September 14, 2010

Bonaventure on Holy Communion

So today I'm prowling around the library looking for fun stuff to explore for term papers, and I come across Bonaventure's Tractatus de Praeparatione ad Missam, which turns out to be just what it says it is, a little tract on preparing oneself for Mass. It's even a little more than that though, as it also contains advice on how to pray the Canon and an examination for after Holy Communion. I don't even know if this is a legitimate work, but it's interesting nonetheless. Here's a very challenging word for a post-communion meditation:

After communion if you do not feel some spiritual nourishment, this is a sign of spiritual infirmity or spiritual death. The fire has been put in your breast, but you have not felt the heat. The honey has been placed in your mouth, but you have not tasted the sweetness.

But if you do feel some consolation, it is no credit to you, but to His immense goodness, which reaches out to the bad and consoles the ungrateful, and so you say in your heart: I have detested your mercy and cursed your gifts. If God has done such good to me, a sinner, what would He do, if I were to correct my life? Thus of all people I want to change myself and come close to You forever.

2 comments:

Tc said...

It reads a bit like "Sinners in the hands of an angry God," no?

If nothing else, it ought to be popular in Steubenville. After all, ya gotta feel it. ;-)

Elizabeth Mahlou said...

Thanks for sharing.