Lord, I Am Not Worthy

O Jesus, I cannot receive Thee today in Holy Communion; come nevertheless I beg Thee spiritually into my heart, to purify it, to sanctify it, and to render it like unto Thine own.  O Lord I am not worthy that Thou shouldst enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.  Amen.

That is a slightly-modified version of the act of Spiritual Communion that I found somewhere ages ago and memorized.  As I have been praying it these days, there has been one phrase in particular that stands out to me:

"O Lord, I am not worthy."

Most of the time we blithely spout those words during Mass right after the priest elevates the Host, saying: "Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who takes away the sins of the world."

How long do we take to truly ponder them?  Not long I daresay, for we scarcely have a few moments before we are lining up to go and receive the Lamb of God Himself.

I can tell you that these days and weeks of not being able to receive Holy Communion are certainly making me think about those words more than I ever had before.  It is one thing to say that we are not worthy and then to go on and do the very thing we said we were unworthy of; it is quite another to say those very same words knowing that we cannot right now do that about which we proclaim our unworthiness.

That very unworthiness, however, is the condition for receiving His mercy.  If we deserved it, as my spiritual director highlighted in a story about a woman going to Napoleon and begging mercy for her son, it would not be mercy.  That indeed is a fitting reflection for this Divine Mercy Sunday.

For the sake of His sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world!