Spiritual Communion Prayer

    Spiritual communion is the act of being open to receive Christ in our souls thoughout our lives. Even at those times outside of the Mass. To be able to be in spiritual communion with the Lord, we do need to be in grace with God and not in mortal sin.

Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI said that we were all called to be in spiritual commmunion with the Lord during times when we were out in the world and also in our homes. They believed that we were to be praying for spiritual communion always.

There are many who can not attend the Mass due to either illness, imprisonment, age or even location where there is not Mass within a easily reacheable area. Also, we have those whose disposition is such that when they are at work or school on their every day secular life, continue longing for the total company of the full body, blood, soul and Divinity or Christ in the Eucharist, and they desire to continue in communion with Christ thoughout the day.

We are all called to the table of the Lord for the sacrifice, yet not all are able to receive him in the Eucharist on the cummunion line. Many present will properly deny themselves from receiving Christ in the Eucharist for reasons only known to them. One of those reasons can be not having fasted before receiving or not having gone to the sacrament of reconciliation in time before the Mass while there was a known mortal sin.

    When the Holy Spirit calls us to the Mass, we all begin to get ready for the sacrifice that is about to be experienced. When the celebrating priest begins the Mass we all start with the prayer of contrition the "I confess ...". This prayer is used for all of those present who are not completely clean. yet do not have any mortal sin on their souls. The prayer is used for each of us to tell the Lord that we confess our venial sin.[5]

The contrition prayer, however, does not relive us from mortal sin. Only a contrite heart that has gone to the sacrament of reconciliation can attain such grace. A soul that is on mortal sin remains in mortal sin after the prayer of contrition or any other prayer without the sacrament of reconciliation.

    The Catholic faith teaches that every prayer is effective. With that said, a prayer must be prayed within the context of the wording of the prayer and ramaining in unity with God. For instance, if we pray to God for us to win a race so that we can have the money to buy a gift for ourselves, that is not necesarily in the context of unity with God as this brings a sin potentially with the way the prayer is being prayed. Praying the Communion Prayer for others is also not the best use of prayer time, as the context of the prayer is said in the first Person "I". That prayer is then best said by the person who is looking to do the communion prayer and should not be recited by the choir as this would bring the choir member into mortal sin with God for interceeding for someone in mortal sin.

    We are all called to interceed for others regardless of our circimstances in life. Yet, the prayer of spiritual communion brings us to pray for someone who is in mortal sin and further, the prayer does not ask for that person to remove themselves from the situations that bring them into that mortal sin. This makes us intercessors of the sinner with the sin and that is not allowed by scripture 1 John 5:16-17 [3] When we say this prayer is for someone who we know is sinning mortally and we are tending toward inteerceeding for the sin as well. If someone is saying this prayer inside of the temple is most likely because they can not receive the Eucharist due to being in mortal sin, or they would be receiving the Eucharist.

This prayer of spiritual communion can give those who pray it the sense that it cleanses them from venial sin and also form mortal sin. It does not have the efficacy that those who want to interceed for them want it to have. For this reason, the prayer must not be said during communion at Mass.

During the days of COVID lockdowns, this prayer became prevalent as there were unnecessary televised Masses around the world teacing this prayer. For the reason that we could not receive the Eucharist during lockdown, the spiritual communion prayer was praiseworthy to pray by those who were in grace with God. In fact, many saints have called for us to pray this prayer trhoughout the day to keep ourselves close to Christ. Yet, now we have created a new human made tradition that needs to be rectified to allow everyone to grow in their disposition toward Christ.

We must stop creating human made doctrines that do not evangelize by proclaiming the Evangelium, and instead uses pity instead of mercy cheating the faithful from the growth that they so need. When we crete these human doctrines we spend a lot of time to figure out how we will institute them and we lose track of time. Then we come to the faithful and teach them how this new human doctrine is to be achieved and we do not use that time instaed to evangalize the truth of the Gospel.

May the love of God keep us firm on the faith and let us allow his mercy to work in each one of us by adopting the tradition as it was given to us from antiquity.