Asking God to be with you: Spiritual Communion and Come Holy Ghost

[Tis_Bearself]

I’ve read that it’s a helpful practice to make one or more Spiritual Communions per day, not only when you can’t get to regular Communion but also just when you feel like you need strength or need Jesus to be with you.

Does anyone do this regularly? If so, how many times per day do you do it? Is one or two times enough for the full day? I have read that some people make a spiritual Communion like 5 times a day, which seems to me to be excessive given that 1) one would expect that once you ask Jesus to join you, He will stay around for at least the whole day and 2) we are limited to two regular Communions per day, so why would we need more than 2 spiritual communions per day.

Also, I’m a little confused about the graces of Spiritual Communion, where you ask Jesus to join with you/ come into your heart, vs. asking the Holy Spirit to come into you and work.
Both cases are asking God to join with you, basically. In the case of Spiritual Communion, you’re asking Jesus to come be with you; in the other case, you’re asking the Holy Spirit.
And in both cases, there is nothing physical involved, so it’s different from regular Communion where Jesus is joining with you in physical form.
Do you get different graces from Spiritual Communion vs. calling on the Holy Spirit? Or is it basically the same thing but you’re just calling on a different person of the Trinity in each case?

 

[Rob2]

I would , and I don’t do it enough , reflect on the presence of Jesus within you since your last Holy Communion @Tis_Bearself .

It’s the time of year when at Sunday Eucharist we are hearing a lot from John 6 . In it Jesus said "He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, abideth in me, and I in him. "

Then , as you mention , there is the Holy Spirit , and St Paul tells us “God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.”” (Gal 4:6) . And elsewhere he reminds us that we are temples of the Holy Spirit .

Just a few Scripture verses there , but so profound and calling for our reflection .

 

[adgloriam]

“Asking God to be with you” was something I actually learned on CAF and it worked very well for me at that time, it’s powerful and was efficacious when I tried it. I can’t comment much except for some impressions and conclusion I drawed in the brief time I did it.

Ok, for me calling “Jesus please be with me” worked completely different from “Veni creator spiritus” precisely because calling for Jesus was more personal (as the episodes from scripture) .While calling the Holy Spirit called for general renewal of the soul through grace and the fruits, calling Jesus was actually the personal close company of God as the person Jesus.

There was also a specific context, I was overworked and exhausted and thus not having my regular prayer and sacramental life I had become accustomed to rely on. It was also in a time of diminished hope and some resignation, it brought closeness and the reminder that I shouldn’t sin but in a close personal way, with a certain presence that wasn’t about commandments but about our personal relationship of friendship and love with Jesus. The reminder of the exigences was there, but without a feeling of imposition that gave way to a close trust, a love regardless.

Why would you need more than 2 “spiritual communions” per day? Well, it worked charms for me every single time. Depends a lot on your inner needs at that moment. It did serve however as a reminder, that I do have a taste and want for sin and perhaps for me at that moment I was left realizing how attached to sin I really was.

 

[petra22]

“My Jesus I believe you are truly present in the Blessed Sacrament and I love you very much. Since I cannot now receive you sacramentaly, come at least spiritually into my heart, and as if you have already come in, I embrace you and unite myself entirely to you. Never let me be separated from you. Amen.”

This is the one I say every day since I can only get to Mass on the weekend… I wish I could go every day like we did in grade school and high school… when I didn’t appreciate it nearly enough!!!

 

[mrsdizzyd]

I usually do not say a formal spiritual communion prayer, but I do invoke the Holy Spirit over the course of the day. A well-placed “Come Holy Spirit” is amazingly efficacious! I can feel his presence guiding me.

Usually it’s just a few times a day when life seems to be getting the best of me, but sometimes I say it a lot more. When I know I am going to have a difficult conversation I will usually grab a tenner or finger rosary and on every bead say “Come Holy Spirit”. I do this throughout the conversation. Again, I can feel His presence guiding me, helping me actively listen, and helping me clearly articulate my arguments. I picked this practice up from a Franciscan Friar (the one who made The Wild Goose).

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Yes, I have felt a little “zap” from the Holy Spirit when I call on him to come help me. At times I have even felt a big “zap”. It’s a bit unusual, as I normally don’t get a lot of “feels” from prayer, but it is nice.

I suppose some atheist would say “autosuggestion”, but if I were that good at autosuggestion I would have been able to autosuggest a lot of stuff to myself during the couple decades I was a Chreaster Catholic and hardly praying. This is quite different.

 

[adgloriam]

It’s a bit unusual

Grace proceeds from God and thus when we receive “sensible graces” they can be strong, mild, etc…Most of the time I find graces surprising since we receive them without choosing.

I suppose some atheist would say “autosuggestion”

We could refer them back to the conference proceedings on spirituality held by catholic organizations with participation of eminent medical doctors and psychologist. Or the body of work that is mystical theology, a single label like “self-suggestion” seemingly resolves and addresses everything in a single composite noun, I’d be distrustful of those attempting to address something only by circumventing the issue all together pretending to reduce everything to an apparently self-explanatory abstract word/concept.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I try to be careful of autosuggestion because i like and am drawn to a lot of supernatural aspects of faith. One would think this at odds with my logical mind because I always did well in school and on standardized tests; people like me are supposed to be all logical and stuff. But I’m not. I always have felt that there are more levels out there beyond just the logical physical world we live in, and if I wasn’t a strong Catholic/ Christian, I’d probably be looking to practice Wicca or an earth religion.

I’d love to be a mystic, but just wanting some charism doesn’t mean you get it, and God can have very good reasons for withholding it. So I just have to be content with putting one foot in front of the other. When God does deign to send a little message, I’m happy about it. I would love it if I could talk to God every day, just like when I was a little kid of 5 I wished Mary would appear in our backyard like in my mother’s Fatima picture. So I have to be careful about wishful thinking. Sometimes it’s such a clear message though, it’s not like I had to wish very hard to see it or feel it.