Thought for the Day – 27 April – The Role of the Eucharist in Increasing Our Love of God (Part One)

Thought for the Day – 27 April – The Spiritual Combat (1589) – Dom Lorenzo Scupoli OSM (c1530-1610)

“None shall be crowned who has not fought well.” 2 Tim 2: 5

LV: … The Role of the Eucharist in
Increasing Our Love of God (Part One)

“If our motive in receiving Holy Communion be a desire of increasing our love of God, we should recall the Love which God has for us.
The preparation consists in an attentive contemplation of this Sovereign Lord of boundless Power and Majesty, Who, not satisfied with creating us to His image and likeness, nor with the immolation of His only Son on our behalf, left this Son to us in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, to be our food and support in all our necessities.
Consider well the greatness and uniqueness of this Love in the following manner:

1. In its duration we find that God’s Love for us is eternal and unceasing; for, as He is eternal in His Divinity, so is He eternal in His Love.
   Before time was, God determined to give His Son to mankind in this marvellous manner.
   Let these words, then, echo joyfully within your heart: “In the abyss of eternity, my littleness was so loved by the most high God that He thought of me and with Love ineffable, wished to give me His Son to be my food and my nourishment!”
2. Our strongest passions for earthly things recognise certain limits which they cannot exceed but, the Love of God for us, is limitless.
   The advent of His Son, equal to Himself in Majesty and Perfection, was a testimony to that boundless Love.
   Thus is the Gift equal to the Love and the Love to the Gift and both are Infinite, beyond the borders of human understanding.
3. In Loving us God was not constrained by any power or necessity but heaped innumerable benefits upon us out of the magnitude of Divine Love.
4. Neither have human merit or previous good works, rendered us worthy of this remarkable Gift.
   If God has loved to excess or given of Himself unstintingly, it is rather to be attributed to the immensity of Divine charity.
5. God’s Love for us is untainted by the blemish of the self-interest present in human affections.
   For what is the totality of human greatness to Him, the Source of all happiness and glory?
   How could we possibly add glory to Glory itself?
   The advantages, then, are all on the side of man.”

Dom Lorenzo Scupoli