Thanksgiving after Communion

According to Catholic doctrine, bread is transubstantiated into the "Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ.

"[This quote needs a citation] The same holds true for the wine, which in Catholic doctrine is also "the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ".

[This quote needs a citation] Pope John-Paul II in Inaestimabile Donum (Instruction Concerning Worship of the Eucharistic Mystery) emphasized the importance of adoration and prayer after Holy Communion.

According to Francis Cardinal Arinze, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Thanksgiving after Mass has traditionally been greatly esteemed in the Church for both the priest and the lay faithful.

St. Thomas Aquinas (+1274) composed a Prayer of Thanksgiving after Communion that became a classic:I thank You, O holy Lord, almighty Father, eternal God, who have deigned, not through any merits of mine, but out of the condescension of Your goodness, to satisfy me a sinner, Your unworthy servant, with the precious Body and Blood of Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

May it be the emptying out of my vices and the extinction of all lustful desires; and increase of charity and patience, of humility and obedience, and all virtues; a strong defense against the snares of all my enemies, visible and invisible; the perfect quieting of all my evil impulses of flesh and spirit, binding me firmly to You, the one true God; and a happy ending of my life.

I pray too that You will deign to bring me, a sinner, to that ineffable banquet where You with Your Son and the Holy Spirit, are to your Saints true light, fulfillment of desires, eternal joy, unalloyed gladness, and perfect bliss.

"[This quote needs a citation] Philip Neri once sent two acolytes with candles to accompany a member of his congregation who had left the church without any adoration after Mass.

"[This quote needs a citation] According to the Baltimore Catechism, Roman Catholics "should spend sufficient time in Thanksgiving after Holy Communion to show due reverence to the Blessed Sacrament; for Our Lord is personally with us as long as the appearance of bread and wine remains.

"[This quote needs a citation] Through the years, the saints have varied in their recommendation as regards the amount of time to be spent in thanksgiving.

"There is no prayer more agreeable to God, or more profitable to the soul,"[This quote needs a citation] said another Doctor of the Church, St. Alphonsus Liguori, "than that which is made during the thanksgiving after Communion.

"[This quote needs a citation] St. Josemaría Escrivá said: "Surely you have nothing so important on that you cannot give Our Lord 10 minutes to say thanks.

"[This quote needs a citation] According to Daniel A. Lord, SJ, thanksgiving after Holy Communion always supposes a "realization of who is present in our hearts: Jesus Christ, God-man, lover of souls, divinely powerful, humanly tender, with grace in His hands and the keenest possible interest in His heart for the one who has just received Him.

But if we realize they can help us, we should overcome our laziness (say, to open our missal and read the prayers for thanksgiving there), or that subtle kind of vanity which makes us feel humiliated by having to read prayers composed by somebody else.One of the recommended texts for thanksgiving in My Daily Psalm Book (1947), arranged by Joseph Frey, CSSP, is the Canticle of the Three Young men, or Trium Puerorum.

And we most humbly beseech thee, O heavenly Father, so to assist us with thy grace, that we may continue in that holy fellowship, and do all such good works as thou hast prepared for us to walk in; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with thee and the Holy Ghost, be all honour and glory, world without end.

Amen.In many Anglican Churches since the 1980s, the following has been a common post-communion prayer: Father of all, we give you thanks and praise that, when we were still far off, you met us in your Son and brought us home.

O Thou who didst gladly give me Thy flesh for nourishment; who art fire to consume the unworthy: Burn me not, O my Creator, but search out my members.

[6]The prayers usually end with the Nunc Dimittis and the Troparion and Kontakion of the saint who wrote the Liturgy that was celebrated (John Chrysostom, Basil the Great, Gregory Dialogist or, rarely, James the Brother of the Lord).