Sunday February 24th. 2008
Prayer of St. Thomas Aquinas in preparation to receive Our Lord in Holy Communion,
Almighty, everlasting God, behold, I approach the sacrament of your Only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. I come to it as a sick man to the physician who will save his life, as a man unclean to the fountain of mercy, a blind man to the radiance of eternal light, one poor and needy to the Lord of heaven and earth; praying that in your boundless generosity you will deign to cure my sickness, wash my defilement away, enlighten my blindness, enrich my poverty, and clothe my nakedness.
May the Bread of angels, the King of kings and Lord of lords, be received by me with such humble reverence and devout contrition, such faith and purity, and such good resolutions as may help the salvation of my soul. Grant me grace, I beseech you, that I may receive not only the sacrament of our Lord's body and blood, but also its inward power and effect. All-gentle God, grant that my receiving of that body, taken from the virgin Mary's womb by your Only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, may fit me to become part of his mystical body and to be reckoned one of its members. Most loving Father, grant that your beloved Son whom I, an earthly wayfarer, am now to receive in his sacramental guise, may one day give me sight of his face and let me gaze upon him for all eternity; who is God, living and reigning with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit for ever and ever. Amen.