St. Louis de Montfort's method for Holy Communion - updated

Proverbs 6:27 asks this question “Can a man carry fire in his bosom and his clothes not be burned?”

St. Paul reminds us in Hebrews 12:29 that “…our God is a consuming fire.”

And St. Matthew reminds us of the following in Chapter 26, verse 26 of his Gospel:

Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.”

So what gives? How come we receive our God, a consuming fire, into our bosoms and we aren’t fired up by it? (At least, not as much as we should be?)

“We” might be tempted to offer the excuse that it’s someone else’s fault – the kids were feral, the hymns were so droll, I have a big week ahead of me, so concentration is too hard right now, Fr. Soandso only had 26 people at Mass and he had 46 extraordinary ministers, all female, all in purple tracksuit pants and all noticeably attending Mass without their children or grandchildren!

“We” might be tempted to offer more noble sounding excuse that we aren’t perfect, but we are working on it – Yes, Holy Communion well received can make me a saint, and I do my best to make my Holy Communions as Christ centred as possible, and I am improving a little each time.

If our excuses fall into either of these categories (ie – it’s someone else’s fault, or “hey, I’m working on it”) then perhaps we could benefit from St. Louis de Montfort’s suggested method of receiving Holy Communion.

Step 1. Wipe your feet.

John 13:10

“Jesus said …, ‘He who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but he is clean all over…’”

St. Bernard commented on this passage and said that when we are washed in Baptism and Confession we are bathed and “clean all over” – we don’t need to wash, except for our feet! St. Bernard interpreted the mention of the feet allegorically as meaning that which connects us to worldly things.

If we really desire a profound Communion with Jesus Christ, we should work hard in our spiritual lives to rout all our attachments to venial sin and worldly pleasures for their own sake. In this way, we are clean all over and our feet are clean too!

Step 2. Be honest, your version of clean all over, isn’t really clean all over.

Let’s face it, no matter how perfect you and I become by God’s grace, we are still a long way from the perfection of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The greatest of saints looked at themselves and said, along with St. Paul in 1Timothy 1:15, “I am the foremost of sinners.” Even colossal Saints like St. Charbel went to Confession every day (so to, I am told, did Pope John Paul II).

Step 3. Jesus has done bad places before.

If we look at our souls honestly and see something so ugly that it resembles a filthy stable we need not panic. Jesus has been happy to be in a filthy stable before, and so we have good cause to hope that He should come to such places again. Be of good cheer.

Step 4. Why was Jesus happy to be in the stable at Bethlehem?

We need to remind ourselves that the reason why Jesus found Himself in a stable and the reason He was happy to be there was because the Blessed Virgin Mary was there!

Step 5. Leave the loving up to the lovers.

Mary loves Jesus more than you or I ever could. The best thing we can do for ourselves is provide the place where Mary can love Jesus, and then shut up.

Step 6. The players.

Consider the other players present at the Nativity and let their roles speak to you.

The "players" were St. Joseph, the shepherds, the magi, the animals.

St. Joseph was there because he was a just man. He didn't come in, he was always there. He is like the saint whose communion and contemplation of Mary and Jesus loving one another always and only gives him more to wonder at.

The shepherds and the Magi were both called, some from lowly places, sopme from exaulted places, but both were humble enough to come and bow down. They are the example for most of us.

The animals were just "there", either giving casual attention or completely ignoring the mystery before them. They are like us when we fail to prepare for Mass or when we don't bring ourselves to wonder at the mystery before us.

The method

This method is based on St. Louis de Montfort’s True Devotion to Mary. The devotion can be summed up in what St. Louis calls the seven effects of True Devotion to Mary:

First Effect: By the light which the Holy Ghost will give you through His dear Spouse, Mary, you will understand your own evil, your corruption and your incapacity for anything good. In other words, the humble Mary will communicate to you a portion of her profound humility, which will make you despise yourself, despise nobody else, but love to be despised yourself.

Second Effect: Our Blessed lady also will give you a portion of her faith, which was the greatest of all faiths, that were ever on this earth, greater than all the faiths of all the patriarchs, prophets, apostles and saints put together.

Third Effect: This Mother of fair love, will take away from your heart, all scruple and all disorder of servile fear.

Fourth Effect: Our Blessed lady will fill you with great confidence in God and in herself because you will not be approaching Jesus by yourself, but always by that good Mother.

Fifth Effect: The soul of our Blessed Lady will communicate itself to you, to glorify the Lord. Her spirit will enter into the place of yours, to rejoice in God, her salvation, provided only that you are faithful to the practices of this devotion.

Sixth Effect: If Mary, who is the tree of life, is well cultivated in our soul by fidelity to the practices of this devotion, she will bear fruit in her own time, and her fruit is none other than Jesus Christ.

Seventh Effect: By this practice, faithfully observed, you will give Jesus more glory in a month than by any other practice, however difficult, in many years.

St. Louis de Montfort’s Method for receiving Holy Communion:

Before Communion:

Before approaching to receive Our Lord in Holy Communion, remind yourself of your state in life, make a good act of contrition, see yourself as you are.

Invite Mary into your heart. Tell Our Lady that you are about to receive Her Son, the Lord of Heaven and Earth into your body and soul. Ask Her, out of love for Him, to come and make your Heart a worthy dwelling where He can be received. When you pray “Lord I am not worthy” or, in the Maronite Rite “Make us worthy O Lord” make sure you mean it, and make sure you capitalise on it!

At Communion:

After receiving Our Lord as reverently as you can, tell Him that, humble as it is, you have prepared your heart for Him, and that you have given His Mother Her rightful place as Queen of All Hearts, and Queen of your heart.

After Communion:

Make yourself a student at the greatest school of love between the Creator and His creature in the universe. In your heart, Mary now loves Her son, present in the Blessed Eucharist, and He loves Her. Their love for one another changes your heart from a stable unfit for humans into a glorious basilica of love where God Himself is pleased to dwell, because Mary is there. You don’t need to say anything as Mary loves Jesus present in your Heart and He loves her.

If God so chooses, He will immediately transform you into a saint, if not, then by this method, you make for yourself a sure way to perfection – because it isn’t you who walks it, rather it is Jesus and Mary loving each other that takes you there.

Do not bow down to them!

If you are ever asked by a Protestant why Catholics kiss and bow and kneel before statues when the commandments "forbid" it, you might want to point out the following:

1. Making statues and images is not intrinsically evil or forbidden (Exodus 25:17-19)

2. Scripture even gives examples of where God asks for statues to be made as a condition of His coming to be present (1Kings 6:12-13).

3. God even expresses his pleasure at the presence of some statues (1Kings 9:3).

4. God uses statues to impart His grace and mercy (Numbers 21:8).

5. The fact that God ordered the destruction of the serpent of Numbers 21:8 only proves that statues can be abused, but it does not prove that their use is immoral.

6. Not all bowing is adoration that is due to God alone (eg. Genesis 33:3 and 1Kings 1:16)

7. Not all kissing is adoration that is due to God alone (eg Romans 16:16, 1Corinthians 16:20, 2Corinthans 13:12, 1Thessalonians 5:26 and Acts 20:37).

The Catholic Church has formally condemned the worship of adoration to anything except for God at the Second Council of Nicea in 787AD. To insist that the Church still promotes or encourages idolatry is to either:

1. Make yourself equal to God by claiming that you know the hearts of Catholics to be secretly worshipping idols when they claim that they do not and point to clear teachings that say this.

2. Make yourself superior to the Pope, any Council and the Scriptures themselves by claiming that you have the power to say that the Scriptres cited above can be ignored.

There are more scriptural examples that could be brought forward to back up the examples given above. The ones given are just a sample.

What is Christian Righteousness?

These are the notes I used in a recent lecture I gave at Sydney University at the invitation of the University's Catholic Chaplaincy.

• The grace of the Holy Spirit has the power to justify us, that is, to cleanse us from our sins and to communicate to us "the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ" (according to Romans 3:22) and through Baptism (according to Romans 6:3-4).

• The first work of the grace of the Holy Spirit is conversion, effecting justification in accordance with Jesus' proclamation at the beginning of the Gospel in St. Matthew 4:17: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."

• Moved by grace, man turns toward God and away from sin, thus accepting forgiveness and righteousness from on high.

• Justification has been merited for us by the Passion of Christ who offered himself on the cross as a living victim, holy and pleasing to God, and whose blood has become the instrument of atonement for the sins of all men.

Up until now, Catholics and Protestants would probably have no major disagreements.

By the way, all of the above has come as largely direct quotes taken from the Catechism of the Catholic Church Part 3, Section 1, Chapter 3, Article 2 headed “Grace and Justification”!

But the Council of Trent went on to affirm that "Justification is not only the remission of sins, but also the sanctification and renewal of the interior man.”

Justification is where we are sanctified, that is where we are made righteous by God. We are not just “declared” righteous, as though the declaration was only a strictly legal one.

We can see this from a careful and detailed study of Scripture.

This lecture will not pit The Catholic Epistle of St. James against St. Paul’s letter to the Romans.

With the exception of the point I am about to make, it will not in fact refer to St. James’ epistle at all.

“Justification before God” and “Justification before men”. Sometimes it is common for Protestant apologists to argue that St. James’ clear teaching that we are saved “not by faith alone” needs to be understood as speaking about justification that is “shown” to others, whereas St. Paul speaks about justification that is “before God”. In other words, St. James is speaking about having an outward display of imputed righteousness that flows in some way automatically from that righteousness whereas St. Paul is speaking about the legal imputation of that righteousness.

In other words, Sts. James and Paul speak about justification in different ways, or rather speak about different aspects or facets of justification and so reach (apparently) different conclusions.

We will take a close look at Romans chapter 4, irrespective of St. James’ epistle and see if this is indeed the case or if a false dichotomy has been created that in effect nullifies what St. James is clearly saying.

Romans 4 says:

1 What then shall we say about Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh?

2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.

3 For what does the scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness."

4 Now to one who works, his wages are not reckoned as a gift but as his due.

5 And to one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness.

6 So also David pronounces a blessing upon the man to whom God reckons righteousness apart from works:

7 "Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered;

8 blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not reckon his sin."

9 Is this blessing pronounced only upon the circumcised, or also upon the uncircumcised? We say that faith was reckoned to Abraham as righteousness.

10 How then was it reckoned to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised.

11 He received circumcision as a sign or seal of the righteousness which he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised and who thus have righteousness reckoned to them,

12 and likewise the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but also follow the example of the faith which our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.

13 The promise to Abraham and his descendants, that they should inherit the world, did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith.

14 If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void.

15 For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression.

16 That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants--not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham, for he is the father of us all,

17 as it is written, "I have made you the father of many nations" --in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.

18 In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations; as he had been told, "So shall your descendants be."

19 He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead because he was about a hundred years old, or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb.

20 No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God,

21 fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.

22 That is why his faith was "reckoned to him as righteousness."

23 But the words, "it was reckoned to him," were written not for his sake alone,

24 but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him that raised from the dead Jesus our Lord,

25 who was put to death for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

Let us go over some important points in the chapter that a first reading may have overlooked:

• St. Paul is speaking about justification “before God” (verse 2). Verse 2 makes it clear that St. Paul is talking about justification the way that God sees it, or "before God". This is not about a justification that is on show to men, but the “real deal” before God.
  
  

• The phrase “reckoned as righteous” or its equivalent occurs twice throughout the chapter. Catholics and Protestants both are happy to declare that Abraham had "righteousness reckoned to him". The disagreement comes in what that exactly means. We will deal with a few other parts of the chapter before we come back to discover what this phrase really means in the mind of St. Paul.
  
  

• Verses 4 and 5 speak of the "one who works" and the "one who does not work but trusts". Taking a literal reading of "the one who does not work but trusts" is problematic, since it is impossible to do absolutely no work. Even trusting takes some effort – it is an act (a work). Appeals to trusting being a result of God's grace aren't helpful, since they don't stop trust being a human activity. It may be tempting for some to postulate at this point that God's grace may be irresistible and that the "one who trusts" really does so without effort, but such a position is impossible to maintain, especially in the light of the rest of the chapter, as we shall see.
  
  

• Verse 6 begins with the words "so also". This implies that what St. Paul is speaking about in verse 6 is another example of what he was just talking about - namely how one is justified before God.
  
  

Interestingly, the example he uses to back up what he has been saying about Abraham is King David, and specifically David's words about himself in Psalm 32.

Psalm 32 is the second of the so called seven penitential Psalms that David penned after his sins involving Bethsheba and her husband Uriah the Hittite.

The reason why this use of David is interesting is that we know that David had a deep faith in God from his youth. He himself spoke of this faith in the verbal sparring that took place between he and Goliath in 1Samuel 17, but even more clear was that the prophet Samuel said that God Himself declared David's heart to be like God's own heart and that David had God's Spirit with him (cf 1Samuel 16).

So what we have is St. Paul saying that David is speaking about being justified by God (apart from works), when God forgives him of his sin in Psalm 32, after he had faith and trust in God in his youth.

Something has happened here that many people overlook. For the above to have happened means that David either lost and regained his justification, or that he was further justified in God's sight (remember, that St. Paul opens the chapter by making it clear that the justification he is talking about is "before God").

But for Justification to have been lost and regained means that there must have been a reason for its loss - that loss can only have been David's sin, and so David's continuing in a state of justification must be dependant upon him avoiding serious sin (or repenting and receiving God's forgiveness of it if he does fall). This seems to refute the idea that David's justification "apart from works" has nothing at all to do with his works.

We're not done yet. If David isn't being "re-justified" after losing his justification, then he is adding to his justification. But if justification is "quantitative" in this way, then it must be based on a quality in the person justified, which also refutes the idea that David's justification "apart from works" has nothing at all to do with his works.

• St. Paul then moves to a discussion of the timing of Abraham's circumcision and (one of) his justifications. He points out that Abraham's justification before his circumcision was proof that it wasn't the adherence to a circumcision law that justified Abraham. There was another quality (in addition to the obedience Abraham showed in his many dealings with God prior to his circumcision) that brought Abraham his justification. That quality is faith.
  
  St. Paul seems to contradict himself by saying that the faith that justified Abraham was "apart from works" but then he goes on to point out that Abraham's faith consisted in his lived out hope for a child. Now, it is safe to assume that the promise of an heir wasn't given to Abraham whilst he was in the marital embrace with his wife. He was given the promise, believed it and then lived out the belief by lying together with Sarah as husband and wife. St. Paul says in verse 22 that this is why his faith was reckoned as righteous - because he lived and acted in accord with the promise that Sarah would conceive. So Abraham performs a work (the work of joining with his wife in the hope of a child), but is credited "apart from works" - the only way such a contradiction can be resolved is if there are different types of work, or if works can be viewed in different ways.
  
  St. Paul slams the idea that circumcision or adhering to the Law can save, if one is not like Abraham and does not live out his faith. This is akin to the Catholic theology of Baptism - if one does not live in accord with ones baptismal promises, the grace of baptism is lost.
  
  The distinction in types of work made by St. Paul (those that save and those that don't) can be described as those done in God's favour (grace) and those done without His favour (grace).
  
  Works done without grace cannot save and the individual who does not remain in God's grace cannot be saved.

This is why the example of David is so brilliant an illustration of what St. Paul is trying to get across to his reader. David lost his salvation by his sinful works, and so threw himself upon God's mercy to restore him to grace. In Psalm 51 (another of David's penitential Psalms) he makes a very interesting observation. On the one hand, he points out that God does not want sacrifice, but then speaks about him being regenerated and then offering acceptable sacrifices. How is it that sacrifices are both unacceptible and acceptible? It isn't the work that changes, but the status in which those works are offered that changes the way God sees them. Works done outside of God's grace are not acceptible, works done under grace are acceptible. It isn't the work itself then that saves, and to believe that one is saved by works outside of God's grace is the error that St. Paul is addressing.

Because God, through Christ, instituted the New Law, the rites of the Old Law no longer carry with them a promise of God's grace. Hence St. Paul talks down circumcision. Baptism, the New Law perfection of circumcision, now comes with a promise of God's grace (1Peter 3:21 says this clearly when it teaches that Baptism saves). But it isn't the act of washing that forces God to grant salvation, rather it is the fact that God has promised His salvation through Baptism - Baptism does not bind God to save, God binds Baptism to save.

• The chapter finishes of with an offering of great hope for us. Being credited with righteousness isn't only for Abraham, but for us who live out our faith like Abraham did. Another point of great interest is the use of the term "reckoned as righteous" is applied to another Old Testament character apart from Abraham. In Psalm 106:30-31 we read a recollection of what Phineas did in Numbers 25. In Numbers 25 Phineas is so disgusted at the abominations of a certain couple that he kills them, and in Psalm 106's recollection of the event we read that because of what he did he was "reckoned as righteous". The Hebrew is identical as in Abraham's case in Genesis 15.
  
  There is absolutely no separating Phineas' faith from his work here, and so, whilst we know that works do not credit us with righteousness on their own, when united to our faith, under grace, they certainly do bring us salvation.

What then does Romans 4 teach us about salvation?

It teaches us that faith and works, done under God's grace, are necessary for salvation, and that faith alone is an idea that St. Paul isn't even discussing.

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