How a Saint Approaches Holy Communion.

“It is a question of uniting two extremes; God Who is everything and the creature who is nothing; God Who is light and the creature who is darkness; God Who is holiness and the creature who is sin”

 

St. Gemma Galgani (1878 – 1903) exhibited in her short life of only 25 years almost every possible mystical and charismatic gift. She suffered the Passion of Christ from Thursday through Friday, received the stigmata, the crown of thorns, shoulder wound, bloody sweat, tears of blood, and levitated while in ecstasy. She frequently and familiarly spoke to and saw Our Lord, the Blessed Virgin, her guardian angel and saints. The following is from the biography written by her spiritual Director, Father Germanus, who was a witness to many of these phenomena:

 

Let us examine more closely the culminating point of Gemma’s devotion—Holy Communion—in which precisely the Mystery of the Love of Jesus is accomplished. Would that she who so often disclosed to me the secrets of her soul on this subject would now enable me to relate adequately and exactly what she then told me of the fire that the Divine Spouse enkindled in her heart at the Holy Table.

 

It was her hunger and thirst for Holy Communion that made this young girl hover like a butterfly near the Tabernacle. Her heart longed for this Divine Food only. And we have seen that even when quite a child her ardent desire to make her first Communion almost brought her to death’s door. Now I add that this hunger and thirst, far from being satisfied by her daily Communion, kept on increasing until they consumed her whole being. 

 

“Every morning,” she said to me, “I go to Holy Communion; the greatest and only comfort I have, although I am in no wise provided with what is needed to worthily approach Jesus. The loving treatment that Jesus bestows on me every morning in the Holy Communion excites within me an unutterable sweetness and draws to itself all the weak affections of my miserable heart.” And then she exclaimed, “Behold O Lord, my heart and my soul; come Lord, I open my breast to Thee. Send in Thy Divine Fire; burn me, consume me, come and delay no longer; I would fain be the dwelling of all Thy fires.”

 

This desire grew stronger every evening, and, increasing every hour, sweetly tormented her all the night so as even to make her faint. Let us hear her describe it: “Last night and the night before while thinking of Holy Communion, I felt myself growing faint, and my heart was in commotion. Yesterday evening also before going to supper I said some prayers, among others this ejaculation: Grant, O Lord, that from this small supper, I may pass to enjoy Thy immense supper (the Blessed Eucharist) I stopped a few minutes to think of this and there and then, I felt forced towards Jesus”—(that is, rapt in ecstasy). The same thing happens to me whenever I think of Jesus, particularly when He invites me to receive Him, and when He tells me that He is coming to repose in my heart.”

 

This went so far that her confessor, in order that she might have a few hours’ sleep, and that her health might not suffer, felt bound to forbid her stopping willfully during the night to think of her Communion of the following morning. 

 

She was so strongly impressed by the greatness of the action to be performed at the Altar that every other thought vanished from her mind. That will explain why she prepared so carefully for it. “It is a question,” she said, “of uniting two extremes; God Who is everything and the creature who is nothing; God Who is light and the creature who is darkness; God Who is holiness and the creature who is sin. It is a question of taking part at the Table of the Lord. There cannot be then enough preparation for it.”

 

Such thoughts made Gemma tremble; so much so, that if her great faith had not given her courage, although full of burning desires she would never have approached the Divine Table. In time of spiritual desolation as well as of heavenly unction, and even in the midst of the most intimate communication of the Divine Lover, this struggle agitated her incessantly, causing her intense suffering so that she even complained of it lovingly to our Lord:

 

“Yes, I know, Jesus, it is better to receive Thee than to look at Thee, but I am afflicted because I feel that were I to prepare myself for years and years like the Angels, yet I should never be worthy to receive Thee. O Jesus, it is sweet to confess my misery before Thee. Help me, O Lord! Ah! I can still cast myself at Thy feet. I still love the Faith, and a thousand times I repeat and will continue to repeat, it is always better to receive Thee than to look at Thee.” 

 

From The Life of Gemma Galgani, by Fr. Germanus of St. Stanislaus, Passionist, pp. 288-290, available from the Spirit Daily book store.

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