The Spiritual Communion is a prayer for the faithful who can’t attend the mass because of sickness, people who helping a sick person and cannot attend the mass, a wife who just had labor, typhoon, there’s no church in the place where you are living any any safety hazard. Because of these reasons the Catholic Church and the saints compose Spiritual Communion Prayers.
“An ardent desire to receive Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament
and in lovingly embracing Him.”
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
In Spiritual Communion, we asked our Lord with humble and sincere heart to take him like what we do in the Holy Communion. The Spiritual Communion is a grace that we received which is can be similar of the grace that we received in the actual communion. But it is very important to receive the actual sacrament.
How can we take the Spiritual Communion? Here is the advice from Saint Leonard Port-Maurice:
“In order to facilitate a practice of such great excellence, ponder what I have to say. When the priest is about to give himself Communion in holy Mass, do you, keeping composed externally and internally, excite in your heart an act of true contrition, and humbly striking your breast, in token that you acknowledge yourself unworthy of so great a grace, make all those acts of love, of self-surrender, of humility, and the rest, which you are accustomed to make when you communicate sacramentally, and then desire with a lively longing to receive your good Jesus, veiled in the sacrament for your benefit. And to kindle your devotion, imagine that most holy Mary, or some saint, your holy advocate, is holding forth to you the sacred particle; figure yourself receiving it, and then, embracing Jesus in your heart, reply to Him, over and over again, with interior words prompted by love: “Come, Jesus, my Beloved, come within this my poor heart; come and satiate my desires; come and sanctify my soul; come, most sweet Jesus, come!” This said, be still; contemplate your good God within you, and, as if you really had communicated, adore Him, thank Him, and perform all those interior acts to which you are accustomed after sacramental Communion.”
We can pray a Spiritual Communion with our own words while following the advice of Saint Leonard Port-Maurice. But the church and the saints provide some spiritual prayers if we have difficulty to think for words in prayers.
Act of Spiritual Communion
by St. Alphonsus Liguori
My Jesus, I believe that Thou art present in the Blessed Sacrament. I love Thee above all things and I desire Thee in my soul. Since I cannot now receive Thee sacramentally, come at least spiritually into my heart. As though thou wert already there, I embrace Thee and unite myself wholly to Thee; permit not that I should ever be separated from Thee.
Act of Spiritual Communion
O Immaculate Queen of Heaven and Earth, Mother of God and Mediatrix of every grace: I believe that Thy dearly beloved Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, is truly, really, and substantially contained in the Most Blessed Sacrament. I love Him above all things and I long to receive Him into my heart. Since I cannot now receive Him sacramentally, be so good as to place Him spiritually in my soul.
O my Jesus, I embrace Thee as One who has already come, and I unite myself entirely to Thee. Never permit me to be separated from Thee. Amen.
I hope this Spiritual Communion prayers can help you but if you can, please attend the Holy Mass and receive the actual communion.
