Can you help with these temptations re: Holy Communion?

[Gertrude1535]

Lately I’ve been struggling with temptations about receiving Holy Communion. It’s not that I’m worried that I’m not in the state of grace: it’s more like I start worrying about whether I should receive because I feel so little devotion these days and it feels like I’m just doing everything involving religion by rote. I literally force myself to receive every week, because I want to do what’s most pleasing to God in the situation, but I wonder whether that’s the right thing to do. I feel conflicted, because I don’t want to receive just because “that’s what you do when you go to Mass,” but I feel like I should receive because of Who it is I’d be turning down, if I declined. Am I doing the right thing? How can I get over this thought-loop/trap?

 

[Fr.Vincent_Serpa]

Dear friend,

You sound like you are having problems with faith, but you DO believe. Otherwise your concern for WHO you would be turning down wouldn’t matter to you; and it definitely does. Don’t worry about the lack of feelings. Mother Teresa didn’t have any devotional feelings for over twenty years. But she went with her faith in the face of no consolations. If it is truly the Lord that we receive into our bodies when we receive the Eucharist, then He truly unites Himself to us in this magnificent way. One day you WILL fully realize what you have always simply taken on faith—without any feelings. And your joy will be fuller than it would have had if you had a lot of consolation now.

You are not alone in this. Many saints have experienced the same thing. Neve refuse the Eucharist if you are in the state of grace. You are in my prayers.

Fr. Vincent Serpa, O.P.