Prayer After Receiving Holy Communion

Strengthen , O Lord, the hands which have been stretched out to receive your holy things, that they may daily bring forth fruit to your glory.

Grant that the ears which have heard your songs may be closed to the voices of clamor and dispute;

That the eyes which have seen your bright love may also behold your blessed hope;

That the tongues which have uttered your praise may speak the truth;

That the feet which have trodden your courts may walk in the regions of light;

That the souls and bodies which have fed upon your living Body and Blood may be restored to newness of life. Amen

And some thoughts:

This prayer comes either from the ecumenical community at Taize, France or an Anglican source. It clearly reveals that there are communities who believe in the presence of the Risen Christ in the Eucharist who have their own fervent insights to share. 

The hands which have been stretched out. There are some people still frenzied that Holy Communion may be received in the hand. The world is on the brink; we must get past this. The second piece of that first line is what matters, and I'd suggest we might consider this to be the most important bit: that our hands would daily bring forth fruit to God's glory. I mean, what's it all about if we're taking Holy Communion (however we receive it) and we're not bringing about "fruit to God's glory." The world awaits! And what's God's glory? Saint Augustine says it's a human being fully alive!

That our ears would be closed to the voices of clamor and dispute. What contentious times we're living in: vulgar, mean-spirited, looking for a fight, raging, argumentative, threatening. 

That our feet would walk in regions of light. What's that? That we'd walk in an awareness of God's up close and personal presence. When we forget this, we leave ourselves vulnerable to every kind of human foolishness and error - especially the error of resentment, life-draining anxieties and even hate. 

And that having received the living Body and Blood of Christ we'd be restored to newness of life. A living Christ brings us to life. We don't receive the Eucharist to make us feel good - we receive the Eucharist to make us alive: in mercy-kindness, justice, awareness, self-knowledge, compassion, understanding and love. 

"Keep Me Safe..."

Communion of the Apostles

THE PRESENT TRANSLATION OF THE ROMAN MISSAL with which we started to pray the Mass in Advent of 2011, includes beautiful new translations of the private or secret prayers the priest prays before he receives Holy Communion

The Body of Christ keep me safe for eternal life.

The Blood of Christ keep me safe for eternal life.

The previous  translation said, "The Body of Christ ~ the Blood of Christ, bring me..." But the word custodire, (from which we derive the words custody or custodian) conveys more a sense of protection and care. 

The priest is praying  to be protected from the dangers that can assail him from within and without. We can all pray these little lines in a dangerous world. So I'm asking to be kept safe while on the road or in the air, and from angry people and their assaults and traps, from the new wild west of the Internet...

But notice that the prayer asks to be kept safe for eternal life. That's a prayer that has heaven in mind; that I would be safeguarded from anything that would cause me to lose the Holy Spirit, as the monks say.

Keep me safe from pretending.

Keep me safe from an unwillingness to accept help.

Keep me safe from unbelief.

Keep me safe from wild fears and imaginings.

Keep me safe from thinking I'm indispensable.

Keep me safe from being obsessed with my work.

Keep me safe from living in the past (however difficult that may be).

Keep me safe from interrupting others.

Keep me safe from bragging.

Keep me safe from beginning every other sentence with "I" or "My".

Keep me safe from not listening.

Keep me safe from negative exaggerations.

Keep me safe from attention seeking.

Keep me safe from withholding praise from someone else.

Keep me safe from thinking I am not loved.

"O Son of God, bring me into communion..."

IN THE OLD ROMAN MISSAL there was a very beautiful Mass prayer the priest prayed privately before receiving Holy Communion. In the revised Missal following the Second Vatican Council that prayer was divided into two - the priest praying one or the other.

In the Eastern Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom there is also a prayer for the priest preparing to receive the Eucharist. It is easily learned by heart and suitable for reciting, even several times, as one approaches the Sacrament at Mass:

O Son of God
bring me into communion this day
with your Mystical Supper.
I will not tell your enemies the secret,
nor will I  kiss you with Judas' kiss,
but like the good thief I cry:
Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.

"bring me into communion this day with your Mystical Supper." Again, and we really must get this sense, mystery doesn't mean a puzzle we have to wrack our brains to solve. Mystery isn't that the clues are so far away from me that I can't comprehend or solve the riddle. But mystery means that God is so close to us - as with a printed text right up against our eyes - we can miss it utterly. This is Bethlehem. This is Calvary. This is the Eucharist.

Your Mystical Supper. Jesus is often in attendance at dinners and suppers. He reveals himself most intimately at the last meal before his dying and again on Easter night to the apostle-travelers. While Americans have lost the sacred sense of meal, for the Middle Easterner, few things are as intimate as eating a meal together. And it's within a meal that Jesus draws most closely to us, in the wonder of his love. 

How the Lord of Creation is present totally in the little bit of bread and wine is  incomprehensible, as is the enormity of his love for all the people of our wounded world. I say incomprehensible because we're so inclined to parcel out love, like little bits of string or crumbs, or make people jump through hoops for the inclusion or the mercy. It simply isn't that way with Jesus, and there are Christians who will bristle at the thought.

Vatopedi Monastery ~ Mystical Supper

I will not tell your enemies the secret. The image below was painted by Duccio Buoninsegna, depicting the betrayal of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. There's a large crowd of people with Judas - torch-bearing temple guards and leaders. Obviously, Judas has told the secret of where to find Jesus so to arrest him. I will not tell your enemies the secret then is a poetic way of telling Jesus before Holy Communion: Count me among your loyal friends, one who will never betray you.

Nor kiss you with Judas' kiss. Judas has taken the gesture of respectful love for one's teacher and twisted it up so that Jesus could be identified in the dark garden. Talk about a betrayal. I want nothing to do with that. Perhaps we've heard about the airline stewardess in Europe who was terminated for refusing to remove the simple cross she was wearing around her neck.

I remember when I was a young boy that three Christian men from neighboring houses came to see my father about helping to buy a house on the street  they had heard was going to be sold to an African-American family. I stood next to my father and heard him refuse.

Finally there is that last bit of the prayer which recalls a final dialogue Jesus had while suffering his crucifixion. But like the good thief. Usually he (the Good Thief) is named Dismas. The other thief is named Gesmas who scoffs at Jesus and taunts him. 

Dismas offers a corrective: We deserve it after-all, but Jesus has done nothing wrong. And then Dismas proclaims that Jesus is a king - Remember me in your kingdom, or Remember me when you come into your reign. He seems to know that Jesus isn't an earthly king, but he still wants to be counted as one who lives under Jesus' rule. 

And the words Remember me, - how beautiful is that, born of a desire to share the intimacy of friendship with Jesus - to be the recipient of his promises. We can wonder how Dismas knew about Jesus and the good things he offers. And don't we all want to be remembered? Maybe that's why we put up headstones in cemeteries. But Dismas wants better than a headstone - he wants Jesus! And Jesus doesn't disappoint. "Today, you will be with me in paradise" Jesus taking care of others even though he is at the end of his own life and suffering greatly.

Holy Communion gives me an experience of Jesus' remembering. In the Eastern Liturgy the point of Jesus' remembering me personally is made even more explicit as the name of the communicant is announced as he/she comes forward to receive the Body and Blood of Christ.

A lot of people are distracted on the Communion line at Mass: little waves to people, managing children, who's here/who's not. The parish expectation might be that we be singing, which is often not very successful. This prayer might help us to focus. Or even in the moments when there is some relative quiet - when the priest and those in the sanctuary are receiving Communion, instead of watching all of that choreography up front, we might pray this prayer in quietness and joy.