Making a Spiritual Communion

Today I went to Adoration at the church next to my school. I picked up a book about the Eucharist and I started reading it, and I found a part about spiritual Communions. A spiritual communion, according to St. Thomas, consists in an ardent desire to receive Jesus in the Eucharist and a loving embrace as though we had already received him. A person can make a spiritual Communion when he is unable to attend Mass or when he has not confessed a mortal sin and is unable to receive Communion sacramentally. These are incredible graces! I already knew about those before today, but this afternoon, I found out that a spiritual Communion can be made any time and anywhere, and that the graces received in this kind of Communion are comparable to the graces received in Sacramental Communion. I'll have to go find the part of the book that talks about this and post it here, because the writer explains this far more beautifully and movingly than I am.
Blessed Angela of the Cross (I think) made one hundred spiritual Communions in a day and one hundred more at night. She said, "If my confessor had not taught me this method of communicating, I could scarcely live."


St. Padre Pio said, “Go to the tabernacle in spirit when you are unable to do so physically, and there pour out your ardent desires, talk, pray, and embrace the Beloved of our souls, even more than if you had been permitted to receive Him sacramentally.”


Blessed Pope John Paul II (Pope Blessed? Blessed Pope?) wrote in his Ecclesia de Eucharistia:

In the Eucharist, "unlike any other sacrament, the mystery [of communion] is so perfect that it brings us to the heights of every good thing: Here is the ultimate goal of every human desire, because here we attain God and God joins himself to us in the most perfect union."

Precisely for this reason it is good to cultivate in our hearts a constant desire for the sacrament of the Eucharist. This was the origin of the practice of "spiritual communion," which has happily been established in the Church for centuries and recommended by saints who were masters of the spiritual life. St. Teresa of Jesus wrote: "When you do not receive communion and you do not attend Mass, you can make a spiritual communion, which is a most beneficial practice; by it the love of God will be greatly impressed on you" [The Way of Perfection, Ch. 35.].1 .

Thus, the passionate desire for God, whom the saints have seen as the Sole Satisfier, and who in the Eucharist is the "summit and source of the Christian life", is at the root of this practice. The experience of St. Padre Pio illustrates the compelling desire felt by the saints in the face of the drawing and attracting power of God's love: “My heart feels as if it were being drawn by a superior force each morning just before uniting with Him in the Blessed Sacrament. I have such a thirst and hunger before receiving Him that it's a wonder I don't die of anxiety. I was hardly able to reach the Divine Prisoner in order to celebrate Mass. When Mass ended I remained with Jesus to render Him thanks. My thirst and hunger do not diminish after I have received Him in the Blessed Sacrament, but rather, increase steadily. Oh, how sweet was the conversation I held with Paradise this morning. The heart of Jesus and my own, if you will pardon the expression, fused. They were no longer two hearts beating but only one. My heart disappeared as if it were a drop in the ocean.”^[1]

St. Jean-Marie Vianney compared spiritual communion to blowing on fire and embers that are starting to go out in order to make them burn again: “There are some who make a spiritual communion every day with blessed bread. If we are deprived of Sacramental Communion, let us replace it, as far as we can, by spiritual communion, which we can make every moment; for we ought to have always a burning desire to receive the good God. Communion is to the soul like blowing a fire that is beginning to go out, but that has still plenty of hot embers; we blow, and the fire burns again. After the reception of the Sacraments, when we feel ourselves slacken in the love of God, let us have recourse at once to spiritual communion. When we cannot go to the church, let us turn towards the tabernacle; no wall can shut us out from the good God.”

St. Josemaria Escriva taught spiritual communions improve presence of God: "What a source of grace there is in spiritual Communion! Practise it frequently and you'll have more presence of God and closer union with him in your life." He also taught: "Do not neglect to say, “Jesus, I love you”, and make one spiritual communion, at least, each day, in atonement for all the profanations and sacrileges he suffers because he wants to be with us."

According to Catholic theologians, the value of a spiritual can be as great as Holy Communion itself. "Spiritual Communion, as St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Alphonsus Liguori teach, produces effects similar to Sacramental Communion, according to the dispositions with which it is made, the greater or less earnestness with which Jesus is desired, and the greater or less love with which Jesus is welcomed and given due attention," stated Father Stefano Manelli, O.F.M. Conv., S.T.D., in his book Jesus our Eucharistic Love.^[1]

"A special advantage of Spiritual Communion is that we can make it as often as we like — even hundreds of times a day — when we like — even late at night — and wherever we like — even in a desert, or up in an airplane," Fr. Stefano continued.

Those who are aware of a mortal sin that needs to be confessed, can reach out to God through spiritual communion.

(The text from the John Paul II quote down until here is taken from a Wikipedia article, by the way) 

You can make a spiritual Communion thus:

"Oh my Jesus, I firmly believe that Thou art really and truly present in the Most Holy Sacrament. I love Thee with my whole heart, and because I love Thee, I am sorry for having offended Thee. I long to possess Thee within my soul, but as I cannot now receive Thee sacramentally, come at least in spirit into my heart. I unite myself to thee as if Thou wert already there; never let me be separated from Thee."