Jesus is fully God and fully man, possessing both a
Divine Nature and a human nature. He is the Lord of Lords, the promised Messiah
(or Christ), the Way, the Truth and the Life, Love Incarnate, Beauty Enfleshed,
the Eternal Word, the Only Begotten of the Father, the Alpha and the Omega, the
Beginning and the End.
This one and only Jesus is truly and really present in
the Eucharist, and as Catholics we receive Him under the appearance of bread
and wine every week, or perhaps even every day.
The Eucharist and the Catholic
When someone has a healthy diet we expect that their
physical health will improve. Yet often, despite subsisting on the spiritual
diet of Jesus’ Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, there can be outwardly
practicing Catholics who are so wretched that if we were to glance at Santa’s
naughty list we might find them listed before even Stalin himself! Without
God’s grace such a Catholic could indeed be us – and that is a humbling truth;
and even with God’s grace, aren’t we keenly aware of our sinfulness and
capacity for nastiness despite frequenting Holy Communion? We shouldn’t spend
our lives pondering on such miserable thoughts in regards to our ineptness, but
it’s good to keep such thoughts on the mantel piece of our mind – as a series
of trophies which we have won for our ability to do naught but fail when left
to our own devices. A little reminder that can serve to keep us grounded, our
ego’s whipped, and that harshness towards our neighbours at bay.
So yes, we’re imperfect. Ah, but Jesus is perfect. So if
we receive Jesus in the Eucharist this will make us perfect, right?
The Eucharist as an Efficacious Sacrament
Before we answer this question we must understand what a
sacrament is, and how they work in sanctifying us. We’ll be reading the
following in light of the Sacrament of the Eucharist:
From the Catechism we read:
The sacraments are efficacious
signs of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, by which
divine life is dispensed to us. The visible rites by which the sacraments are
celebrated signify and make present the graces proper to each sacrament. They
bear fruit in those who receive them with the required dispositions. (CCC
1131).
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| The Seven Sacraments |
The sacraments are efficacious signs of grace.
What does that mean? That means that the seven sacraments of the Church confer
both the unique grace particular to that sacrament, and the universal
grace bestowed by all of the sacraments – a share in the life of Christ, no
matter what, ipso facto, so long as the sacrament is carried out as it is
supposed to be and with the right intention. In the case of the Eucharist,
Jesus is always made present on the altar so long as the words of consecration
are said as they are supposed to be said, and if the celebrant bears the
intention of doing as the Church intends – which is consecrating the bread and
wine into Jesus’ Body and Blood. This is no time to go into such a topic, nor
to consider ifs and buts, for all that practically concerns us is
this: that no matter what, when we receive the Eucharist, we are receiving
Jesus Himself, and therefore, whether we’re Hitler or Mother Teresa we would be
receiving Jesus and a lavishing of infinite graces. Since if we’re receiving
the Eucharist, we are receiving the graces of the Eucharist, which are the
graces of Jesus. Concerning this truth St. Paul exclaims: “Blessed be the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ [thus in the
Eucharist] with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” (Eph
1:3).
The Proper Dispositions
Yet then we come to consider the final sentence of the
quote from the Catechism, the catch as it were: They [the sacraments] bear
fruit in those who receive them with the required dispositions. So no
matter what if we receive the sacrament of the Eucharist we are receiving the
infinite graces which are housed within the Person of Christ – graces which can
immediately turn a sinner into a saint, and vice into virtue, for nothing is
beyond the Divine Power. Yet this does not mean that these infinite graces will
come to be realised, actualised, and will bear fruit within us – for such
graces only bear fruit in those who receive the Eucharist with the
required dispositions. What are these required dispositions that make
the graces of the Eucharist bloom forth as fruits of virtues? Firstly, to be in
a state of grace, which requires us to be without mortal sin, and to allow God
to cleanse us of it if we are in such a state through the sacrament of
Confession (the Sacrament of Mercy). The list of required dispositions then
begins, but we’ll only mention the main ones:
1)
Faith in the Real Presence,
believing that Jesus is truly in the Eucharist, and that by receiving the
Eucharist we are receiving Him into our heart.
2)
Trust in Jesus’ Mercy, that His Holiness can
swallow up our sinfulness, lack of virtue and our shame, whence we pray during
the Liturgy: “Lord I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only
say the word, and my soul shall be healed.”
3)
Humility: coming before
Jesus in a spirit of repentance, walking our way down the aisle with the
awareness that we are not worthy to receive so great a guest into our sinful
souls, but all the while remaining confident that He wants to enter into us.
After all, in the Eucharist Jesus has been waiting for over two thousand years
to enter into our hearts! Whence we read: “Behold, I stand at the door and
knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and
will dine with him, and he with Me.” (Rev 3:20).
4)
Reverence and Adoration. To
be reverent involves outwardly being attentive during Mass and graceful in the
manner we receive our Lord in Holy Communion. Yet above all it involves a
disposition of the heart that submits and surrenders to Jesus, not merely as a
servant to his Master, but as a newlywed bride to her Groom, and as a leaf that
yields itself to the gushing of the wind so as to be raised aloft into the sky.
Anyone can receive on the
tongue. Anyone can kneel. These outward postures are good, yet such postures
are empty and meaningless if we don’t receive on the tongue of our soul, and
kneel with our hearts when we receive our Good Lord. In a Corpus Christi homily
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI speaks on this disposition of reverence and adoration:
“If I am truly to communicate with another person I must know him, I must be
able to be in silence close to him, to listen to him and look at him lovingly.
True love and true friendship are always nourished by the reciprocity of looks,
of intense, eloquent silences full of respect and veneration, so that the
encounter may be lived profoundly and personally rather than superficially.
And, unfortunately, if this dimension is lacking, sacramental communion itself
may become a superficial gesture on our part.”[1]
How important it is then, to commune with our Lord before Mass in preparation,
and after Mass in thanksgiving – with words yes, but above all with a silent
intent of adoration by which we silently bask in the reality that Jesus is
Almighty God.
5)
With intent: that is, we
must come to Mass with a handful of petitions, and should have various
intentions for the Holy Communion we are about to receive. We should always
hold some sort of intention that this Communion would transform us and would
allow God’s Will to be done in our lives. We should also bear intentions to
receive our Holy Communion on behalf of those in purgatory, on behalf of
relatives (living and deceased), friends, those in need, and those who are
spiritually impoverished – indeed this is the greatest thing we can do for
anyone. We should also bear the intent of wanting to be consumed by the Divine
Love which we are receiving, and to consume this same very Love within
ourselves. There is no limit to the intentions we can have, and so long as our
greatest intention is to love Jesus and to conform ourselves and surrender to
Him, and we bear intentions for other people and not just for ourselves (since
there is nothing that is more personal, and that is more communal than
the Eucharist), then we will not make Him sad by exploiting Him like some
vending machine to ‘get what we want’, but instead we will be pleasing Him with
our shopping list of intentions –for He is God, and a generous God at that who
wants to give! If somehow we forget to offer certain intentions before or
during Communion, or forget to give thanks after Communion or can’t for
whatever reason, we can do so afterwards whenever we remember, since it’s never
too late to make good of the present moment.
6) Finally, and most importantly, love. We must
receive our Lord with a heart filled and brimming with desirous love to be
brought into a deeper union with our Maker. We must pant for the Love of God
which is the Eucharist, yearning that this Divine Love may grow within
us, and would in turn lead us to love our neighbours in a saintly way. This is
why Holy Communion is called – communion, since it’s a common, communal
and mutual union with Jesus Christ.
Any one of us can pour water on a fruit tree. But if such
a tree doesn’t absorb the water, well…no fruits will be borne, nor will such a
tree even be able to sustain its life. I could also flog a dead horse, and say
“giddy up!”, but this doesn’t mean I’m going to win an Olympic gold medal in
equestrian. Likewise, we may receive the Eucharist, but if we do not receive
the Eucharist with the proper dispositions, such as we mentioned above, then in
a sense we are receiving the Eucharist in vain. Worse than that, it’s as though
we were to invite this Divine Guest into the house of our souls, only to ignore
Him, forget about Him… and perhaps even drive Him out through indifference, or
to torture Him by our grave sins!
Making the Best of our Holy Communions
How many Masses have we attended as Catholics by just
going through the motions and without bearing the proper dispositions in
receiving the Eucharist? How many Catholics die and go to purgatory only
wishing that they could be back on earth and redo the Communion’s they received
like zombies? Such souls would know what they’ve missed out on, since our Lord
said to St. Maria Faustina Kowalska: “Every Holy Communion you receive
increases your capacity to commune with the Father in eternity” – which means
that every Holy Communion well received will expand our soul and increase its
capacity for delights in heaven. We should take a page out of St. Gemma
Galgani’s book, and ready ourselves for Holy Communion like she did. For she
used to rouse herself before every Holy Communion by treating it as though it
were to be her last time, and as though she were to die afterwards.
The good thing is we have today, and can change the way
we receive Holy Communion today and for every tomorrow. Of course, there’s
nothing that we can really do, but the little of what we can do is to ask Jesus
to give us the dispositions He wants us to have in receiving Him in Holy Communion
and to teach us how to make the best of our Holy Communions while we can. It’s
really that simple. “Ask and you shall receive” (Mt 7:7).
Our Dispositions Will Always be Imperfect
Yet often things aren’t so black and white, for perhaps
we possess to some degree the dispositions required so that the Eucharist can
bear fruit within our lives. In fact, the truth of the matter is that no matter
how hard we try, we’ll never be able to have a perfect faith, a perfect trust,
a perfect humility, a perfect reverence or act of Adoration, a perfect intent,
or a perfect love. So it seems as if we’re condemned to receive our Lord with
good but imperfect dispositions that allow the Holy Communions we receive to
imperfectly bear fruit within our lives. For after all, an imperfect
disposition can result in nothing more than imperfectly blossomed fruits. Not
that there’s anything imperfect about the graces we receive in the Eucharist,
but if our dispositions are imperfect we can only imperfectly absorb such
perfect grace.
The Secret: Making Mary’s Perfect Dispositions our Own
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| Mary, Mother of the Eucharist |
It’s a good thing our Catholic faith has a solution for
every spiritual dilemma. For there is a guaranteed way (a Marian secret) to
receive our Lord in the Eucharist with the PERFECT DISPOSITIONS, and its
ridiculously simple. The secret is this: all we need to do is to turn to Mary
and take all that is Hers, and make it our own. Why is this a secret? Because
despite God wanting everyone to know about it, it’s hardly known!
Mary is full of grace (Lk 1:28) and possesses
every virtue in perfection. Now this blessed woman is not a stranger to us, but
She is our Mother and we are her children. All that Mary is and has is
therefore ours, we must only be confident enough and have the faith to use such
treasures God has placed within this Sacred Treasury who is our Mother. We must
therefore swap and exchange our imperfect dispositions with Mary’s Perfect
Dispositions. Hiding our imperfect dispositions as droplets into the seas of
Mary’s Perfect Dispositions.
1) So then if we want a perfect faith, we must take hold of that Perfect
Faith which Mary once had, burying our own imperfect faith within it, so that
when we approach the Lord in Holy Communion we – or rather Mary in us, and us
in, with and through Mary – will be receiving Him with a Perfect Faith.
2) No matter how hard we try we’ll never be able to trust in the
same way that Mary did. It’s a good thing that we can claim that very trust
which Mary had whilst on earth, and use it as our own. Perhaps we don’t have
enough trust that God can bring back a loved one to the faith. Or perhaps we
don’t think He can make a saint out of us, or that His Mercy is bigger than our
sinfulness. All we do need is enough trust to take Mary’s own Perfect Trust as
our own. Even if we think we trust in God, still, if we want to be perfect we
must use Mary’s Perfect Trust which surpasses any kind of trust that we
ourselves can muster up. Thus as we approach the altar to receive our Lord, we
can say: “Jesus I trust in You with the very Trust of Your dear Mother.”
3) If anyone thinks that they are humble that is the surest sign of
pride! True humility consists in realising that no matter how allegedly
‘humble’ we are or try to be, we cannot ever really attain a perfect humility.
This is why we must clothe ourselves in the very Humility of Mary, so that as
we receive the Lord we can say in our hearts: “I am not humble Lord, but Mary
is, and it is Mary who receives You today within me.”
4) As hard as we try we’ll never be perfectly reverent, and we’ll
never be able to adore Jesus perfectly. But that’s okay, because we can claim
in faith the perfect reverence of Mary and can approach the Lord with it. We
can also make our own the adorations of Mary which She made and still makes in
heaven, offering them to Jesus as our very own. A simple way of doing this
might be to simply say within our minds when the Host is lifted up by the
priest during the Mass: “Jesus I adore Thee with the Heart of Mary.”
5) What about intentions? Well, as St. Louis de Montfort says, to
truly devote ourselves to Mary we must desire and intend what Mary desires and
what She intends. So that when we receive the Eucharist, we may hold whatever
intentions we like, but we must let Mary be the Queen over these intentions,
and we must bear the intention of receiving the Eucharist for Mary’s very own
intentions. Her intentions which include the emptying of purgatory, making
reparation to Her Immaculate Heart and the Sacred Heart of Her Son, the
attaining of our salvation and sanctity, the spiritual wellbeing of every soul,
the protection of our loved ones, and every other conceivable good thing in
accord with the Will of God.
This might seem a bit hard for
some of us, for we might be thinking: “What if Mary’s intentions are different
to mine” or “If I offer this Communion for Mary’s intentions then my own
intentions won’t be met.” There couldn’t be a less spiritual way of thinking,
because Mary’s intentions are so big and so many, that they include our
intentions, exceed our intentions, and encompass all good intentions, and even
surpass all the good will and good intentions of every creature combined. For
Mary’s intentions are the wellspring of God’s very own intentions – which is
ultimately one – His Holy Will, which wills not only all good things, but
Goodness Itself. Even if certain intentions of ours are not answered by God, or
are contrary to Mary’s intentions, such intentions are not what is best for us
or for others, and this we can be certain of, because there are two sayings,
equally true: “God knows best”, and “mum is always right.” Now Mary will be
very pleased with the soul who has offered its Communions for Her own
intentions to be brought to fulfilment, and only Jesus can know the extent of
the blessings He will lavish on such a soul whom so pleases His Mother.
6) Finally, the most important thing that we can do in order to
receive our Lord in the Eucharist with the perfect dispositions is to love
Jesus with Mary’s very own love. We must simply take Mary’s Immaculate Heart
and receive Jesus in, with and through this Immaculate Heart. To receive Jesus
with Mary’s Heart and to love Him with Her Perfect Love, all we need is the
intention to do so and to believe that it is so because we have intended so –
it really is that simple. Thus in faith we can say, perhaps after receiving Communion:
“Jesus I am imperfect, but I have exchanged my sinful heart with Mary’s Immaculate
Heart, and thus I love you with very love same with which Mary loved you on
earth, and with which Mary loves you now in heaven.”
‘Had I but Mary’s sinless heart’ vs. ‘I have dear Mary’s sinless heart’
There is a lovely hymn called “Jesus, My Lord, My God, My
All”. Yet there’s a verse within this hymn which falls short of the sublime
reality to which we are called and which is easily possible. I’ve nothing
against the writer since it’s only recently that such a Marian understanding
has blossomed in the Church. The verse reads as follows:
Had I but Mary’s sinless heart,
To love Thee with, my dearest
King,
O with what bursts of fervent
praise
Thy goodness Jesus, would I sing!
In light of a true devotion to Mary, this verse reflects
a good but IMPERFECT attitude which is akin to sitting in a corner and twiddling
our thumbs in a resignation to mediocrity. Contrarily, a perfect attitude could
be had by which instead of bemoaning our lack of love and how we would praise
Jesus like Mary if we could, we actually take action and lavish Jesus with
Mary’s own Love and Mary’s own Praises by making Her Heart our own, and hiding
our imperfect heart within Her Immaculate One. This is the very kind of action
which Jesus and Mary want us to take! Thus an alternative translation is
offered bellow. A translation which embodies this perfect way of Marian
devotion through which we are able to love Jesus with Mary’s very own love:
I have dear Mary’s sinless heart,
To love Thee with, my dearest
King,
So with fierce bursts of
fervent praise
Thy goodness Jesus, do I sing!
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| Immaculate Heart of Mary |
This Method Gives the Same Delight to Jesus that He found in Mary
Who can fathom the delight our Lord Jesus will take
within us if we carry out this method of making Mary’s perfect dispositions our
own? For if we do this, and we have nothing to lose, but everything to gain by
doing so, our Lord will experience the same delight when He enters into our
souls in Holy Communion as He did when He descended from heaven and took on
flesh in the womb of Mary. He will receive the same joy He had when He entered
Mary’s Heart in Holy Communion. He will receive the same love, thanksgiving,
praise, and glory as He did from Mary throughout Her lifetime. For when we make
Mary’s perfect dispositions our own – Her Faith, Trust, Humility, Reverence,
Adorations, Intentions, and Love etc. – although it is still us who is
receiving our Lord in Holy Communion, we are doing so in, with, and through
Mary, so that in truth it is Mary who is receiving Jesus within us.
Mary’s Perfect Dispositions bear Perfect Fruits
It is true that we may not at first notice the fruits of
our Holy Communions received in this sublime Marian way. Yet these fruits are
there, even if we cannot perceive them, and in time we will grow aware of some
of them – perhaps by a simple awareness that our confidence in God and peace of
soul is different to how it was before. Still, we will never be able to
perceive all of the fruits that this blessed method commended by the greatest
saints in this modern time will have borne until we reach heaven – where we
will see all of them. 
So even if we seem no better than yesterday and the day
before, but perhaps even worse, so long as we desire only God’s Will, do what
we can in our lives, repent when we fall, constantly surrender our agendas to
God, and practice a true devotion to Mary – especially in the way we receive
Holy Communion and give thanks afterwards, then we can be sure that so long as
we persevere – using Mary’s perseverance as our own – then in God’s time He
will deliver us from our sinfulness and will bring us to that perfection for
which we long. A perfection we already possess in Christ, in Mary, but which we
must allow to grow within us through persevering in the spiritual life, and through
letting Mary be the Mother of the Child Jesus who dwells within us. The very Child whom we
receive in the Bread of the Altar.Appendix 1: A Prayer of Intent Before Receiving Holy Communion
The following is a prayer one could recite before Mass,
perhaps before one leaves home to attend Mass, or even just before Mass starts.
One can make up their own prayer.
Be still and silent and allow
the Holy Spirit to prepare your soul.
I come to receive You my Jesus, on
behalf of all; giving You Perfect and Eternal Love, Praise,
Thanksgiving and Adoration, for it is You Yourself who will communicate; in,
with and through me. Receive in my receiving Divine Will, as I receive my Lord in Holy Communion with the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
And although I approach You naked
of myself; I come clothed in the Humility of Your swaddling clothes, in the
Love of Your wounded flesh, and in the Glory of Your Resurrection. I place
before You all the intentions of the Heart of our Mother, and the intentions of
all men of good will – past, present and future; whilst asking for every grace
and blessing necessary for the salvation and sanctification of all.
Finally, I fuse
myself with all the Communions ever received: by the Apostles, by the priests,
by poor sinners, by lukewarm souls, by the souls in purgatory, by the saints
and by Yourself and the Blessed Virgin Mary; and I redo all these receptions
for Your Glory through this my Holy Communion today. Amen.
Appendix 2: Biblical Allegory
On an allegorical level we read in the Book of Revelation
and in Ezekiel of the fruits which will be borne within the soul who carries out
this ‘secret method’ of using Mary’s perfect dispositions in receiving Holy
Communion.
“Then he showed me the river of the water of life, bright
as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle
of the street of the city” (Rev 22:1-2) – this refers to the waters of grace
that we receive from Jesus the Lamb of God in the Eucharist which flows into
the city of our souls. Ezekiel continues on the same theme: “And on the banks,
on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food” (47:12a)
– these trees refer to each time we receive Communion in such a manner, since every
time we take Mary’s dispositions and make them our own a new spiritual tree is
planted in the garden of our hearts – a tree which bears perfect fruits
of virtue which serve as food for the Father’s delight, because such a tree absorbs
perfectly the Water of Life who is Jesus in the Eucharist. This Water, who is Himself, Christ promises
to give to us in Holy Communion: for “whoever drinks of the water that I shall
give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him
a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (Jn 4:14). The passage from Ezekiel
continues: “Their leaves will not wither nor their fruit fail, but they will
bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the
sanctuary” (47:12) – that is, the leaves of these trees (the dispositions of
Mary) will remain within us, nor will the fruit borne from our Holy Communions received
by means of Mary fail to grow, for these fruits will blossom “every month” –
that is, constantly – because in one sense Mary is the Tree(s) of Life within
us which absorb perfectly the water of grace we receive in Holy Communion. We all admire a lovely garden paved with fresh grass and which is checkered with all kinds of flowers, trees and plants. The pleasure we receive from such physical gardens is but a shadow of the pleasure our Heavenly Father takes in the soul whose interior garden flourishes with the Perfect Fruits of the Blessed Virgin. We must only allow the tree(s) of our devotion to Mary to grow, so that these fruits may multiply.
[1]
Benedict XVI, Homily on the occasion of the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, 7
June, 2012, http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/homilies/2012/documents/hf_ben-xvi_hom_20120607_corpus-domini.html.
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