Bishop Challoner's Meditations - Thursday the Octave of Corpus Christi

ON DEVOTION AFTER COMMUNION

Consider first, that as the soul must prepare herself to go to receive Jesus Christ by proper devotion before Communion, so she must also take care to entertain him in a proper manner after she has received him; and to make good use of that favourable time (most happy to her above all times, if well employed) during which she has him really present with her, both in his divine and human nature; that is, both as God and man. It would be a gross affront after being favoured with a visit from the king of heaven, desiring to feast himself with us, and bringing all his treasures with him to enrich our souls, if we should turn our back immediately upon him, and take no further notice of him. The meanest of our friends would have reason to resent so contemptuous a usage; how much more so great a Lord! See, my soul, if the little care thou hast taken to manage to the best advantage those happy minutes in which thou hast Jesus Christ with thee, by a proper devotion after Communion, be not the true cause why thou hast reaped so little fruit from thy repeated Communions, which otherwise might long since have made thee a saint. O repent and amend.

Consider 2ndly, what this devotion is with which we are to entertain our Lord after receiving him. First, we are to welcome him by faith, hope, and love;- by a lively faith in all his mysteries, but in particular, that we have really with us, in this blessed sacrament, him who is our maker and our redeemer, infinite in majesty, and infinite in mercy, and who brings with him all the treasures of heaven to enrich us - by a firm hope that he will now, by this blood of the covenant, take full possession of our souls, and make them his, both for time and eternity - by an ardent love, aspiring with all our power and affection to an eternal union with our beloved whom we here receive- 'I have found him whom my soul loveth, I will hold him fast, and will never let him go.’ In the next place, we ought to cast ourselves down at his feet, and to pay him the best homage and adoration we are capable of, bringing all the powers of our soul before him, and obliging them all to bow down to him and worship him. But as all this ought to be accompanied with a lively sense of our unworthiness and sins, we must also take this opportunity of making an humble confession, like Magdalene, of all our treasons, at his feet, craving his mercy for what is past, and the grace of a change of heart and life for the time to come.

Consider 3rdly, that, after these first homages, the soul must, for some time following her Communion, keep close to our Lord, and give space for his grace to penetrate more and more into her interior, and to bring forth there its proper fruit. For this end she must entertain him with praise and thanksgiving; inviting all heaven and earth, all angels and saints, together with the whole creation, to join with her in his praises, and wishing she had the hearts and tongues of all his creatures that she might employ them all in loving and glorifying him, in return for all the wonders of his love and goodness to her. She must also offer herself and all that she has, without reserve, into his hands, that she may be for ever his, and that her whole being may be made as a holocaust or whole burnt-offering, to evaporate to his glory. In fine, she must remember that she is now before the throne of grace, and that the Lord, whom she has with her, carries about with him all the treasures of divine grace, and therefore, she must lay before him all her wants and spiritual necessities, and beg of him, by this opportunity, plentiful supplies of grace both for herself and for the whole church.

Conclude, O my soul, to entertain thy Saviour in this manner, as often as thou shalt receive him in the divine mysteries. Take care also to be more than ordinarily recollected on the whole day following thy Communion, and to keep a great guard upon thyself; lest the enemy - who knows what a treasure thou hast received, and is therefore most busy about thee on this occasion, in hopes of robbing thee of it - should fling some stumbling-block in thy way, to make thee fall into sin, either by passion or concupiscence; that so by this means he may drive Christ away from thee and get possession of thy soul.

N.B. That as often as the Octave of Corpus Christi shall fall before the thirteenth day of the month of June, the meditations that shall then be wanting in this place are to be taken on: of the number of those that are marked for the month of February; which were omitted at that time, to give place to the meditations appointed for Lent.