Part 2, Chapter 14
I once heard a priest say in a homily, “The Most Important Thing is to keep The Most Important Thing, The Most Important Thing.” So what is The Most Important Thing? It is our relationship with God. So if our relationship with God is The Most Thing, what is the best way to foster that? Prayer, it is that simple and the prayer that we should be doing is the highest form of prayer. We should make every effort each day to celebrate the highest form of prayer i.e. the Mass. Of course that means the Sunday celebration, but for the devout life, it means participating in the Mass as much as we can. “Strive then to your utmost to be present every day at this holy celebration, in order that with the priest you may offer the sacrifice of your Redeemer on behalf of yourself and the whole Church to God the Father” (Introduction to the Devout Life, 55-56). There are so many graces involved in being at Mass. (By the grace of God, I have not yet missed a day of celebrating Mass as a priest).
There can be good reasons that we are not able to be at Mass daily such as there is no Mass for 40 miles, or we have to be at the doctor at the same time as Mass is going on, an emergency happens and so forth. In these instances we can still receive communion i.e. spiritual communion. We can receive spiritual communion many times throughout the day. “If any imperative hindrance prevents your presence at this sovereign sacrifice of Christ’s most true presence, at least be sure to take part in it spiritually” (Introduction to the Devout Life, 56). Receiving our Lord in spiritual communion is a great gift that we all should do more often.
At the end of this chapter, St. Francis De Sales lays out some rules to make sure we are prepared for communion. (This of course presumes that if we are mortal sin, we have gone to confession before receiving Holy Communion). What the saint is trying to do is have us focused on receiving our Lord worthily and well. Communion is a gift of Jesus Himself and we should strive to be ready to receive His gift of His life. We do this by fully, actively and consciously participating in the Mass. We do our best to pay attention, to respond, to hear what the Lord is speaking to our hearts throughout the Liturgy. “Up to the moment of communicating, offer all the longings and desires of your heart, above all desiring most earnestly to be united forever to our Savior by his eternal love” (Introduction to the Devout Life, 56). Thanking God when we have received is important. There are many more things that we can do, but this is a very good starting point to help the devout life to grow in us.