The Saints on Holy Communion

All the saints have understood by experience the divine marvel of our meeting and our union with Jesus in the Eucharist. They have understood that a devout Holy Communion means being possessed by Him and possessing Him. "He who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood abides in Me and I in him" (John 6:57). On one occasion St. Gemma Galgani wrote, "It is now night. Tomorrow morning is approaching, and then Jesus will possess me and I will possess Jesus." It is not possible to have a union of love which is deeper and more total: He in me and I in Him; the one in the other. What more could we want?

"You envy," said St. John Chrysostom, "the privilege of the woman who touched the vestments of Jesus, of the sinful woman who washed His feet with her tears, of the women of Galilee who had the happiness of following Him in His pilgrimages, of the Apostles and disciples who conversed with Him familiarly, of the people of the time who listened to the words of grace and salvation which came forth from His lips. You consider fortunate those who saw Him. . . . However, come to the altar and you will see Him, you will feel Him [when received in Communion], you will give Him holy kisses, you will wash Him with your tears, you will carry Him within you like Mary Most Holy."

For this reason the saints desired and longed for Holy Communion with ardent love; for example, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Paschal Baylon, St. Veronica, St. Gerard, St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, St. Dominic Savio, St. Gemma Galgani. . . . It is pointless to continue, for one would need to list all the saints.

For example, one night St. Catherine of Genoa dreamed that the following day she would not be able to receive Holy Communion. The sorrow that she experienced was so great that she cried unceasingly, and when she woke up the next morning, she found that her face was all wet from the tears she shed in her dream.

St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus wrote a little eucharistic poem, "Desires near the Tabernacle," in which, among other beautiful things, she said, "I would like to be the chalice and adore the Divine Blood therein. I can, however, in the Holy Sacrifice, gather Him in me every morning. My soul is therefore dearer to Jesus, it is more precious than vessels of gold." And how great was the happiness of that angelic Saint when, during an epidemic, daily Communion was given to her!

Diary of St. Faustina...Staying with Jesus in every moment

+ 485  I accept joy or suffering, praise or humiliation with the same disposition. I remember that one and the other are passing. What does it matter to me what people say about me? I have long ago given up everything that concerns my person. My name is host-or sacrifice, not in words but in deeds, in the emptying of myself and in becoming like You on the Cross, O good Jesus, my Master! 

+ 486  Jesus, when You come to me in Holy Communion, You who together with the Father and the Holy Spirit have deigned to dwell in the little heaven of my heart, I try to keep You company throughout the day, I do not leave You alone for even a moment. Although I am in the company of other people or with our wards, my heart is always united to Him. When I am asleep I offer Him every beat of my heart; when I awaken I immerse myself in Him without saying a word. When I awaken I adore the Holy Trinity for a short while and thank God for having deigned to give me yet another day, that the mystery of the incarnation of His Son may once more be repeated in me, and that once again His sorrowful Passion may unfold before my eyes. I then try to make it easier for Jesus to pass through me to other souls. I go everywhere with Jesus; His presence accompanies me everywhere. 

Meditations from St. Jean Vianney on Receiving Jesus in Holy Communion

Meditation 14: Dispositions of Soul for Holy Communion


When Jesus Christ instituted the Blessed Eucharist, it was in a room well furnished, to teach us how we ought to take care to adorn our soul’; with virtues in order to receive Him in Holy Communion. Let us thank Our Lord for this instruction.

The first ornament of the soul who wishes to communicate is the state of Grace, the next is freedom from any affection for venial sin.
1. To be in a state of grace to receive Communion worthily.

(a) Let a man prove himself, says St. Paul, before coming to the Holy Table: and then let him eat and drink of this chalice. Because he who eats and drinks this chalice unworthily, eats and drinks his own condemnation not discerning the Body of the Lord.

We must, before going to the Holy Table, be sure that we have spent sufficient time in examination of conscience in order to discover our mortal sins, and that we have a great sorrow also, that our confession has thus been entire. We must have a firm determination to do, by the grace of God, all that we can, not to fall into sin again.

If we have not confessed entirely or sincerely, in receiving Holy Communion we would put Jesus Christ at the feet of the devil. What an enormity!

When we go to receive the Body of Jesus Christ in Holy Communion, we should be ready for death and ready to appear with confidence before the tribunal of Jesus Christ.

(b) Those who go to Holy Communion without having purified their hearts, ought to be afraid of incurring the chastisement of the servant who dared to sit at table without a wedding garment. The Master ordered his officials to bind his hands and feet, and to cast him into the outer darkness. Even thus Jesus Christ will say at the hour of death to those who have the misfortune of receiving Him into their hearts unworthily. “Why have you had the audacity to receive Me when you were stained with so many sins ?” No, never forget that to communicate we must be truly converted, and have a sincere determination to persevere.

(c) Sin, according to the mind of St. Bernard, is the poison of our souls.

(d) You would not embrace a King if your mouth gave out a fetid odour, and you embrace the King of heaven with a soul more fetid still! No outrage could be greater. Do you not see with what care, decency and splendour even the Sacred Vessels are kept. How much more pure and shining ought our souls to be! Because the Sacred Vessels do not share in the mysteries that they enclose, they are not conscious of them. There is no real union between them and Him who is in them. For us it is otherwise. We must, then, in order to receive the Sacred Host purify our minds and make our souls all holy.

2. To be free from affection for venial sin, in order to gather abundant fruit from Communion.

Before giving His adorable Body and precious Blood Jesus washed the feet of the Apostles to show us that we must be free from sin, even the slightest, and that we should have no affection for them. The purity of Jesus is so great that the least fault prevents us from being united to Him as completely as He would wish.

Venial sin, it is true, does not make our Communion unworthy, but it is the reason why we profit so little from
it. See, for instance, how many Communions you have made. Are you any better? No, perhaps. Why? Because you retain nearly always the same imperfections. You have a horror of big sins which would kill your soul, but for all these acts of impatience, these murmurings when some trouble or some annoyance or contradiction befalls you, for these little evasions in speech.

You wish everyone should love you, and have a good opinion of you. You do not make the least effort to correct yourself.

Set to work to destroy in yourself all that is not pleasing to Jesus Christ, to speak willingly to those who have caused you pain, to be pleased to see them, to love them sincerely, to practise the perfect renouncement of yourselves and you will see how your Communion will carry you forward with great strides towards Heaven. The more you do it, the more you will feel yourself detached from sin and carried to God.

Diary of St. Faustina...how satan tried to take her peace..

Once I desired very much to receive Holy Communion, but I had a certain doubt, and I did not go. I suffered greatly because of this. It seemed to me that my heart would burst from the pain. When I set about my work, my heart full of bitterness, Jesus suddenly stood by me and said, My daughter, do not omit Holy Communion unless you know well that your fall was serious; apart from this, no doubt must stop you from uniting yourself with Me in the mystery of My love. Your minor faults will disappear in My love like a piece of straw thrown into a great furnace. Know that you grieve Me much when you fail to receive Me in Holy Communion.(156)


On the following day, I had a clear awareness of the following words: "You see, God is so holy, and you are sinful. Do not approach Him and go to confession everyday." And indeed whatever I thought of seemed to me to be a sin. ...when the day for confession came, I prepared a whole mass of those sins of which I was to accuse myself. However, in the confessional God allowed me to accuse myself of only two imperfections, despite my efforts to make a confession according to what I had prepared . When I left the confessional, the Lord said to me, My daughter, all those sins you intended to confess are not sins in My eyes; and that is why I took away your ability to tell them. I understood that Satan, wanting to disturb my peace, has been giving me exaggerated thoughts. (1802)

Praying for Priest in Mortal Sin........St. Teresa of Avila..

Volume 1 of The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, Chapter 38, parts 23 & 24 & 25:

23. "Once, while approaching to receive Communion, I saw with my soul's eyes more clearly than with my bodily eyes two devils whose appearance was abominable. It seems to me their horns were wrapped around the poor priests's throat, and in the host that was going to be given to me I saw my Lord with the majesty I mentioned placed in the priest's hands, which were clearly seen to be His offender's; and I understood that that soul was in mortal sin. What would it be my Lord, to see Your beauty in the midst of such abominable figures? They were as though frightened and terrified in Your presence, for it seems they would have very eagerly fled had You allowed them.

This vision caused me such great disturbance I don't know how I was able to receive Communion, and I was left with a great fear, thinking that if the vision had been from God, His Majesty would not have permitted me to see the evil that was in that soul. The Lord Himself told me to pray for him and that He had permitted it so that I might understand the power of the words of consecration and how God does not fail to be present, however evil the priest who recites them, and that I might see His great goodness since He places Himself in those hands of His enemy, and all out of love for me and for everyone. I understood well how much more priests are obliged to be good than are others, how deplorable a thing it is to receive this most Blessed Sacrament unworthily, and how much the devil is lord over the soul in mortal sin. It did me a great deal of good and brought me deep understanding of what I owed God. May He be blessed forever and ever.