Fourth Friday after Pentecost

Summary of the Morrow’s Meditation

We will meditate to-morrow upon the three principal dispositions which we ought to bring to Holy Communion; that is to say: 1st, a humility full of respect; 2d, a love full of confidence; 3d, a great desire to unite ourselves to Our Lord. We will then make the resolution: 1st, to form within ourselves these holy dispositions before and during Holy Communion; 2d, to preserve and perfect them every day in our soul. Our spiritual nosegay shall be the words of St. Thomas: “Oh, how wonderful a thing it is! the supreme Master gives Himself as food to His poor and humble creature.”

Meditation for the Morning

Let us adore the immense goodness of the Son of God giving Himself to us in Holy Communion. His infinite love is communicated to us therein without reserve; His body, His blood, His soul, His graces, His divinity, He gives all. God, prodigal of Thyself, could there be a heart ungrateful enough not to be melted with love for so much love?

FIRST POINT

The Humility full of Reverence with which we ought to Communicate

This feeling ought to spring up within us from the meditation of the double thought, Who art Thou, O Lord, and who am I? Thou, so great, the Sovereign of the universe, the God of eternity, and I such a little, miserable creature; I, a worm of the earth, Thou, so holy, before whom the heavens are not pure, and I so evil, who have soiled my past life by so many sins, who still sin every day, and should sin still more if Thy grace did not prevent me. Ah, Lord, I am seized with reverence and confusion in Thy presence: with reverence, whilst considering Thy lofty majesty, Thy infinite holiness; with confusion, whilst considering myself; and it only remains for me to say with St. Elizabeth: “Whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Luke i. 43); with the centurion of the gospel: “Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldst enter under my roof” (Matt. viii. 8); with the prodigal son: “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before Thee; I am not now worthy to be called Thy son” (Luke xv. 18, 19); with the publican who stood at the door of the temple, not daring to lift up his eyes, and striking his breast: “O God, be merciful to me a sinner” (Luke xviii. 13); lastly, with the Psalmist: “What is man, that Thou art mindful of him?” (Ps. viii. 5.) Alas, Lord, when I think that in Thy presence the pillars of heaven tremble, and that the highest seraphim dare not look upon Thy lofty majesty, ought I not to be confounded and overwhelmed with a feeling of reverence and of humility?

SECOND POINT

The Love full of Confidence with which we ought to Communicate

Love, says St. Bernard, cannot rest satisfied unless it is reciprocated (Serm. lxxxiii., de Cant.). Now the Eucharist is the great sacrament of love. It is therein that the love of Our Lord displays all its riches and expends itself wholly for men. It is therein that He gives Himself to us without reserve, without limit; body, blood, soul, divinity, He gives all. We must therefore in return give to Him an undivided love, a love which gives itself wholly up to Him, a love which delivers itself up with an absolute abandonment to all which He desires of us; a love which cares for nothing else than Him, which takes pleasure only in Him, so as to be able to say with St. Bonaventura: “The Lord Jesus is my only love; may nothing please me, may nothing have any charm or attraction for me, save Him alone! He is everything for me; may I then be everything for Him, and may my heart become one with Him” (Stim. am., Pp. I, 6). Lastly, He deserves we should have a love filled with confidence in His goodness. For to have no confidence in a friend is tantamount to offending him; not to place all our confidence in a benefactor is to wound him. Now, is there a friend, is there a benefactor comparable to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, in which He gives Himself wholly and entirely to us by Holy Communion?

THIRD POINT

The Holy Desires with which we ought to Communicate

This heavenly bread ought to be eaten with great hunger (St. Augustine); it produces its fruits in the soul in proportion to the desire with which it is received (Luke i. 53). We ought then to desire Holy Communion with our whole soul. We ought to desire it as being the greatest happiness of our life, as the infant desires its mother’s breast, as the thirsty stag sighs after the fountains of water, as David desired water from the cistern of Bethlehem (St. Ambrose, Apol. David). We ought to desire it as the man who is ill desires to be cured, as the woman with the bloody flux, who said: “If I shall touch only His garment, I shall be healed” (Matt. ix. 21); as the sick to whom it sufficed to approach the Saviour to recover health, because “virtue went out from Him and healed all” (Luke vi. 19). Let us here examine ourselves. Do we bring to Holy Communion these three dispositions on which we have been meditating: humility, love, and holy desires?

Resolutions and spiritual nosegay as above.