Prayer Prompted by Communion [Guest Post]

While I’m on vacation in Ireland, I’ve invited Unequally Yoked readers to assemble a wunderkammer of guest posts on books, practices, ideas, etc that particularly delight them.  The first entry is from Claire, who usually blogs at Laughing Joyously.

Prostrate I adore Thee, Deity unseen,

Who Thy glory hidest ‘neath these shadows mean;

Lo, to Thee surrendered, my whole heart is bowed,

Tranced as it beholds Thee, shrined within the cloud.

From St. Thomas Aquinas’ Eucharistic hymn Adoro te devote

St. Thomas Aquinas’s Adoro te devote is one of my favorite prayers for after Communion. In the Extraordinary Form (also known as the Latin Mass), there’s a significant break between Communion and the end of Mass, so there’s plenty of time for quiet meditation and praying the beautiful prayers the Church has given us.

St. Thomas’s prayer is one – it conveys the exact way we should approach Christ in the Eucharist. “Prostrate I adore Thee,” while it may not be practical for every one in the church to lie physically prostrate at the same time (aerobics on the pews do not sound comfortable), the first stanza still lays out our ideal approach to the Eucharist, prostration of the heart. This attitude of loving submission certainly takes on a special meaning for those of us in the under-25 club because many of us are still discerning what God intends for our lives. Praying, “to Thee surrendered, my whole heart is bowed,” is kind of scary when half of your heart is saying, “Well…surrender is a pretty strong word. Maybe we could work out a compromise?”

The beautiful thing about praying the prayers my heart might want to compromise on after Communion is this: I’ve just received a gift that comes from Christ not compromising. He didn’t say, “Well, maybe I’ll just die halfway,” or “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many…except when it’s too hard.” Christ has just poured Himself out for us in the Mass, and the graces we get from the Eucharist prompt us to pour ourselves out for God so that we may be follow His will instead of our own.

The other beautiful thing about these prayers is that they are prayers of love. How often do we tell God we love Him? Probably not as often as we should – many of our prayers are of petition or contrition or discernment or thanksgiving and while all of those are good and worthy prayers (especially thanksgiving), so are prayers of adoration and love. I know I sometimes get so caught up in the daily minutiae of life that I forget to love God. I forget that’s it’s okay to “date God” (I’m borrowing that phrase from a wonderful Ugandan priest) – to spend time with Him, to tell him about silly things like nightmares and worries and the way the sunset looked and the cute toddler I saw in the grocery store, and to tell Him that I love Him. St. Francis Xavier’s Hymn of Love (another post-Communion prayer) closes with:

Even so I love thee, and will love,

And in Thy praise will sing

Solely because Thou art my God

And my most loving King.

Prayers after Communion are a time for us to deepen our relationship with Christ. There’s no magical formula for praying them right (except actually praying them) and so it’s an opportunity for us to find our favorites out of the many beautiful prayers the Church gives us, from Anima Christi to the Petitions of St. Augustine. So I’ll close out with the end of Adoro te devote.

Jesu, whom now veiled I by faith descry,

What my soul doth thirst for, do not, Lord, deny:

That thy Face unveiled I at last may see

With the blissful vision blest, my God, of Thee.

Leah again: Many thanks to Claire for sharing these reflections.  I’ve been to the Latin Mass a couple of times, but I never really noted the opportunity for prayer afforded after communion in that liturgy.  (Truthfully, I just lumped it under “everything takes longer in Latin.”)  I haven’t taken much of a look at structured prayer after Communion, but, if I were looking to adopt one, I think I’d try out the Anima Christi first.  I just love the “within thy wounds, hide me” image.