Category: 29.v.22 Ascensiontide

There are certain pusillanimous souls, who, on being exhorted to communicate more frequently, reply: “But I am not worthy.” But, my child, do you not know, that the more you refrain from Communion, the more unworthy you become? Because, deprived of Holy Communion you will have less strength, and will commit many faults.

St. John Regis was accustomed frequently to visit Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Sometimes, however, finding the church closed, he satisfied his longings by remaining on his knees outside the door, exposed to the rain and cold, that, at least at a distance, he might pay his homage to his Comforter concealed under the sacramental veils.

The greatest evil is, that without mental prayer we do not pray at all. I have spoken frequently in my spiritual works of the necessity of prayer, and more especially in a little volume entitled, On Prayer, the Great Means of Salvation and Perfection; and here also I will say a few other things. It will be sufficient, then, to quote the opinion of the Venerable Palafox, Bishop of Osma: “How can charity last, unless God grants us perseverance? How will the Lord grant us perseverance unless we ask it of Him? And how shall we ask it of Him except by prayer?

Our holy Faith teaches us, and we are bound to believe that in the consecrated Host Jesus Christ is really present under the species of bread. But we must also understand that He is thus present on our altars as on a throne of love and mercy, to dispense graces and to show us the love He bears us, in wishing thus to dwell night and day hidden in our midst.

The greatest evil is, that without mental prayer we do not pray at all. I have spoken frequently in my spiritual works of the necessity of prayer, and more especially in a little volume entitled, On Prayer, the Great Means of Salvation and Perfection; and here also I will say a few other things. It will be sufficient, then, to quote the opinion of the Venerable Palafox, Bishop of Osma: “How can charity last, unless God grants us perseverance? How will the Lord grant us perseverance unless we ask it of Him? And how shall we ask it of Him except by prayer?

There is no prayer more agreeable to God, or more profitable to the soul, than that which is made during the Thanksgiving after Communion. It is the opinion of many grave writers (Suarez, Cajetan, Valentia, De Lugo, and others), that the Holy Communion, as long as the Sacramental species last, constantly produces greater and greater graces in the soul, provided the soul is then constant in disposing itself by new acts of virtue.