Faber on Blessed Sacrament

From The Foot of the Cross

"We learn two lessons for ourselves in this sixth dolour. Our Lady is at once a
model to us of devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, and a model also of behaviour in time
of grief. We have already seen how allusions to the Blessed Sacrament flit before us
continually in this dolour. From Mary’s demeanour we may now gather what our own
devotion to that dread mystery ought to be. For the sixth dolour is as it were perpetuated
in the Church until the end of time. As our Blessed Lord is daily offered in the Mass, and
the self same sacrifice of Calvary continued and renewed with out intermission day and
night around the world, so are Mary s ministries to His mute yet adorable Body going on
unceasingly upon thousands of Christian altars and by the hands of thousands of
Christian priests. 1 Yet, as is ever the case with those things, which we have from Jesus
and Mary, what was intense bitterness to her, to us is exultation, privilege, and love.
When she had gently laid aside the crown and nails, as precious relics, with what
profound reverence did she kneel to receive the Body of her Son! It was not the attitude
of a Mother towards a Son, but rather of the creature towards the Creator. She adored it
with divine worship. She held it in her arms until the rest had adored it also. Her rights as
a Mother were merged in her service as a creature. Yet the Blessed Sacrament is the
living Jesus, Soul as well as Body, Godhead as well as Humanity. Worshipful as was His
dead Body, because of its unbroken union with the Person of the Eternal Word, the
Blessed Sacrament, if it were possible, demands of us a worship more full of dread, more
self-abasing, more profound. We have no mother’s rights. We are not, like Joseph of
Arimathea, doing Jesus a service by ministering to His Body. The obligation is all on our
side. He has come down again from heaven to us. We are not gone up to the Cross to take
Him down. With what immense reverence then ought we not to worship this divine
Sacrament! Our preparation for Communion should be full of the grand spirit of
adoration. Our act of receiving should be a silent act of holy eager fear and breathless
worship. In our thanksgiving we ought to be lost in the grandeurs of His condescension,
and not too soon begin to ask for graces, until we have prostrated ourselves before that
living Incarnate God, who at that moment has so wonderfully enshrined Himself within
us. We should behave at Mass, as, with all our present faith and knowledge, we should
have behaved on Calvary. At Benediction, and when praying before the Tabernacle, the
Blessed Sacrament should breed in us continually a spirit of unresting adoration,
unresting as that incessant cry which the astonished Seraphim and Cherubim are
continually uttering at the sight of the unimaginable holiness of God.
To this reverence we must add tranquillity, or rather, out of this reverence will
come tranquillity. The spirit of worship is a spirit of quietness. We must not disquiet
ourselves in order to deepen our reverence. We must not disturb ourselves by making
efforts. We must gently submit ourselves to be over-ruled, constrained, and gradually
calmed by the present majesty of God. Neither must we look into our own souls to see if

1
This was written before the Mass was taken away by Antichrist as a punishment for the sins of Catholics
in the twentieth century. Today we should be preparing for the restoration of the Mass.

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we are worshipping, nor make any other reflex acts upon the processes which are going
on within us. Under the pretence of keeping up our attention, all this is but so much
occupation with self, and so much distraction from the presence of Jesus. Hence it is that
so many Communions bring forth so little fruit.
It is from the want of quietness. An unprepared Communion can hardly ever be a
quiet one. The very object of the preparation is to clear our hearts of the worldly images
which possess them, and which, if not expelled beforehand, will become importunate
distractions at the very moment when adoration should rule within us tranquil and alone.
Hence also it is that the best preparation for the Blessed Sacrament consists by no means
in endeavouring to stimulate our affections by devout considerations, in order to warm
our cold hearts and raise our fervour to a proper pitch. In truth it is not in our power to do
so. For the ardour, or the seeming ardour, which we produce, is unnatural because it is
violent, and so it is not only short-lived, but it is followed by a reaction proportioned to
the efforts we have made. A feeble fire is extinguished by the bellows, and even where it
is blown up into a noisy crackling flame, it burns black and dull for long afterwards,
when the artificial blast has ceased to play.
The best preparation is that which is rather of a negative character, and which
consists in emptying ourselves of self, so far as may be, in banishing distraction?, in
realizing our own needs and poverty and nothingness and malice, and so coming to Jesus
in the same temper that the humble sufferers came to Him in the Gospel to be healed of
their diseases. Whatsoever is empty and unoccupied in our hearts He will fill, when He
enters there. Hence the more room there is for Him, the more grace will there be for us. A
quiet Communion with but little sensible fervour is a far deeper thing than a Communion
which thrills through us with a pleasant agitation of great thoughts. Tranquillity is
thrilling also, but it is so in a higher and more super natural way. The preparation of
peace is the best adornment of the heart in which we are to hide the Blessed Sacrament:
for the presence of Jesus is itself peace, and works greater things where it finds peace
already, and has not to lose time by making room for itself and expelling intrusive
images.
It is out of peace that love will come, such burning yet such humble love as
becomes the worship of the Blessed Sacrament. Our reverence cannot have been right at
the first, if love does not follow. When fear and shrinking and avoidance come to souls
with regard to the Blessed Sacrament, it is not so much the want of love to which we
must look, as the want of reverence, Reverence infallibly provides for love. But the love
of the Blessed Sacrament must be a growth of inward peace and spiritual tranquillity.
Very often we love less than we should love if we made less effort to love. Our faith tells
us such overwhelming things of this divine mystery, that it seems a shame, almost a sin,
that we are not burning with sensible love all the day long. Jesus Himself, so near, so
accessible, so intimately uniting Himself to us, Bethlehem, Nazareth, Calvary actually
here, and we so cold, so moderate, so commonplace! Surely we ought to be burnt up as
with the fires of the Seraphim. It is true. Yet for all that we cannot force ourselves. It is
better to turn our vexation into self-hatred and self-contempt, than to try to create an
interior vehemence which after all is a different thing from divine love. The love of the
Blessed Sacrament is daily and lifelong. Surely it is not likely that such a love should be
always, or even most often, sensible. Do we go to Mass on week-days at our own

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inconvenience? Are we punctual and reverential in our daily visit to the Blessed
Sacrament?
Do we hear Mass with devout attention? Are our preparations for Communion,
and our thanksgivings after it, among those actions which we practically confess to rank
as the most important of our lives? Do we give up exercise, pleasure, visiting, study, and
the like, or at least interrupt them, to go to Benediction when it is in our power? These are
better proofs of an acceptable love of the Blessed Sacrament than the warmest transports
or the most glowing heat in our hearts. Perseverance is the real divine heat in our hearts.
But out of love must come familiarity. Yet as the love itself comes out of reverence, the
familiarity must be of a peculiar and noticeable kind. It must have nothing in it of
forwardness, of presumption, of carelessness, of indifference, or even of freedom. It
implies a spirit accustomed to the divine visitations, and therefore not taken unawares by
them, nor flurried, nor excited, nor discomposed, nor forgetful of proprieties. Some
ecclesiastics are well versed in the sweet science of the rubrics and ceremonial of the
Church, so that if they are suddenly called upon to take part in some great function, they
are not confused or oblivious.
They know what to do. They fall into their place naturally. They are parts of a
whole, and do not cause disturbance on either side of them by ignorance or precipitation.
They are slow and yet ready, calm and yet interested, dignified and yet bashful. Their
greatest praise is that they go through the ceremonial in such a natural and unaffected
way, that men for the most part do not notice how well they have fulfilled their office,
and how completely they are at home in the rubrics of the function. This is an illustration
of spiritual familiarity. It is at home with God, not in the sense of ease and freedom, but
in the sense of understanding its part, of receiving Him with the proper honours, of
calmly and mindfully fulfilling all the ceremonial which His presence requires, and so
practically of forgetting self, because there is no need to remember it, and of being
occupied reverently and lovingly and tranquilly with Him only. This is the true idea of
holy familiarity; and when we consider how frequent and how common Mass,
Communion, Benediction, and Visit are, we shall see at once how essential an element it
is in our devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. Mary was never but once at the deposition
from the Cross, and yet with what beautiful familiarity did all her ministries to the Sacred
Body take their place, as if they were daily occurrences among the maternal offices of
Bethlehem and Nazareth!

Comments: We should be preparing for the restoration of the Holy Sacrifice of

the Mass by observing Fr. Faber’s recommendations. Below is reproduced a chapter
from Saint Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life on how to communicate,
which should also be helpful. Faber says for us to be quiet and to banish distractions.
Let us worship Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, since we cannot do so actually at the
moment.

www.popespeaks.vaticaninexile.com

How to Communicate.
BEGIN your preparation over-night, by sundry aspirations and loving
ejaculations. Go to bed somewhat earlier than usual, so that you may get up earlier the

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next morning; and if you should wake during the night, fill your heart and lips at once
with sacred words wherewith to make your soul ready to receive the Bridegroom, Who
watches while you sleep, and Who intends to give you countless gifts and graces, if you
on your part are prepared to accept them. In the morning rise with joyful expectation of
the Blessing you hope for, and (having made your Confession) go with the fullest trust,
but at the same time with the fullest humility, to receive that Heavenly Food which will
sustain your immortal life. And after having said the sacred words, "Lord, I am not
worthy," do not make any further movement whatever, either in prayer or otherwise, but
gently opening your mouth, in the fulness of faith, hope, and love, receive Him in Whom,
by Whom, and through Whom, you believe, hope, and love. O my child, bethink you that
just as the bee, having gathered heaven's dew and earth's sweetest juices from amid the
flowers, carries it to her hive; so the Priest, having taken the Saviour, God's Own Son,
Who came down from Heaven, the Son of Mary, Who sprang up as earth's choicest
flower, from the Altar, feeds you with that Bread of Sweetness and of all delight. When
you have received it kindle your heart to adore the King of our Salvation, tell Him of all
your own personal matters, and realise that He is within you, seeking your best
happiness. In short, give Him the very best reception you possibly can, and act so that in
all you do it may be evident that God is with you. When you cannot have the blessing of
actual Communion, at least communicate in heart and mind, uniting yourself by ardent
desire to the Life-giving Body of the Saviour.
Your main intention in Communion should be to grow, strengthen, and abound in
the Love of God; for Love's Sake receive that which Love Alone gives you. Of a truth
there is no more loving or tender aspect in which to gaze upon the Saviour than this act,
in which He, so to say, annihilates Himself, and gives Himself to us as food, in order to
fill our souls, and to unite Himself more closely to the heart and flesh of His faithful
ones.
If men of the world ask why you communicate so often, tell them that it is that
you may learn to love God; that you may be cleansed from imperfections, set free from
trouble, comforted in affliction, strengthened in weakness. Tell them that there are two
manner of men who need frequent Communion--those who are perfect, since being ready
they were much to blame did they not come to the Source and Fountain of all perfection;
and the imperfect, that they may learn how to become perfect; the strong, lest they
become weak, and the weak, that they may become strong; the sick that they may be
healed, and the sound lest they sicken. Tell them that you, imperfect, weak and ailing,
need frequently to communicate with your Perfection, your Strength, your Physician. Tell
them that those who are but little engaged in worldly affairs should communicate often,
because they have leisure; and those who are heavily pressed with business, because they
stand so much in need of help; and he who is hard worked needs frequent and substantial
food. Tell them that you receive the Blessed Sacrament that you may learn to receive it
better; one rarely does that well which one seldom does. Therefore, my child,
communicate frequently,--as often as you can, subject to the advice of your spiritual
Father. Our mountain hares turn white in winter, because they live in, and feed upon, the
snow, and by dint of adoring and feeding upon Beauty, Goodness, and Purity itself in this
most Divine Sacrament you too will become lovely, holy, pure.