Find Joy and Consolation in the Eucharist

Holy Communion is the feast of the soul — that is to say, a source of deepest joys. As bread imparts to the body strength and a feeling of contentment, so does the Bread of Life bring peace and joy to your heart because of the wonderful fruits of grace it produces in your soul.

St. Thomas Aquinas says,

“This Bread of Angels, containing in itself all delights, satisfies by an admirable virtue the taste of all those who receive it worthily and with devotion; it satisfies better than the manna of the desert and surpasses the relish of all sensual pleasures.”

The glorious Christ who comes to you hidden under the sacra­mental species is the same Christ who, having redeemed and sanc­tified us, will be our everlasting joy in Heaven.

From Fr. Lovasik’s Basic Book of the Eucharist. Click for more information or to order.

At Holy Communion, there is opened to you a world of life, light, and love, a gracious outpouring of the treasures of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Fount of all grace, holiness, and Christian joy­fulness. At this fount of joy you will find the strength and courage to undertake great things for God’s glory and the welfare of your neighbor.

Heaven is the possession of God in all His glory and beauty; therefore, since Holy Communion is the possession of that same God, although veiled under the sacred elements, it follows that Holy Communion is a foretaste of the joys of Heaven.

Try to form some idea of the heavenly joy that unceasingly wells up in the soul of Jesus, who is within you in Holy Commu­nion with all His infinite bliss. Perhaps sometimes in the past you have felt spiritual consolation and peace, like a foretaste of the joys of Heaven. Multiply such happiness a thousand times more than you can imagine; it is still nothing compared with the bliss that fills the soul of Jesus.

Like the Father, Jesus is infinitely perfect, and this fills Him with infinite joy. Each of His divine perfections — His beauty, wisdom, holiness, love, mercy, and power — is for Him an object of loving contemplation that overflows into inexpressible joy. The love He has for the Father, and His Father’s love for Him, flood His Sacred Heart with indescribable happiness that will be our admi­ration and bliss for eternity.

Pope Pius XII begins his encyclical letter on devotion to the Sa­cred Heart with these words, which give the letter its title:

“ ‘You shall draw waters with joy out of the Savior’s fountains’ (Isa. 12:3). . . . Those heavenly blessings which devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus pours into the souls of the faithful, purifying them, refreshing them with heavenly consolation and urging them to acquire all virtues, cannot be counted.”

Jesus is in the Sacred Host to share His divine perfections and happiness with you. He gives you there His limitless, most perfect love, that it may fill you with joy and destroy your self-love. He brings you His infinite bliss so that, forgetting yourself and your troubles, you may find all your happiness in Him and thus enjoy on earth a foretaste of His heavenly joys.

What more do you need than Jesus to make you perfectly happy? He is your treasure, your only good, who is all you should want to love in this world. He is and always will be perfect, and perfectly happy. You should rejoice in this ocean of joy and peace of the Sacred Heart.

But to enjoy His divine perfections more, you must love more, rise above self, and live more in Him than in yourself. Ask Jesus to help you with His grace so that you, too, may sometimes experi­ence something of what the saints felt before the tabernacle, or when they took Him to their hearts in Holy Communion.

What joy to think that you possess within you and take to your heart all the beauty, wisdom, goodness, love, holiness, and happi­ness there is in Heaven and on earth! What is there in Heaven or on earth that you could wish for, that you do not possess in possess­ing Jesus?

But this joy is above all spiritual. Since the Eucharist is the “mystery of faith,” it may happen that God will not permit this in­ward joy to react upon your feelings. If you have brought all the good dispositions possible for receiving Christ, and still feel help­less, remain in peace. Christ acts in silence but surely, in the inner­most depths of your soul in order to transform it into Himself. That is the most precious effect of this heavenly food. The more often you receive Christ in the sacrament of His love, the better will you understand how sweet the Lord is.

This spiritual joy brought to you by Holy Communion will make you bear the trials and sufferings of life with a peaceful, con­tented heart. You are enabled to imitate, in some measure, the mysterious experience in the life of Jesus — the union of intense agony and intense happiness.

His words to the Apostles are fulfilled in you through Holy Communion: “So you have sorrow now, but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.” At Communion you see Him with eyes of faith and your heart rejoices. This is the true, lasting joy that neither the world nor the powers of evil can take from you.

The moments of union with Jesus in Holy Communion are the happiest of your life, for this union of love is the climax of God’s love for you. Your heart is filled with heavenly bliss, because God Himself makes it His little heaven of delights when He visits you in Holy Communion. Yearn to be with Him and to possess Him here on earth through frequent Holy Communion, and you will prepare yourself for an eternal union with Him in Heaven. At Holy Communion you enjoy a foretaste of Heaven, for you receive Christ’s glorified Body and Blood, Soul and divinity, and His Sa­cred Heart is the fount of joy.

Holy Communion will console you

Holy Communion will also afford you great consolation in all the sorrows and sufferings of this earthly life. No matter how great your need and your trouble may be, no matter if all forsake you, Christ will never fail you. How could you doubt Him who became man and died on the Cross for you and who gave Himself to be your daily food?

During His earthly life, Jesus was ever kind and compassionate. You may hope for everything from Him in Holy Communion, since you take Him into your heart. He will be your best comforter and helper. He invites you to Holy Communion with such gentle tenderness: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

If your heart is often sad, it is because you may be looking for consolation and happiness in creatures, forgetting that lasting peace and comfort come from God. True peace and consolation spring from divine love. Sin is the cause of all unhappiness and misery in this world, since it deprives souls of God’s friendship. St. Augustine wrote, “Our hearts were made for Thee, O Lord, and they are restless until they rest in Thee.” You cannot rest in God more surely than through Holy Communion.

Editor’s note: This article is from Fr. Lovasik’s  The Basic Book of the Eucharistand is available from Sophia Institute Press. 

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Fr. Lawrence G. Lovasik (1913–1986) said that his life’s ideal was to “make God more known and loved through my writings.” Fr. Lovasik did missionary work in America’s coal and steel regions, founded the Sisters of the Divine Spirit, a missionary congregation, and wrote numerous books and pamphlets emphasizing prayer and the Holy Eucharist.

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