THE EUCHARISTIC MEDITATIONS OF THE CURÉ D'ARS - the Irish ...

pray to the good God for you and prepare you to receive Him. The day of your Communion, come
to Holy Mass a short time before it begins. Hear it still better than at other times. Have your beads
or your office book, that your mind and heart may be all the time at the foot of the tabernacle; that
it may long continually for the happy moments when Our Lord will come; that your thoughts may
not be of this world, but all of heaven, and be so lost in God that you seem to be dead to the
world. Make acts with all possible fervour to reanimate in your soul, faith, hope and a great love for
Jesus Christ, who will come soon to make of your heart his tabernacle, or if you wish a little
heaven. My God, what a happiness, what an honour for such miserable creatures like us!
After you have made your acts of preparation, you must offer your Communion for yourself or
for others.
MEDITATION 16: UNWORTHY COMMUNION
UNWORTHY Communions are made very often. How many there are who have the temerity
to come to the Holy Table with sins unconfessed or disguised in Confession. How many have not
the contrition that the good God demands of them, and keep a secret will to commit sin again and
not to make every effort to correct themselves. How many do not avoid the occasions of sin when
they could do so, and bring to the Holy Table enmities in their heart! If ever you have been in these
dispositions when going to Holy Communion, you have been guilty of sacrilege. Horrible crime on
which we are going to meditate.
1. THE UNWORTHY COMMUNICANT IS A TRAITOR AND A HYPOCRITE.
Having lied to the Holy Spirit in Confession by hiding or disguising some sin, he dares, this
wretch, to take his place among the faithful about to eat this bread, with a hypocritical look of
respect! Ah! no, no, nothing prevents the monster; he goes forward to bring about his reprobation.
In vain this loving Saviour, seeing him come to Him, calls out from the tabernacle as to the
perfidious Judas: “My friend, whereto art thou come ?” Why my friend, do you betray your God
and Saviour with a sign of peace! Stop, stop, my son, ah! for mercy’s sake spare Me! But no, no,
neither the remorse of conscience nor the loving reproaches which his God makes to him can
prevent his criminal steps. Ah, he goes forward, he is going to pierce his God and Saviour! Oh,
heavens, how terrible! Can you support without trembling this miserable murder of your Creator?
Ah! is it not the crime of crimes and the abomination in the holy place.
2. THE UNWORTHY COMMUNICANT IS AN UNGRATEFUL PERSON.
“Why do you persecute Me?” Jesus Christ said to the Jews. “Is it because I have opened the
eyes of the blind, made the lame walk, cured the sick and raised the dead? Is it a crime to have
loved you so much?” Such is the language that Jesus Christ speaks to those who profane His
adorable Body and precious Blood. The greatness of their ingratitude is shown in that they outrage
their benefactor through the greatest of his benefits, even worse, they use Himself to insult Him.
Jesus Christ says to us by the mouth of one of the prophets: “If this affront had been offered to Me
by enemies, by infidels who had never had the happiness of knowing Me, or even by heretics born
in error, there might have been some reason for it. But you, He says to us, whom I have set in the
bosom of My Church, you whom I have enriched with My choicest gifts; you who by Baptism have
become My children and heirs to My kingdom! What! is it you who dare to outrage Me by this
horrible sacrilege? What! you can still break the heart of the best of fathers, who has loved you even
unto death. Well! ungrateful ones, are you not satisfied with all the tortures that have been
inflicted on My innocent Body during My sorrowful passion? Oh! for mercy’s sake, spare your God
who has loved you so much; why do you wish to give Me to death a second time, by receiving Me
20