still gave himself entirely to himself.”—(De civit. Dei. c. 7.) It is this, says the holy father, that some still do, who offer something to God, without offering their will and their heart. ‘The kingdom of heaven,” adds he, “requires no other price than yourself; you alone can be the price of it; give therefore yourself, and you shall have it.”

It is then in this entire resignation of ourselves into the hands of God, in which we ought to exercise ourselves after holy communion; and this ought not to be done in a general manner only, but we must descend to particulars; resigning and conforming ourselves to his will in all occasions, as well in sickness as in health,

-in death as in life, in affliction and sufferings as well as in joy and consolation. We must also then specify those things to which we shall feel the greatest repugnance, and offer them to God in our thanksgiving after communion—running over the most abject offices and employments, and the most troublesome occasions we can meet with, till nothing represents itself in which we find not an entire conformity of our will to that of God. The prayer which St. Ignatius puts in the spiritual exercise is very proper for this subject, and therefore I shall here set it down. ‘“‘ Receive, O Lord, my entire liberty, receive my memory, my understanding and my whole will. All that I have, all that I possess, thou hast given me: I restore it again to thee, and leave it to the entire disposal of thy will. Give me only thy love and thy grace, I shall be rich enough, I will ask nothing else but this of thee.”—(Punct. i.) We must also afterwards exercise ourselves in producing some acts of virtue, and chiefly of those, which each one knows himself to stand most in need of. For, whatever we can desire, we shall find it in this heavenly manna, “which has the excellency of all sorts of taste.” (Wisdom 16:20) It has the taste of all sorts of virtues, and therefore we may exercise ourselves in producing their acts, sometimes of one virtue, sometimes of another, imagining and having always before our eyes such as we know ourselves to stand most in need of. If you find, for example, that you have a particular want of humility, seek there for humility, and you will, without doubt, find a great model thereof; since the Son of God is there clothed with the accidents of bread, which -being but simple accidents, are more vile than those rags and swaddling-clothes in which the holy Virgin wrapped him when he came into the world. What can be conceived more humble, than a God hid under the species of bread, that we may touch him, eat him, and receive him into our mouth and stomach? What a debasement is this fora God? And how great an elevation is this for man? His humility seems in some measure to shine more bright here, than in the mystery of the incarnation. Exercise yourself therefore in producing acts of this virtue, till you find that you have entirely penetrated your soul therewith. Offer to God in thanksgiving both the contempt and the esteem of the world, and embrace with joy for love of him all occasions of being contemned.

It will also be very well done, to descend to certain details of things, which though they may appear small to others, yet fail not oftentimes to give us an occasion of a great deal of pain and trouble, and these we may in like manner offer to God in thanksgiving. Every one knows very well what those imperfections are, to which he is most subject, and which more particularly hinder his advancement in perfection. Endeavour to make a sacrifice of some one of these to God, in each communion, and offer up this also for your thanksgiving after commanion. You love, for example, your ease and convenience, and to be in want of nothing; offer to God to mortify yourself in this, to-day in one thing, and to-morrow in another. You love to indulge in speaking idle and unprofitable words, and therein to lose your time; mortify yourself herein, and offer this to God in another communion. You are so attached to your own will, that your brethren suffer a great deal from you, because you will mortify yourself in nothing; and sometimes you speak to them, in a smart and peevish manner; endeavour to overcome yourself in this, and offer it to God in another communion. In fine, as I have said, speaking of prayer, it would be very good therein to propose to one’s self to do something that very day; it will be good also at each communion, to resolve to mortify and - overcome one’s self that day in some particular thing, and to offer this mortification to God by way of thanksgiving. Bear in mind, it is chiefly this, that God requires of you, for this favour he has done you. For he desires nothing else of you, but that you would correct in yourself what you know to be displeasing to him: so that this is the best thanksgiving we can make after communion, and the most agreeable service we can render unto him. But since thanksgiving, as I said in another place, may be made three ways; first, by an interior acknowledgment of the benefits we have received; secondly, by thanks and praises to God; and thirdly, by effects, which is the most perfect of all, and of which I now speak; do not therefore so employ the whole time of your meditation, that there be none left for any thing else. Meditations are good, but resolutions, and the effects thereof, are far better, and it is only in order to compass these, that we ought to meditate.

What I say here of thanksgiving, I say also of preparation for communion, For though the meditation, we are wont then to make, upon the sacred mystery of the Eucharist, be a kind of profitable preparation; and though the respect we ought to have for this adorable mystery, requires that we should always perform it with all possible application, yet the best and most perfect preparation is that of a good life—it is to endeavour every day to correct ourselves—it is daily to perfect ourselves more and more, that hereby we may approach this august sacrament with greater purity. ‘Live in such manner,” says St. Ambrose and St. Austin, “that you may deserve to communicate every day.”’— (Amb. 1. V. de Sacr. Aug. serm. viii. in Lac.) Father Avila, writing upon this subject to one of his friends, says, that regularity in the whole conduct of our lives is a-true preparation for commanion; and he cites to this purpose the example of a servant of God, who was wont to say, Ido not do this particularly to prepare myself for communion, because I keep myself daily prepared for it as well as Ican. It is, without doubt, far better to prepare ourselves in this manner, than to recollect ourselves only for a quarter of an hour before or after communion, ‘and afterwards to remain in as great tepidity of heart, and in as great an ‘immortification of spirit as before.

This therefore is the best preparation before, and the best thanksgiving after communion; and this also ought to be the principal advantage we should propose to ourselves to derive from it. For as in prayer, the mortification of our passions, the recollection of our senses, and the guard of our heart, ought to be no less the chief preparation for prayer than the fruit we ought to reap from it, and that they ought reciprocally promote one the other; so here, in like manner, the sanctity of our lives, and an application always to do every thing i in the best manner we can to please God, is the chief preparation for holy communion, and the chief fruit we ought to propose to ourselves to reap from it. The one ought to help the other, and each communion ought to be a preparation for another. Moreover, as perfection and the fruit of prayer, consist not in having sensible comforts, nor in being raised to high contemplations, but in going from prayer more humble, more mortified in our senses, and less attached. to our own will; so the mark of a good communion, and of the fruit we are to reap from it, is not to have made a great many holy meditations, nor to have had great consolations, but to become more mortified in our passions, and more submissive and resigned to the will of God.

Hence, one thing follows, which ought to be a comfort to all the world; which is, that it is in our power always to make a good communion, and to derive great advantage from it. For, to abandon ourselves entirely into the hands of God, to mortify ourselves, and to correct those faults, we know are displeasing to him, is always in our power, through the assistance of God’s infinite mercy. Apply then yourself to do this, and you will reap precious fruit from communion. Endeavour to overcome yourself, to become more mortified, and daily to correct some fault or other. Cause the idol of Dagon to fall before the Ark of the alliance; break in pieces the idol of pride, of vanity, and of self-love. What progress should we not make in a short time, if every time we communicated, we should take care to mortify ourselves in something, and to correct in ourselves, now one fault, now another?

To the subject I speak of, St. Jerom applies what the wise man gays of the courageous woman: “she seriously considered every corner of her house, and would not eat her bread in idleness.” (Proverbs 31:27) This careful search, according to his explanahon, is the examen and preparation, which ought to precede communion; and not to eat bread in idleness, is, not to communicate unprofitably. When one becomes better, he says, by the communions he makes, he eats not his bread unprofitably; because this heavenly bread has produced such good in him; but unhappy are you, who have so unprofitably eaten your bread for so many years! You have overcome yourself in nothing—you have mortified yourself in nothing—you have not overcome so much as one of those faults you were wont to commit. It is a sign therefore that you are sick, since what you eat does you no good. Let not the like happen henceforward. Let every one enter into himself; let him view the recesses of his heart; let him see what; passion, and fault, what inclination is the greatest obstacle to his salvation and perfection, and then endeavour to overcome them, and to do it in so efficacious a manner, that he may say with the apostle, “I live indeed, but it is not I who live, but Jesus Christ who lives in me.” (Galatians 2:20) “That is,” says St. Jerom, “he lives not now as he lived before, in the darkness of the old law, and as one who persecuted the church; but Jesus Christ lives in him, that is to say, wisdom lives in him, fortitude, the word of God, peace, joy, and all other virtues, without which no one can say that it is Jesus Christ that lives in him.”

About ReligiousBookshelf.com · A Supernerd Media project