Eucharistic Reflection: Eucharistic Self-Gift

by Diocese of Des Moines | August 30, 2021

This reflection is an excerpt from St. Alphonsus Liguori and is taken from Mystery of the Altar:  Daily Meditations on the Eucharist edited by Kenneth J. Howell and Joseph Crownwood and published by Emmaus Road Publishing.

O Savior of the world, what do You desire from men that has led You to give Yourself to them in food?  What can there be left for You to give after this Sacrament in order to oblige us to love You?  Ah, my most loving God, enlighten me, that I may know what an excess of goodness this has been, to reduce Yourself to becoming my food in Holy Communion!  If You have given Yourself entirely to me, it is only right that I should also give myself wholly to You.  Yes, my Jesus, I give myself entirely to You.  I love You above every good, and I desire to receive You in order to love You more.  Come, therefore, and come often, into my soul and make it entirely Yours.  Oh, that I could truly say to You, as the loving St. Philip Neri said to You when he received You in the Viaticum, “Behold my love, behold my love; give me my love.”

…Ah, my beloved Jesus, tell me, what more is there left for You to invent in order to make Yourself loved?  And shall I then continue to live so ungrateful to You as I have?  My Lord, permit it not.  You have said that he who feeds on Your flesh in Communion shall live through the virtue of Your grace:  He that eateth Me, the same also shall live by Me.  Since, then, You do not disdain that I should receive You in Holy Communion, grant that my soul may always live the true life of Your grace.

-St. Alphonsus Liguori[1]

Reflection Questions:

• What signs exist in my life that most directly point to God’s love for me?
• In what ways can I open myself, to more fully receive God’s Eucharistic self-gift?

Petitionary Prayers:

• For a greater recognition of and appreciation for God’s unfathomable love for us, we pray…
• That by God’s grace our hearts may grow, to more fully receive God’s grace in every reception of the Eucharist, we pray…
• In receiving God’s self-gift in the Eucharist, may we become more fully a self-gift to others, we pray…