"Of ourselves, we cannot communicate worthily. We need
the help of the Holy Spirit. Even though we approach the altar free from mortal
sin, He must sharpen our spiritual apprehension and inflame our love to
intense ardor, that Christ may find in us a more beautiful habitation every
time we receive Him.
The sacramental God has a divine right to expect on
our part after each Holy Communion an intensification of our gradual growth
into His likeness. As often as we receive Him, He would have us burn with the
desire for greater progress in virtue that will manifest itself in an
irrevocable detachment from the world and a more unselfish love of Him,
grounded on the conviction of our nothingness and consequent sore need of Him.
With greater joy will He abide in us if He beholds us
by degrees assimilating His life, resembling Him in virtue by more complete
conformity to His will. Christ will unite Himself most intimately with us if
we are constant in our effort to imitate Him.
And all this is the effect of the direct operation of
the Holy Spirit, who beautifies our souls with His holiness, and adorns them
with His invaluable gifts. Being one with Christ, He traces in us the image of
our Savior, for only by His power does the mind that is in Christ become the
mind that is in us. Thus does He unite us with the sacramental God in the bonds
of a common love. And because He is the Spirit of love, He stirs to the depths
the love of the Eucharistic God, and moves us to reciprocate it whenever we
approach the banquet of the Lord.
Reflecting, before Holy Communion, on the essential,
intimate association of the Holy Spirit with the central mystery our Catholic
Faith, we will beg Him to remove far from us whatever would impede our
reception of the fullness of the grace of this sacrament. We will do more. With
an ardor that dilates our hearts with exquisite joy, we will constrain Him to ennoble
our thoughts and desires so that we may embrace Christ with a faith that moves
mountains, and with a love supremely sacrificial. Then will we glorify our
hidden God, and our souls will be His home until the shadows flee away, and we
return with the garnered fruits of infinite, eternal love, to contemplate
forever, the inexhaustible beauty that we adored under the Eucharistic veil."
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I often believe that I could do a lot better job of receiving Our Lord than I do. Fortunately, He goes ahead with His transformational work, often unnoticeably, even though we of ourselves are totally unworthy. The main thing I have to keep reminding myself of is that how I feel is irrelevant. It is the act of will that really counts.
ReplyDeleteBarb, you make an important point here. We should never feel ourselves worthy of receiving Him, for once we do, we have (paradoxically, I think) become unworthy because of our pride. And as you stated, though we are often in need of doing a better job at receiving Him, "He goes ahead with His transformational work . . . ".
DeleteI am remembering this first paragraph, praying that HE shall make me worthy!
ReplyDeleteBarb and Nancy:
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting.
If we desire transformation and ask to be transformed, God will transform us. Faith in His promises and faithfulness to His commands are our necessary contributions.
I am not sure if such are 'necessary.' I am coming to believe more that God's grace trumps even my sometimes faithlessness. If I had to rely on my faith -- and not His grace -- to receive His grace, then I would be of all people most to be pitied.
DeleteRichard:
DeleteSorry for the delay in responding. Your point is well taken. It is only by and through His grace that we can do anythng of value. Blessed are we on those occasions when grace and faith meet.