My favorite prayer to say after receiving Holy Communion is commonly known as the Prayer of St. Ignatius. That’s St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits. There are various English translations; the one I pray goes like this:
Take, Lord, and receive all of my liberty: my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all that I have and possess. Thou has given all to me; to Thee, O Lord, I return it. All is Thine; dispose of it according to Your Will. Grant me your love and your grace, for these are sufficient to me.
The reason I like to pray this prayer after Holy Communion is because it’s the best response to what Our Lord Jesus has just given to us. In and through Holy Communion, he has given us himself: his body, blood, soul, and divinity. He has given us all that he is, and all that he has. He can give us nothing more than what he’s given us in and through Holy Communion.
For me, the only acceptable response to this complete self-giving of Our Lord to us is the complete self-giving of us to him. And that’s what the Prayer of St. Ignatius of Loyola does.
We tell Our Lord to take all of our liberty — by which we give him all of our freedom. We give him our memory (that is, our thoughts), our understanding (that is, what we choose to learn), and our will (that is, our desires). When we give him these things, we give him all that we have and possess.
After we give Our Lord all that we are and have, we tell him to use us as he desires. This is another way of saying what we say in the “Our Father” — Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We are actively aligning our will — our wants, goals, desires, aspirations, ambitions, etc. — to the will of God. Whatever that might mean for us.
Then we tell Our Lord that all that we desire from him is his grace and love, which, if we think about it, we have already received in Holy Communion. So this great prayer of St. Ignatius ends with the recognition that we have received, in the Eucharist, the one thing necessary for our spiritual lives. Personally, I can’t think of a better prayer to say after receiving Holy Communion.
But I don’t think this is the only prayer that should be said after Holy Communion. That moment is, after all, the most intimate time with have with Our Lord; the prayers we say should be personal.
Therefore, I am interested in your Communion devotion. Not because I’m interested in your personal spiritual life, but, rather, because your approach to Christ in the Eucharist will help me approach him better.
The comment box is open . . . if you’re interested.
