When you cannot receive Communion…An Act of Spiritual Communion

The Chapel of the Benedictine Nuns in Kylemore: photo S. Devitt

When you cannot actually receive Holy Communion, you can make a prayer of Spiritual Communion: you can express the longing that is in you to be united completely with Christ.   We can say a prayer of Spiritual Communion, such as this one by St. Alphonsus, founder of the Redemptorists: it’s in his ‘Visits to the Most Blessed Sacrament’:

AN ACT OF SPIRITUAL COMMUNION:   From Visits to the Blessed Sacrament, by St. Alphonsus Liguori:

My Jesus, I believe that you are truly present in the Most Blessed Sacrament. I love you above all things, and I desire to possess you within my soul. Since I am unable now to receive you sacramentally, come at least spiritually into my heart. I embrace you as being already there, and unite myself wholly to you: never permit me to be separated from you. 

A Íosa, creidim go bhfuil tú I láthair go fíor san Naoimh Shacramint. Gráim thú ós cionne chuile nidh faoin spéir, agus is mian liom go mbeifeá agam istigh I m’anam. Cé nach féidir liom thú a ghlacadh anois go sacraimintiúil, ar a laighead tar chugam go spioradálta isteach i mo chroí.   Fáiltím romhat mar go bhfuilir ann cheanna féin, agus aontaím mé féin leat go h-iomlán. Ná lig dom go brách a bheith scartha Uait. AMEN.

There is a beautiful song on YouTube, ‘There is a longing in my heart, O Lord…’. Listen to it here, and watch the words on screen.

A song that many young people love, ‘All of me loves all of you’ by John Legend, is his own composition to his bride for his wedding day, some few years ago. So many of the words can speak of the Eucharist, as well – words of self-giving, and of mutual love. I often use it with young people, after Holy Communion. ‘I give my all to you, you give your all to me…’  ’All of me loves all of you, all of you loves all of me.’    John Legend produced and played the lead part in ‘Jesus Christ, Superstar’, the show, about two years ago.

Wherever you are, and however you are, you can always walk in the presence of the Lord Jesus. He is the Vine, and we are the Branches… and we are all ‘one person in Christ’! He is within. At any time of day or night, you can go into the room of your heart, close the door, and be with your heavenly Father in that place. God is nearer to us than we are to ourselves.

Séamus Devitt C.Ss.R.