Vigils Reading – St Francis de Sales

On Receiving Holy Communion3
by St Francis de Sales

Prepare yourself for holy communion the evening before…retiring earlier, that you may rise sooner in the morning. Should you awake in the night, raise your heart to God immediately, and make some ardent aspirations, in order to prepare your soul for the reception of her Spouse, who, being awake whilst you were asleep, prepares a thousand graces and favors for you, if, on your part, you are disposed to receive them. In the morning, rise up with alacrity to enjoy the happiness you hope for; and having confessed, go with a great, but humble confidence, to receive this heavenly food, which nourishes your soul to immortality… Represent to yourself, that as the bee, after gathering from the flowers the dew of heaven, and the choicest juice of the earth, reducing them into honey, carries it into her hive, so the priest, having taken from the altar the Savior of the world… puts Him as delicious food into your mouth and body.

Having received Him in your breast, excite your heart to do homage to the author of your salvation: treat with Him concerning your internal affairs; consider that He has taken up His abode within you for your happiness; make Him then as welcome as you possibly can, and conduct yourself in such a manner as to make it appear by all your actions, that God is with you.

But when you cannot enjoy the benefit of really communicating at the holy Mass, communicate at least spiritually, uniting yourself by an ardent desire to this life-giving flesh of our Savior.

Your principal intention in communicating should be to advance in virtue, to strengthen yourself in the love of God, and to receive comfort from this love; for you must receive through love, that which love alone caused to be given to you. You cannot consider our Savior in an action, either more full of love, or more tender than this, in which He annihilates Himself, or as we may more properly say, changes Himself into food, that so He may penetrate our souls, and unite Himself most intimately to the heart, and to the body of His faithful.

If worldlings ask you why you communicate so often, tell them it is to learn to love God, to purify yourself from your imperfections, to be delivered from your miseries, to be comforted in your afflictions, and supported in your weaknesses. Tell them that two sorts of persons ought to communicate frequently; the perfect, because being well disposed, they would be greatly to blame not to approach to the source and fountain of perfection; and the imperfect, to the end that they may be able to aspire to perfection; the strong, lest they should become weak; and the weak, that they may become strong; the sick, that they may be restored to health; and the healthy, lest they should fall into sickness: that for your part, being imperfect, weak, and sick, you have need to communicate frequently with Him who is your perfection, your strength, and your physician. Tell them, that those who have not many worldly affairs to look after, ought to communicate often, because they have leisure; that those who have much business on hand, should also communicate often; for he who labors much and is loaded with pains, ought to eat solid food, and that frequently. Tell them that you receive the holy sacrament, to learn to receive it well; because one hardly performs an action well, which he does not often practice.

Communicate frequently, then… so, by approaching to, and eating beauty, purity, and goodness itself, in this divine sacrament you will become altogether fair, pure and virtuous.

3 St Francis de Sales. Introduction to a Devout Life. New York: Catholic Book Publishing Co., 1946, 143-146.