The Humility of God and Holy Communion
Do you pray silently before receiving Communion or afterward? What do you pray? After receiving Christ in the Eucharist, my prayer is intimately personal. Not always grand or uplifting, that’s for sure, but I do try to listen even though, when it comes to me and God, that’s difficult for me to do. Before receiving, however, I always pray the same prayer as I have been doing for several years. Technically, it might not be called a prayer as it isn’t communication directed to God, or even to a Saint. But it is a prayerful meditation upon the Mysteries of God and a shared exhortation with a Saint to receive the blessings of these Mysteries – it’s a mindful, soulful attempt to connect with God. It’s a prayer.
Before entering the profound Mystery of consuming the Body and Blood of Christ, I want to wake up, I want to be alert. I want to truly and profoundly receive. So I say in my mind and my heart, I pray, these remembered words of St. Francis of Assisi. He wrote them to the fellow brothers of his Order concerning the Eucharist. I know I don’t remember them exactly, but the meaning is here… the wonder, the joy, and the love are here…
Let everyone be struck with fear. Let the whole world tremble and the heavens exalt when Christ, Son of the Living God, is made present on the altar in the hands of a priest. Oh, wonderful heights of stupendous dignity! Oh, sublime humility and humble sublimity! That the Lord of the Universe, God and the Son of God, so humbles Himself that, for our salvation, He hides Himself under the little form of bread. Oh brothers, look at the humility of God and pour your hearts out before Him! Hold back nothing of yourselves for yourselves so that He, who gives Himself totally to you, may receive you totally.
©2015 Christina Chase
Christina Chase View All
Although crippled by disease, I'm fully alive in love. I write about the terrible beauty and sacred wonder of life, while living with physical disability and severe dependency. A revert to the Catholic faith through atheism, I'm not afraid to ask life's big questions. I explore what it means to be fully human through my weekly blog and have written a book: It's Good to Be Here, published by Sophia Institute Press.
Christina Chase 
You mean to say,that, some nuns got some flour together, baked some muffins, Millions of them, and distributed all those tons of muffins/cookies, to all roman catholic so called churches, and then they became Jesus, and you think that you ate/received him ?
Sounds like something relating to Semiramis etc..
Witch-Craft !!
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I have welcomed your comment onto my site because religious freedom is a basic human right and, as a believing Christian, I try to respect other people in their beliefs, even when they are different than mine.
Although the Catholic understanding of the Eucharist is different than that of some other Christians, it has nothing to do with nuns baking cookies. The understanding is from Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. If you would like to reflect with me more seriously on this matter, then I gladly welcome your response. If, however, you merely want to poke fun and ridicule, please know that you neither offend my faith nor my sense of humor.
In the peace of Christ,
Christina Chase
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I did respond to your last feeble response, and you have obviously deleted it.
Oh well
I re-state, that You cannot, and do not receive Jesus
christ, by eating a muffinwafer.
………..”………..yawns…………….”………..
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I did not receive another response from you. I would not have deleted it if I had.
Although I’m sure that you don’t mean that you find Sacred Scripture boring (“… yawns…”) I thank you for sharing your beliefs here.
And I agree – one cannot receive Jesus Christ by eating a muffinwafer. Holy Communion is not about a bunch of muffins.
In the peace of Christ,
Christina Chase
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