Chapter XXXVII: How Often Should One Receive Communion?

BUT how often should one receive Communion? That is for you to judge, with the advice of your confessor. As a general rule, for good girls who have the chance, I should say once a month would not be too often. It is the period chosen by most of those who are striving to lead devout lives, and experience shows that to communicate as often as that has the happiest effects on the soul. Most of our pious confraternities are established on the principle of monthly Communion, and the Church encourages the practice by many indulgences granted to them.

Besides, monthly Communion does not usually interfere too much with what one has to do.

Would that all our Catholic girls would take up this habit of Communion! I am sure a thousand evils that now exist among them would speedily be stopped. Some go more frequently, and if the heart burns for the love of God and with desire to receive the Saviour in Communion, there is no reason why it should not be gratified. Some of the saints received every day. The early Christians did so. As the Scripture says: “They continued in the daily breaking of bread”; by which is understood the Communion.

St. Catherine of Siena was one of those who were all on fire with the love of Jesus Christ, and she longed for Communion so much that finally she got permission to receive every day. This did not seem exactly right to a very worthy bishop, who perhaps did not understand how holy she was, and who was not accustomed to see people receive so often.

One day he said to her: “I am afraid you are not doing as you ought in receiving so often, for I remember what St. Augustine says about it: That to receive every day is a thing I neither praise nor blame, but to receive every Sunday I exhort you.” She replied: “Well, Right Reverend Father, if St. Augustine does not blame me, why do you?” He was so much struck by the force of this answer that he had no more to say.

But it is very few that, like these saints, can go every day. It is out of most people’s power to go as often as that if they would. Indeed, very few can go as often as once a week, therefore I think once in the month suits for most people better than any other period.

I do not like once in the quarter, or more rarely, so well, but it may be that one cannot go oftener; in such case God will take the will for the deed.

He looks at the heart, and if he sees in it an ardent desire to receive, though in fact we do not receive, for want of opportunity, he will not allow us to lose anything by it, but make it up to us abundantly in some other way.

So it was with the hermits of the desert, with St. Mary of Egypt and others who were far away from any priest, and who could receive only here and there at long intervals, when they had the opportunity, yet they are among the greatest of the saints.

To close the subject, let me relate to you how St. Juliana received Holy Communion on her death-bed. Although of a noble family, she gave up all splendor and riches and chose for herself the portion of Jesus Christ, poverty and labor.

Her hard and severe life and continued abstinence brought on a weakness of the stomach, so that she was not able to retain the food she took, and on that account she could not receive Holy Communion.

Every one, however, noticed her wonderful patience and cheerfulness amid her distress. No complaint came from her mouth, except one. She found it hard to be deprived of the Blessed Sacrament. Her heart was fixed on Jesus her Saviour, and, amid her pains, could she only have received Him she would have been content.

She begged her confessor that as she could not receive, he would, at least, bring the Blessed Sacrament and place it on her breast. Her entreaties were so earnest that at last he yielded and complied with her request, but at the very moment he did so the Bread of Heaven disappeared, and Juliana, with serene and joyful countenance, breathed out her soul.

Those who were present could scarcely believe what they saw, until, when her chaste body was prepared for burial, the exact form of the sacred Host, bearing the image of Jesus crucified, was found stamped upon her left breast near the heart.

What an example of the desire of the devout soul to receive, and of the desire of Jesus to come to all those who long to receive Him!