5/15/2020
Dear St. Joseph Parish Family,
Parishioners have asked me about spiritual communion: what it is and how to take part in it. So what is it? The sacraments each provide us with grace, a share in God’s own life. Jesus instituted, or created, the sacraments as the means by which we are transformed into children of God, in other words, the sacraments are the means by which we live the spiritual life in our Christian pilgrimage. The life of God configures us to Christ, making us like God and preparing us for heaven, and this process is called sanctification (making us saints). All of that is possible because of what Jesus did in His life, death, and resurrection. The sacraments take the graces Christ won in His time on earth and deliver them to us today. You can think of them as the spiritual plumbing system of the Church or spiritual FedEx.
God uses the sacraments as the normal way to provide us the grace necessary to grow as Christians. However, He is not bound by them– God can give us grace however He wants. Also, while normally we should participate in the sacraments as the normal means of sanctification, sometimes that is not possible, such as during the current pandemic. Thus spiritual communion.
Sometimes we cannot receive communion, such as if we need to go to confession first, or if there is a pandemic that prevents public Masses. In that case, we should desire the graces God ordinarily would have given us in the sacraments, and ask Him to provide them to us outside the sacrament. Spiritual communion is asking for the grace of communion without being able to receive actual communion. In that situation, we can’t eat the actual Body of Christ as at Mass, but we can ask for the graces that faithfully receiving communion would have given us. God will bless such a holy desire, and He wants us to ask for it.
So how should one do so? First, desire the graces of union with God. Desire to be united with Christ as we are when we receive His Body and Blood in communion. Grow in that desire. And then ask for the graces of that communion in the present moment. God will not reject us. Here is a prayer one can say (there is no official prayer):
My Jesus,
I believe that You are present in the Most Holy Sacrament.
I love You above all things,
and I desire to receive You into my soul.
Since I cannot at this moment receive You sacramentally,
come at least spiritually into my heart.
I embrace You as if You were already there
and unite myself wholly to You.
Never permit me to be separated from You.
Amen.
Grow in desire for the sacraments, because such a desire is a desire for union with God– a desire fulfilled in heaven. Hopefully, soon we will have public Masses at St. Joseph’s, and I hope to see all of you back here. Let us desire to grow in holiness together for we make our pilgrimage to heaven together as a community. May this difficult time be a time of growth in holiness, may God use this time to sanctify us and prepare us for the good things He wants to give us.
God Bless,
Fr. Boniface