The Holy Communion – The greatest thing that can be said of a man is that he loves God

Holy Communion from my grandfather's prayer book (Men in prayer). Saint Paul warns very emphatically that everyone who wants to approach the holy supper should think carefully about what he is doing. Above all, you are to renew your faith in the actual presence of Jesus Christ in the sacrament of the altar. God will only solve the mystery of this presence for us in eternity. But belief in it - is the first fundamental attitude of the soul to Holy Communion.

A second is sincere brotherly love. Nobody dares to take the big step towards the holy meal who does not live in peace with his fellow human beings. You have to be able to forgive when you go to the one who has had to forgive us so many times. A third is true repentance and sincere humility, no serious sin must stain the soul. You would invoke the judgment of God upon you.

And though we be clean from sins, we shall never be able to claim that we are worthy of such holy food. Just as little as fear of man should keep us from Holy Communion, so little should humane consideration or even hypocrisy lead us to the communion rail. Seeing so that we can be seen and not walking because we can be seen, that is not a man's way.

But on the purity of the soul and on believing reverence for the holy of holies - that's what God sees. This is your wedding robe. In this attitude of soul we can and should nourish ourselves often and regularly with the food that gives us life and ensures eternal resurrection.

 

Communion Preparation

If you drink the blood of the Lord and bear no fruit, So you will be cursed stronger than that tree.

Faith

According to your word, my Savior, we believe the incredible, that you yourself are bread for our souls, food for immortality. The bread you gave us is your flesh for the life of the world. Anyone who is not your flesh and does not drink your blood does not have life within him.

Your word is truth. It cannot deceive and cannot err. And so I believe it firmly and always, even if I cannot grasp it with my mind. This is the faith that leads me to the table where the bread of life is given, where you give yourself that we may be saved.

Hope

"Whoever is my flesh and drinks my blood has life within him, and he will live through me." - So many wishes and desires keep me busy all day! And yet there should only be one person and one desire in me: to carry yourself in me. Whoever owns you has everything. He has the only life worth living. I shall now experience this incomprehensible happiness myself. You really want to come to me as the savior and redeemer of my soul. I build my life on you and place all my hopes on you. Then I can't be lost forever. Then nothing can harm me anymore. Only then do I begin to live, because you are the life of my soul.

Love

On my own I could never have the courage to take you as food in my soul. I can only because you want to come to me yourself. Such love I cannot leave unanswered. Since you do so much for me, I want to do my best too. Teach me true love, O Jesus! Show me what a tremendous force she is. Teach me to understand that through love for you I am raised above everything that is low and bad, what is sin and transgression, above the earth with its burden and aberration.

The greatest thing that can be said of a man is that he loves God. My guilty conscience would have made this goal seem impossible to me. The only reason I can think of it is because you still call me, because your love is infinite and is primarily aimed at those who are in sin and in spiritual distress. So accept this remorse as a sign of my good opinion! Also accept my promise that I will do everything I can to grow in love with you and become a man. Give me, O Lord, a strong and sacrificial love!

The Poverty of the Soul

The house of my soul is too narrow for you to stop there: so make it wide! It is dilapidated; you restore it! Some blemish on it will offend your eye; I know and admit it. But who should clean it? Or to whom but you can I call; "Cleanse me from my hidden sins, O Lord, and keep your servant from strangers"?

Desire

Dwell, O Lord, in me! Until I die, don't leave me! Do not go away from me, your servant, that I may also be with you when I die and after my death. Do not leave me alone! Always watch me, always unwavering, protect me, that I dead may come alive through you, I poor may become rich through you. So I will be more powerful than all the powerful in the world because I can carry you in me. Because you are all goodness, you are all beauty, all bliss. May the whole world worship you with the Father and the Holy Spirit forever. Amen.

Other Communion Prayer

Lord and God! you are our father And as a father, you also provide for the daily bread of your children, as does the biological father on earth. But he can only offer the bread that the earth gives him. But you offer us as food a food that is truly divine, incomprehensible to our thinking, but actually and real according to your word: your own divine son. Who could ever have imagined such a gift! Nobody would have dared. Even a mother in her great love for children could never suspect such love.

Your Son's Sacred Body and Precious Blood are indeed the gifts you give us as food for the soul. If you give us such food, then we can also guess how precious our soul is in your eyes. You gave her your grace in baptism and in holy confession you took away all mistakes. With this our soul is so glorious and wonderful before you that no other food is precious enough for it than Holy Communion.

If only we could find the reverence needed to come to this sacred table! By a great miracle the bread was changed into your body of Christ. This is a sign to us that we should also convert.

Our earthly and transitory life should become something divine and immortal: a child of God. As wonderful as the human spirit is by nature, you wanted to elevate it even more and crown it with the greatest dignity: with your grace, which accepts us into your supernatural world of God.

It is so high above all human understanding that our senses fail, that even the greatest human mind must fail to think. The only thing that helps us is believing in your word. You said it, "My flesh is verily food, and my blood is verily drink." And your word is enough for us. We believe it.

What you want to give us, Heavenly Father, is not just any gift. It is Jesus Christ himself as God and as man. Your divine son with all his divine wealth. He really wants to give himself to us, and to give his own, to belong completely to us. With all the fullness of divine life that he has with you from all eternity, he wants to enter our poor human life so that we can be fully absorbed into him. Just as he said himself that he came that we might have life to the full: "As I live by the Father, so he who eats me will live by me."

Who can believe that! Who can penetrate even a little into such a great secret! In amazement we fall on our knees and confess: If you, O God, have such great love for us, then give us a love for you too, a great, strong and unbreakable love! Grant, O God, that everything we do and think may be worthy of such holy food! That we should not lightly sell our life when we have fed it with such food. That at least now we do our best to come to Holy Communion worthily. Amen.

After the Holy Communion

The short time that we are allowed to be with our Lord is exceedingly precious. Let's make good use of them! We do not want to struggle with many words and a frantic search for prayers, but rather feel the happiness of his presence and let it flow into us. Then he will start talking to us. The following prayers are meant to be a suggestion only, a help when we cannot easily gather ourselves.

Worship and Joy

Jesus Christ! You are the immeasurably great God, before whom I am only like a mote in a ray of sunshine. You gave existence, order and life to the whole world. And in that I am a small, inconspicuous creature that comes and goes like thousands of others. And yet you come to me yourself! Come to take up residence in me. How am I ever going to take it? Only believing in your boundless love for people helps me to understand it. We humans must be very dear to you that you come down from heaven like food into our souls.

So I worship you, my Lord and God! I marvel at this great grace that has now come to me. Your love is truly divine-great! There is no happiness that would be greater and that makes me forget everything else: You are in me, and I can adore and adore you in my own soul! Take my poor words as a token of my joy, happiness and humble worship!

Gratitude

When I thank you for coming to me, I see how weak such thanks are compared to your incomprehensible goodness. You love us to death. No one can please us like you. You have exhausted your wisdom to show us your love, you have used your omnipotence to work this mighty miracle. With your own flesh and blood you nourish and strengthen us. We would have to be heartless people if we didn't love you with every fiber of our being in return.

I want to show you this love, not only with prayer, but above all with deeds. I now want to take you out into my daily life, into my family and into my job. And there my thanks should consist in the fact that everything happens for your honor, for your sake and according to your divine will. By this you shall know how much I love you, that I too give my life to you, just as you gave your life for me.

Request

I bring many great requests before you. Especially the one that you don't look at my mistakes and sins. Take everything from me that prevents me from coming to you! Cleanse my soul of everything that is repugnant to you. Give me everything that encourages me to you! Even if I have to buy it with great sacrifices, even if I have to do without many things: If only you don't have to leave me anymore! If I have you, then I have everything.

Put my will and mind entirely at your service. All my abilities and powers, my talents and my memory. Everything should serve you, accept it kindly! Take me and give me all yours! So I don't need to ask for more things. When I have you, I have everything for myself, for my family, for my work, and whatever else I need. I only want one thing from you: that you make everyone so happy. That everyone recognizes your great love and surrenders to it completely. Amen.

Other Prayers after the Holy Communion

Jesus Christ, Son of God! You give the same bread of the soul to so many different people in this wonderful food. Everyone comes together to eat together, even though language and homeland, status and profession, attitude and way of thinking separate us so much. With this you want to show us that, despite all differences and separation, a great unity is possible for all people and must become real: unity in you, our Redeemer and Lord.

Just as you died for all people, so you give yourself as food for all who believe in you and have become your children through baptism. And so you create what seems impossible to us: true peace among people of good will. In the holy confession you gave peace to our soul. In Holy Communion you reconcile people with one another. Who could be enemies when you're our mutual friend? Who else could be apart when you connect us?

Reconcile and unite all people: masters and workers, rich and poor, races and nations, all divided and quarreling. Make this community strong and unbreakable, lest the spirit of evil enter into it. All whom you have nourished with your holy body, as your brothers, should really be brothers to one another. Our life should arise in us and become more and more powerful and effective. You want to take shape in us, speak and act through us, own us completely.

Do what we cannot do: that all badness and all weakness be driven out of us, that strong, inwardly healthy and powerful people become in you. Then we will not only cope with this life, but we master it and are messengers of great happiness to our fellow human beings through our example and life. In you and with you we can do everything. Amen.

Prayer of Indulgence

Praying kneeling before a crucifix.

Behold, o good and merciful Jesus, before thy face I kneel down and beg and implore thee with the greatest fervor of my soul: Imprint in my heart the living spirit of faith, hope and love, a true repentance my sins and the determination to reform myself. With heartfelt pity and deep sorrow I contemplate your five wounds and consider what the prophet David prophesied of you, O good Jesus: "They pierced my hands and feet, they numbered all my bones." our father Hail, Maria.

Glory be to the father.

The Brother Claus Prayer

My Lord and my God, take from me everything that prevents me from coming to you.

My Lord and my God, give me everything that brings me to you.

My Lord and my God, take me and make me all yours. Amen.