Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Appetite for communion

ONE prayer that holds great meaning to me and that I
learned soon after a dramatic personal conversion many, many years ago
is what is called Spiritual Communion.

            This can be said, of course, in different ways, but the
one I learned was the one used by St. Josemaria Escriva, Opus Dei
founder. It goes this way: “I wish, Lord, to receive you with the
purity, humility and devotion with which your Most Holy Mother
received you, with the spirit and fervor of the saints.”

            As explained to me by the priest who was my spiritual
director at that time, it’s a prayer that I should try to say as often
as possible during the day, and especially as an immediate preparation
for Holy Mass, since it expresses the proper attitude we ought to have
with respect to Christ.

            He went on to say that Christ is everything to us. He is
our savior, the one who fixes things for us, who shows us the way we
have to go through in our earthly life toward our definitive eternal
life without getting lost.

            I was made to realize that our life would not be complete,
as it should be, without Christ. Our true happiness and perfection is
in him. Somehow, I knew all this in theory and I fully agreed to it,
but how to put it in practice was the big problem.

            The priest continued to tell me that it was important that
I manage to keep this need and hunger for Christ all throughout the
day, and to avoid getting swallowed up by merely earthly affairs and
concerns. He said that I should learn how to make my involvement in
mundane activities sharpen rather than dull my desire for Christ.

            The advice had great and lasting impact on me. I remember
I had to process it slowly in my personal reflections, figuring out
how to put it in place in my mind and heart, making it a fundamental
and functioning principle in life.

            I remember I had to revisit the many theological
foundations of this counsel, and to relish them so as to make them
alive and keenly felt, rather than keeping them merely as abstract and
cold ideas.

            I was quite aware of my predicament. I was doing very well
in my studies. And wherever I focused my interest into, somehow I
managed to get good results. But I was also aware of the motives
behind them. And they were not all good! Worse, they can look good to
others who appreciated what I did, but I know there were not all good.

            Some kind of pack of wolves always hounded me as I believe
they do with everybody else. Pride, vanity, envy, greed can subtly
attach themselves to otherwise good intentions and initiatives. And,
of course, lust would not be far behind. All these somehow would
manage to enter into the equation.

            Repeating the Spiritual Communion somehow helped and
continues to help in putting the mind and heart in the right track. If
prayed earnestly, it surely would assure us of a certain sense of
security and immunity from dangers coming from our weakness and from
other external sources.

            We would be strongly reminded that Christ is always with
us, showing us the way, and ever ready to help us in our every need,
and quick to understand and forgive us. He is not a Christ who is
indifferent to us, who enjoys in our difficulties and suffering.

            If he allows us to fall, in spite of our best efforts,
it’s because there is always something good and better that can be
derived from these bad experiences. He will teach us how to suffer and
bear all things. He will show us how we can develop a virtue that is
still lacking in us.

            We need to cultivate this appetite for communion with
Christ. We have to develop a holy fear of simply being by ourselves,
relying solely on our human powers and resources. This is a dangerous
situation to be in.

            We need to enter into communion with Christ, which is
actually what is proper to us, since our life is not meant only to be
ours alone, but rather to be vitally united with God through Christ in
the Holy Spirit. We are made in his image and likeness. We cannot be
without him in our mind and heart, and in our life as a whole.

            The spiritual communion should lead us to Holy Communion,
the living bread that Christ himself commanded us to eat to have life,
the real life, in abundance!

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