How We Can Give Thanks After Holy Communion

In Holy Communion, we are alone with God. Blissful solitude, where the soul can rise above the world, and with mute won­der, with breathless adoration, bask in the eloquently solemn silence of the Divine Presence!

In this solitude, where the voice of God is most articulate, we can support and sustain our conscious weakness with the strength of the personal revela­tion of the sacramental God. Our doubt and fear will vanish before Him who alone can satisfy the insuppressible longings of the soul.

With inconceivable generosity, Christ can grant all we ask and more, for the incapacity of man cannot limit the bounty of God. In adapting Himself, however, to our limita­tions, He veils His eternal glory with the appearances of bread and wine, so as not to overpower us.

The period of thanksgiving should be for us, hushed in the bosom of the hidden Christ, one of rapt recollectedness, of wondering contemplation that marvels at the infinite perfec­tions of Him whom we have received, of faith that renders these perfections visible, and of speechless amazement at the greatness of the gift. Our every faculty should be under the ab­solute control of the awe-inspiring Presence, the ears of our soul attentive to the voice of God, the eyes of our soul enamored of divine fascination, feasting upon our best Benefactor.

Nor will our contemplation be confined to the time of thanksgiving, as if we were beholding but a fleeting shadow of earth. The vision of the reality of the Divine Presence will perdure, with our whole being under the dominion of the in­dwelling God, who penetrates into the deepest depths of our souls and, with divine love, swallows up our poor, finite life in His infinite, eternal life. We will not look at Christ fitfully, but will be captivated by the beauty of the vision through habitu­ally beholding it.

The darkness of our fallen nature will flee before the light within us, and, in the brilliant brightness of its divine radiance, not only will flaws of character, even the most trivial, be disclosed, but our entire being will be morally transformed by the eucharistic God.

The light and power of the vision will, if
the soul concen­trates on it, produce this one marvelous effect of Holy Com­munion.
In this sacrament, Christ plainly shows His goodness to the soul, so that it
may rise under its compelling influence to a life of permanent union with Him,
and be conformed to His image.

To gratify this dominant yearning of the Sacred Heart, the soul must divest itself of over-solicitude, divorce itself deci­sively and completely from attachment to the outward world, and direct its thoughts to Christ alone.

Largeness of desire should characterize our thanksgiving. In the
gift of Himself, Christ includes all other gifts. Convinced of this truth, we
can be bold with God. We can presume on His kindness and try to exhaust His
generosity. We should banish all distrust of the Infinite Lover.

Nor must we have any misgiving, now that we possess Christ, about our ability to advance rapidly in virtue, for with God all things are possible, and to become a saint is the rea­son for our creation. Our expanding energies are not to be contracted by the thought, suggested by the Father of Lies, of old vicious habits; the copious flow of grace is not to be re­tarded by the sorrowful recollection of its former sins. The fear of sinning again, and therefore of severer judgment, must be supplanted by the yearning to advance in virtue because of greater grace received. Into this mystery of undying love, gloom born of sinful experience should not enter.

On
the contrary, our soul should be joyously courageous and calmly confident,
rising, as it embraces God in the fullness of fervent faith, up to the
happiness of Heaven, even though we had before Holy Communion been desolate
with fear and wasted with sorrow. Christ will surely answer such faith, be­cause
this largeness of desire imitates His own boundless beneficence.

A ready, spontaneous, practical
correspondence with grace, the effect of lively faith, will accompany largeness
of desire. Possessing God, the soul will grow in the consciousness of an
increasing capacity for divine light, and will slowly acquire, within the scope
of its limited powers, the knowledge of the full greatness of God’s love.
Mental growth is measured by the prolonged contemplation of a particular study
or a definite ob­ject. The increased mastery of a science depends upon the
yearn­ing for its acquisition.

The more the mind progresses in truth, the more enlarged
and developed becomes its capability for receiving more truth.

As
the horizon of knowledge widens, the mind’s power to grasp increases, and the
desire for more knowledge keeps pace with the mind’s greater power of
intelligence.

The same truth is seen in the spiritual order. The more we desire
to know God, the clearer will be our vision of Him. As the vision enlarges, so
do the capability and desire of the soul, and they will continue to grow
through their mutually respon­sive action upon one another.

How truly unique is the eucharistic
revelation to us, despite the impenetrable veil that shrouds our sight! In the
Blessed Sacrament, Christ dims the brilliance of the eternal glory of His
manifestation by hiding His presence. And yet what an al­luring paradise is the
lingering radiance of this communica­tion to the pure soul! God’s goodness in
all its unblemished beauty is not concealed from the creature. This is all the
soul needs to be convinced with peculiar force and cogency that one Holy
Communion can make us a saint.

For this gift that rifles the treasures of
omnipotent power, an acknowledgment of our utter unworthiness, actuated by
sincere humility, is our best act of thanksgiving especially when we
contemplate the vision of the infinite perfections of Christ that is mercifully
vouchsafed to us. Like the sacramental God who, because He is eternal, cannot
change, the revelation of His light in the soul is constant. Constancy,
therefore, in the service of God will develop the soul for the greater diffusion
of this light. The world’s enticing pleasures must not obscure the vision, or
dim the light, by chilling the ardor of our desire ever to follow it by growing
conformity to Him whom it manifests.

If we walk in the reflected glory of the sanctity of Christ within us, He, our eucharistic Lover, will illumine us so that we may instinctively detect the treachery of the angels of dark­ness, and He will “direct our feet into the way of peace,” until He lifts the veil and we enter into that eternity of bliss that is incapable of exhausting the beauty of the vision.

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This article is adapted from a chapter in Fr. John A. Kane’s Transforming Your Life Through the Eucharist. It is available from your favorite Catholic bookstore or online through Sophia Institute Press.

You can also read Fr. Kane’s further reflection on the Eucharist in the article, “Why We Pray Before the Blessed Sacrament.”

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