Untitled - Rore Sanctifica

Defects and their Remedy in Be-union. 169
person from taking a hearty supper at eleven in
the evening, and communicating as soon after
midnight as he pleases. Surely the mere
striking of the clock cannot fact ! And on the
change the actual
other hand, we constantly
hear of sick persons deprived
of communion
day after day, because it has been necessary to
administer a dose of medicine early in the morn
ing;. o It was one of the saddest facts recorded
of Cardinal Wiseman s death bed, that his
earnest desire for the most precious consolation
of illness should have been so often denied him
for this very reason. The universal practice of
the Church is of course an argument deserving
all reverence, but setting aside as exceptional
the first communion of the Apostles, the celebra
tion at Emmaus may surely be as safely appealed
to in this behalf as in defence of Communion
under one species alone. But the unbending
stiffness of Roman rule in this and in other
cases, seems to defeat its own object
at times.
All invalids must have felt the distress of
having mind and body so stupified with ex
haustion, that, though the essential benefit may
be the same, all comfort from the precious act
of is Reception destroyed, from the mind being
in a state of unconsciousness, or worse
nearly
still, assaulted by every kind of evil imagination;
and so irreverence is caused by a rule which had
reverence originally for its object