Consecration Aids: 18: Thanking the King After Holy Communion!
The original title of this article was: Thanking the King!
Fr. Christopher Lee, SMM
W as it St. John Eudes who said that to say Mass in a worthy manner it would take three eternities: one to prepare for it, one to say it and one to thank God for it? Well, anyway, whoever said that might have said the same thing – though with lesser force perhaps – about receiving Holy Communion worthily. This is especially true, I believe, when it comes to making one’s thanksgiving after Holy Communion.
How often have I not been distressed at my lack of fervor and devotion when making my thanksgiving after Holy Communion? I suppose many of my readers have experienced at times this same dryness and utter lack of fervor at a moment when they should have been bubbling over with love and enthusiasm and faith. And so moments that should have been precious snatches of eternity turn out to be eternal minutes of boredom and mental vacuity!
Don’t think I hadn’t tried about everything under the sun to ”whip up” my fervor and spirit of faith. My very distress proved my utter sincerity. No matter what I tried, it just didn’t add up to anything. For instance, I tried prayers, formulas, beautiful prayers, beautiful formulas. Within a very short time they were a mere mechanical repetition. I read books, pamphlets, leaflets, all telling of different ways to prepare, receive and thank Christ worthily in Holy Communion. Most of them helped for a time but somehow, they all seemed insufficient for my needs. There seemed to be something (I didn’t know that it was ”someone” ) lacking in all of them. Until . . . of course you’ve guessed it, I learned that Mary had to be there, too, if Christ was to be loved, adored, thanked in a worthy manner.
I learned the ”secret” from St. Louis de Montfort. I shall be forever thankful to him for having brought me so much closer to Christ, my only Master and King, in the Sacrament of His Love.
For the benefit of some of our readers who have never read St. Louis de Montfort’s Treatise on True Devotion to Mary (if you are one of them get your copy today! ), we shall attempt a brief explanation of the de Montfort method of thanksgiving after Holy Communion, in union with Mary. But don’t think that anything we can say about how to make one’s thanksgiving in union with Mary can come anywhere near what our Saint says about it in his book. It’s the old saying: if you want clear water go to the source. And what a sourcee Fr. de Montfort’s book is!
Author: Fr. Christopher Lee, SMM
This is the eighteenth in a series of articles covering Consecration Aids.
… ”There are an infinity of other thoughts which the Holy Spirit furnishes you … if you are thoroughly interior, mortified and faithful to this grand and sublime devotion which I have been teaching you. But always remember that the more you allow Mary to act in your Communion, the more Jesus will be glorified … ”
My first impulse on receiving Christ into my heart used to be to hug Him to myself and to myself alone, to the point of forgetting the whole world around, below and above me . . . nay, to the exclusion of all creatures both in heaven and on earth. To this exclusive, self-centered, not to say selfish attitude St. Louis de Montfort answers: nix! Listen to his way of making a thanksgiving after Holy Communion and see if it doesn’t run counter to anything that might smack of selfishness and pride.
”After Holy Communion,” he says, ”inwardly recollected and holding your eyes shut, you will introduce Jesus into the heart of Mary. You will give Him to His Mother, who will receive Him lovingly, will place Him honorably, will adore Him profoundly, will love Him perfectly, will embrace Him closely and will render to Him, in spirit and in truth, many homages which are unknown to us in our thick darkness.”
Notice how in this method, the Immaculate Heart of Mary becomes the very center of attraction, and not my own unworthy, selfish heart. St. Louis says, in the first part of his Treatise, that Mary is ”the sanctuary and the repose of the Holy Trinity, where God dwells more magnificently and more divinely than in any other place in the universe, not excepting His dwelling between the Cherubim and Seraphim.” No wonder then that he wishes me to ”introduce Jesus into the heart of Mary!” Could I give Jesus a more fitting dwelling place than in the heart of His Mother? And to think that all these years I had thought my own heart a worthy palace for the King of Kings!
A second defect with my Communions – I was soon to find out – was that I talked too much and listened too little. I’m inclined to think this fault is as common to men as it is to women, … At any rate, it was so in my case until I read Fr. de Montfort’s words: ”. . . you will keep yourself profoundly humbled in your heart, in the presence of Jesus residing in Mary. Or else you will sit like a slave at the gate of the King’s palace, where He is speaking with the Queen; and while they talk to each other without need of you, you will go in spirit to heaven and over all the earth, praying all creatures to thank, adore and love Jesus and Mary in your place.”
Confidentially, dear readers, it was not until I had learned this method that the Canticle of Praise of the three children in the fiery furnace, which I as a priest recite every day after my Mass, took on any real significance for me. It was then only that I could scour heaven and earth in search of angels, men, beasts, nay the very elements themselves inviting them all to join me in praising my Creator and my King. It was not until then either that I learned that silence is gold, especially when Christ is in my heart; that what He has to say to me is much more [important than what I have to say to Him; and, finally, that Mary’s acts of praise, of adoration, of thanksgiving are of much greater value than mine and, consequently, if I invite her to act in and for me, my thanksgiving will be all the more perfect.
There is one final thing which I have always insisted on in my thanksgiving: my requests. But, alas, being selfish, my requests were mostly always on the ”Lord-give-me-this-give-me-that” side! Fr. de Montfort has helped me to ask for first things first. He says: ”. . . you will yourself ask of Jesus, in union with Mary, the coming of His Kingdom on earth, through His holy Mother; or you will sue for divine wisdom, or for divine love etc. . . ”
What a different approach from my own selfish attitude of suing always for temporal and material favors. ”Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His justice!” Such is the Fr. de Montfort attitude in Holy Communion. ”There are an infinity of other thoughts which the Holy Spirit furnishes you . . . if you are thoroughly interior, mortified and faithful to this grand and sublime devotion which I have been teaching you. But always remember that the more you allow Mary to act in your Communion, the more Jesus will be glorified. . .” (T.D. 273)
