Fr. Lawrence Lovasik - A Novena of Holy Communions

A Novena of Holy Communions

According to the Effects of Holy Communion and the Eight Beatitudes

Father Lawrence G. Lovasik, S.V.D.

Originally published by the Benedictine Convent of Perpetual Adoration, Clyde, Missouri, in 1960. The type in this book is the property of TAN Books, and may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without written permission from the Publisher. (This restriction applies only to this type, not to quotations from the book.)

Note: Although the Churchs regulations on indulgences have changed since this booklet was published in 1960, the indulgences have been left as in the original booklet.

Library of Congress Catalog Card No.: 95-60019

Cover picture from The Last Supper, by Fugel.

TAN Books
Charlotte, North Carolina
www.TANBooks.com

2012

Dedicated to
Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament.

Who can conceive or explain the excellence of the all-Divine gift which Jesus Christ bestows upon us in giving us His blessed Body and Blood in the Holy Eucharist, in which we receive God with all His perfections, the plenitude of His divinity, all the virtues and graces of His humanity, and all the merits of a Man-God?

The Imitation of Christ

Contents

Foreword

T HE PURPOSE of this booklet is to encourage you to receive Holy Communion often and thus to comply with Christs own injunction and the earnest desire of Holy Mother Church. Truly, you can do nothing better for your soul or for anyone else than to entertain often the King of kings and the Giver of all good.

Since the Sacraments are a God-given means of grace and the Holy Eucharist is the greatest and holiest of the Sacraments, no novena can be more fruitful than a novena of Holy Communions. The intercession of the Saints is very powerful and prayer very efficacious; nevertheless, the effects of Holy Communion are immeasurably greater because this Sacrament gives us the very Author and Source of all graces.

There is nothing that Jesus desires more than that you receive Him in Holy Communion very oftenevery day, if possible. When He gave us the Eucharist the night before He died, He pleaded, Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abide in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you the branches. (John 15:4-5). By abiding in Christ through frequent Holy Communion, you secure a guarantee that your prayers will be heard, for He also said, If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, you shall ask whatever you will, and it shall be done unto you. (John 15:7). Therefore, no prayer can be more effective than that said after Holy Communion when Jesus is present in your heart as God and Man, as your best Friend, ready to listen to you and to help you with the many graces He wishes to grant you.

The holier you are, the more worthy you are of getting what you ask for. Jesus comes to you in Holy Communion to make you holy and pleasing to God. He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit: for with out me you can do nothing. (John 15:5). Jesus describes the wonderful effects of Holy Communion in His Eight Beatitudes. The virtues suggested by each beatitude are offered for your imitation during this novena.

How to Make a Novena of Communions

1. Receive Holy Communion nine days in a row or on nine consecutive Sundays in petition for a special favor. If you are receiving on nine Sundays, you need not go to Confession before each Holy Communion (though it is very beneficial to do so), unless you are sure that you have committed a mortal sin. Venial sins should not keep you from receiving. If you feel conscious of venial sin, make an act of perfect contrition and approach the Holy Table without fear. It is advisable, however, to go to Confession at least every two or three weeks.

2. Ask Jesus to help you to practice the virtue suggested for each day of the novena. Recite the prayers carefully, and preferably after Holy Communion. Frequently during the day use the aspiration suggested as a means to keep your mind on the virtue. Examine yourself concerning each virtue to see where you should improve.

. After you have made your novena of petition for a special favor, make another immediately afterwards in thanksgiving, even if you have not received the favor you prayed for. Your prayers at Holy Communion were answeredperhaps not in your way, but in Gods way; and He knows best! At least you have done Our Lords will and fulfilled the desire of Holy Mother Church; you have become a better Catholic for it. Continue to make your novenas of Holy Communions until frequent Holy Communion becomes a part of your very life. Then you will become truly Christlike.

May the Blessed Virgin Mary, Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament, to whom this booklet is affectionately dedicated, help you, through frequent Holy Communion, to become more like her Eucharistic Son!

Father Lawrence G. Lovasik, S.V.D.

From Holy Mother Churchs Decree on Frequent Holy Communion

The holy Synod would desire that at every Mass the faithful who are present should communicate, not only spiritually, by a loving desire in their hearts, but sacramentally, by the actual reception of the Eucharist. (Council of Trent, Sess. 22, ch. 6).

And this wish of the Council is in entire agreement with that desire wherewith Christ Our Lord was inflamed when He instituted this Divine Sacrament. For He Himself, more than once and in no uncertain terms, pointed out the necessity of eating His Flesh and drinking His Blood, especially in these words: This is the bread that came down from heaven. Not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead. He that eateth this bread, shall live forever: (John 6:59). Now, from this comparison of the Food of Angels with bread and with the manna, it was easily to be understood by His disciples that, as the body is daily nourished with bread and as the Hebrews were daily nourished with manna in the desert, so the Christian soul might daily partake of this Heavenly Bread and be refreshed by It. Moreover, whereas in the Lords Prayer we are urged to ask for our daily bread, the holy Fathers of the Church all but unanimously teach that by these words must be understood, not so much that material bread which is the nourishment of the body, as the Eucharistic Bread, which ought to be our daily food.

Moreover, the desire of Jesus Christ and of the Church that all the faithful should daily approach the Sacred Banquet is directed chiefly to this end, that the faithful, being united to God by means of the Sacrament, may derive from It strength to resist their sensual passions, to cleanse themselves from the stains of daily faults and to avoid those graver sins which they commit through human weakness, so that the main purpose of Holy Communion is not that the honor and reverence due to Our Lord may be safeguarded, nor that the Sacrament may serve as a reward of virtue bestowed on those who receive It... Holy Communion is the remedy whereby we are delivered from daily faults and preserved from mortal sins. (Sess. 13).