Il reviendra avec son coeur immense, avec son coeur de flamme, son âme de pauvre et son sourire. Il reviendra ! Et le Coeur Immaculé de Marie triomphera!
I love this motto from the late Abbé de Nantes’ periodical for La Contre-Réforme catholique au XXIe siècle. In the English translation it reads:
“He will come again with his immense heart, with His heart of fire, His poor man’s smile. He will come again! And the Immaculate Heart of Mary will triumph!”
Yes, the King of kings will come again, for each of us at the hour of death, for the whole world and all men of every age to face at the Last Judgment. All sinners, even the repentant just, will look upon Him whom, by their sins, they have pierced. He will carry His five wounds in glory forever, and forever and ever.
His immense and loving Heart will be seen through the warm smile of a poor man. He hath [and will] put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted [and will exalt] the humble. He hath filled [and will fill] the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away (Luke 1:52-3). So, too, shall it be on the last day. His Immaculate Mother shall be at His side: This is my beloved Son!
When He comes to us in Holy Communion, we see Him with the eyes of Faith, but it is all about Faith and loving Him whom we do not see in the flesh. We do not see His poor man’s smile. We may humbly ask to feel His immense and fiery Heart in His Sacrament of love. We may and ought to ask for the fire of His spirit after Communion so that we might emerge from the holy sacrifice, as Saint John Chrysostom says we should, like roaring lions. That which we freely give in sacrifice, we receive back one hundred fold in grace.
The Son of God is not a reward waiting to be received by the worthy in His Holy Sacrament; rather, He is our soul’s medicine and its nourishment. We dare not approach Him in this Sacrament in a state of sin, but neither should we stay away if our sins weigh heavily upon us, so long as they are not mortal. Even if in the state of grace, however, we must not receive Him out of habit and lukewarmly, with little or no devotion because of a culpable lack of preparation. Like Saint John the Baptist we should prepare the way of the Lord in our heart, then invite Him to come again at every Mass into our body and soul, and assimilate all that we have that is assimilable by our divine Guest.
No one, except Our Lady, could prepare perfectly to receive the Bread of Life. Therefore, together with the prayers of the priest recited after Communion, we ask Jesus in this Holy Communion to “cleave to our very entrails” so that there “may not remain [in us] any speck of sin.” Jesus can make our abode a worthy dwelling place. He can, and does, take over in Holy Communion because, as Saint Augustine said of this Eucharistic Bread, “the Food is greater than the eater.” The more we give Him, the more of us He can assimilate into Himself. Knowing this we can have confidence and identify with Saint Paul when, inspired by God, he cried out: “I live now, not I, but Christ liveth in me (Galatians 2:20).
