Worth Revisiting: Spiritual Communion & Longing for the Eucharist

I am learning to live in the Light, stay in the Light and connected to the Light within me.

My tendency is to switch back to living in misery, burdened with interior pain because this is what I am accustomed to.

Ridiculous? Insane?

Absolutely, but now a mere glance to the Light and bang- I switch again from misery to joy.

To nurture His Risen Life in me, the life of the Messiah, I am discovering that spiritual communion is powerful. If I simply whisper a desire for the Eucharist, He is present like a fire burning in my heart, burning even my skin. I could dance for joy, like a child of God in the sunshine.

St. Thomas Aquinas defined Spiritual Communion as

“an ardent desire to receive Jesus in the Holy Sacrament and a loving embrace as though we had already received Him.”

The basis of this practice was explained by Pope John Paul II in his encyclical, Ecclesia de Eucharistia:

“unlike any other sacrament, the mystery [of communion] is so perfect that it brings us to the heights of every good thing: Here is the ultimate goal of every human desire, because here we attain God and God joins himself to us in the most perfect union.“

Precisely for this reason it is good to cultivate in our hearts a constant desire for the Sacrament of the Eucharist. This was the origin of the practice of “spiritual communion,” which has happily been established in the Church for centuries and recommended by saints who were masters of the spiritual life.

St.Teresa of Jesus wrote:

“When you do not receive communion and you do not attend Mass, you can make a spiritual communion, which is a most beneficial practice; by it the love of God will be greatly impressed on you” [The Way of Perfection, Ch. 35.].1 .