English translation of "Sermon sur la communion indigne" by St. John Vianney

Here is a DeepL NMT machine English translation of the OCRed text of Tome 4 des Sermons de saint Jean Marie Vianney:

Sermon on unworthy communion

SERMON

ON THE UNWORTHY COMMUNION

Anima quæ peccaverit, ipsa morietur.

The soul that sins will die.

(Ezek. XVIII, 6.)

If every mortal sin, M.F., gives death to our soul, separates it from God for ever, and precipitates it into all sorts of misfortunes, what state must the most dreadful of all crimes, which is sacrilege, reduce it to? O my God, who can ever form an idea of the dreadful state of a soul covered with sacrilege? Yes, Jesus Christ tells us, when you see the abomination of desolation in the holy place, foretold by the prophet Daniel, understand it well. Alas! M.F., having chosen the heart of man to make it his dwelling place and his temple, Jesus Christ undoubtedly foresaw the profanations and the disastrous abominations that the devil would make of it through sin; what a sad and desolate thought for a God! But the greatest and most terrible of all sorrows is to foresee that His adorable body and precious blood would be profaned. O my God! Can Christians really be guilty of such a crime, the like of which hell has never been able to invent? Alas, St. Paul deplored it in his own time. One day, unable to make them feel the full darkness of this dreadful crime, he said to them, weeping bitterly: "What torment would not be received by him who would lay a parricidal hand on the body of a God made man, who would strike that heart... Ah, that tender heart which loves us to the point of the cross, and which would tear the blood from its veins!... Ah, this adorable blood shed for us, which has sanctified us in holy baptism, which has purified us in the sacrament of penance...; it would seem to be impossible to find punishments severe enough and Christians capable of such a crime. Alas!" he cried, "here is one still infinitely more dreadful, to receive unworthily the adorable Body and precious blood of Jesus Christ, to profane it, to defile it, to debase it; is such a crime possible?... Ah, at least, is it possible for Christians? Yes, there are monsters of ingratitude who carry their fury to such excess! Yes, M.F., if the good Lord were to show the communions of all those who are here, in the open, alas, how many would appear with their sentence of reprobation written in their criminal conscience with the blood of a God made man! The thought makes one shudder, and yet nothing is so common as these unworthy communions; how many have the temerity to approach the Holy Table with hidden sins disguised in confession! How many do not have the sorrow that the good Lord asks of them; how many do not make every effort to correct themselves; how many retain a secret desire to fall back into sin! How many do not avoid the opportunities of sin, and yet are able to do so? How many keep enmities in their hearts right up to the Holy Table! If you had had this misfortune, Mother, what words could I use to make you feel the horror of it? Ah, if I were allowed to, I would go to hell to pull out an infamous and treacherous Judas, still steaming with the adorable blood of Jesus Christ which he has so horribly profaned. Oh, if you could hear the screams and shrieks that he utters, if you could understand the torments that he endures because of his sacrifice, you would die of fright. Alas, what will become of those who, perhaps all their lives, have done nothing but commit sacrilege? Yes, Mother, sacrilege is the greatest of all crimes, since it attacks a God and gives Him death, and brings us all the greatest misfortunes.

I. - If I were speaking to idolaters or even heretics, I would begin to prove to them the reality of Jesus Christ in the adorable sacrament of the Eucharist. But no, no one has the slightest doubt about it. Alas, Jesus Christ should not be there for those who approach Him in a bad state of mind; but no, He is there for those who dare to present themselves with sin in their hearts, as well as for those who are in a state of grace. I only want to begin by citing an example which will strengthen your faith in this matter and give you an idea of the measures you must take in order not to profane this great Sacrament of love. It is reported in history that a priest who was saying Holy Mass, after having pronounced the words of consecration, doubted whether Jesus Christ was really present in body and soul in the Sacred Host; at that very moment the Sacred Host was stained with blood. Jesus Christ seemed to want, by such a great miracle, to reproach his minister for his lack of faith and to strengthen Christians in this truth of faith, that he is really present in the Holy Eucharist. The Holy Host shed blood so abundantly that the corporal, the altar cloths and the altar itself were reddened. When the Holy Father was informed of this, he had the corporal taken to a church, where it was worn every year on Corpus Christi in great veneration. But my intention is to show you as far as I can the greatness and horribleness of this sacrilege. No, this knowledge will never be given to mortal man; he would have to be God himself to be able to understand it; however, to give you a faint idea of it, I will tell you that he who has this great misfortune, commits a sin which is more outrageous to the good God than all the mortal sins which have been committed since the beginning of the world and those which may be committed until the end of the centuries. It is therefore quite impossible to show it to you in all its blackness; alas! however, nothing is so common as these sacrileges.

If I wanted to speak to you, M.F., about the bodily death of Jesus Christ, I would only have to paint you a picture of the torments he endured during his life; I would only have to show you that poor body all in rags, as it was after his scourging, as it is now on the tree of the cross; it would not take much more than that to touch your heart and make your tears flow. Indeed, who is the most hardened sinner who could resist it and not mingle his tears with that adorable blood? What young person, if I were to throw myself at her feet with a God who weeps for her sins, begging her in grace not to give her death, would her heart be harder than a rock, that immediately her tears would flow, and, trampling her pleasures underfoot, she would say goodbye to them forever. What miser, to whom I would present a God stripped of all things, naked on a cross, could still love the goods of this world? Who is the ungodly man whom I would wait for as he passes by, who runs like a desperate man towards the object of his passion, if I presented him with his God covered with wounds and blood, asking Him in grace not to take his life, would he not fall at his feet crying out for mercy? Alas! M.F., the death that we give to Jesus Christ by sacrilegious communion is still infinitely more awful and painful. When He was on earth, He suffered only for a time, and He died only once; still, it was His love that made Him suffer and die; but here, it is no longer the same thing. But here it is not the same thing. He dies in spite of himself, and his death, far from being advantageous for us as it was the first time, turns to our misfortune by attracting all sorts of punishments both in this world and in the next. Oh my God, how cruel we are to a God who is so good! Yes, M.F., When we reflect on the conduct of that treacherous apostle who betrayed and sold out his divine Master, who for many years had admitted him to the number of his dearest favourites, who had showered him with so many benefits, who had given him an office in preference to others, who had witnessed so many miracles ; When we remember, I say, the cruelties and barbarities of the Jews, who did to this divine Saviour all that their rage could invent, to this divine Saviour who had come into this world only to rescue them from the tyranny of the devil, to raise them to the glorious quality of children of God, We can only consider them as monsters of ingratitude, worthy of the execration of heaven and earth, and of the most rigorous punishments that the good Lord can inflict on the reprobate in all his power and just anger.

First of all, I say, M.F., that whoever has the great misfortune of taking communion unworthily, his crime is even more horrible than that of Judas who betrayed and sold his divine Master, and that of the Jews who crucified Him; because Judas and the Jews still seemed to have some excuse for doubting whether He was really the Saviour. But can this Christian, this wretched profaner, doubt it? Are not the proofs of His divinity evident enough? Do they not know that at His death all creatures seemed to be moved by it, and that the whole of nature seemed to be annihilated by seeing its Creator expire? Was not His resurrection manifested by an infinity of the most striking prodigies, which could leave no doubt of His divinity? Was not His ascension made in the presence of more than five hundred persons, almost all of whom shed their blood in support of these truths? But the wretched profaner knows nothing of all this, and with all his knowledge he betrays and sells his God and Savior to the devil and crucifies Him in his heart by sin. Judas used a kiss of peace to hand him over to his enemies; but the unworthy communicant takes his cruelty even further: after having lied to the Holy Spirit in the court of penance by concealing or disguising some sin, he dares, this wretch, to go and stand among the faithful destined to eat this bread, with hypocritical respect on his forehead! Oh, no, no, nothing stops this monster of ingratitude; he goes forward and consummates his reprobation. In vain, this tender Saviour, seeing him come to Him, cries out from the depths of His tabernacle as to the perfidious Judas: "My friend, what are you doing here? What, my friend, are you going to betray your God and your Saviour with a sign of peace? Stop, stop, my son; oh, please spare me. But, no, no, neither the remorse of his conscience, nor the tender reproaches of his God can stop his criminal steps. Ah, he goes forward, he is going to stab his God and his Saviour! Oh, heaven, what a horror! Can you support without trembling this unfortunate murderer of your Creator? Ah, is this not the height of crime and abomination in the holy place? No, no, hell in all its fury could never invent anything like this; no, no, the idolatrous nations could never invent anything like this in hatred of the true God, if we compare it to the outrages that a Christian who receives communion unworthily does to Jesus Christ.

However, we read in history examples that make us shudder. We see that a pagan emperor, in hatred of Jesus Christ, placed infamous idols on Calvary and on the Holy Sepulchre, and he believed that he could not carry his fury against Jesus Christ any further. Hey! Great God! Is there anything comparable with the unworthy communicant? Oh, no, no, he no longer places his God in the midst of dumb and insentient idols, but, alas, in the midst of his infamous and living passions, which are so many executioners who crucify his Saviour! Alas, what shall I say? this wretch unites the Holy of Holies with murderous harlots and sells Him to iniquity. Yes, this wretch plunges his God into an intense hell. Can we conceive of anything more frightful? Yes, M.F., we are seized with horror when we see in history the profanations that have been made of the Holy Hosts.

I will tell you one that will horrify you. It is reported that a Christian woman, who was poor, had borrowed a small sum of money from a Jew and left him a dress of hers as a pledge. When the feast of Easter was near, she asked the Jew to give her the things she had given him for that day. The Jew told her that he would give her everything and hold her harmless if, after receiving Communion, she brought him the Holy Host. The unfortunate woman, so as not to be obliged to return the money, told him that she would. The very next day, she went to church, and after receiving the Sacred Host in her mouth, she immediately took it out, put it in her handkerchief, and took it to the unfortunate Jew who had only asked her for it in order to exercise his fury against Jesus Christ. Once he had it in his hands, he treated it with the utmost cruelty. We see that Jesus Christ constantly showed him how sensitive he was to the outrages that this wretch was doing to him. The Jew placed the Sacred Host on a table and struck it with a knife, and so much blood came out that the table was covered with it. He took it and hung it up by a nail, and whipped it until he was satisfied; he pierced it with a spear, and blood came out of it as when he was crucified; then he threw it into the fire, where it could be seen flying here and there among the flames without being harmed in any way; his rage led him to throw it into a pot of boiling oil: the water seemed to be changed into blood. The Holy Host, in that moment, took the form of Jesus Christ on the cross. This unfortunate man, struck with terror, ran to hide in a small room in his house. However, one of the Jew's children, seeing Christians going to church, said to them: "You must not go to seek your God any more; my father has put him to death. A woman, listening to this child, went into the house and saw the Holy Host, which was in the form of a cross. This woman ran to take a small vessel, and as she presented her vessel, the Holy Host resumed its former form and was placed in the vessel she had brought. This unfortunate Jew was so hardened that he preferred to be burned alive than to be baptized.

We cannot think of these horrors without shuddering. Alas! M.F., if we knew what sacrilege is, that is to say, the outrage done to Jesus Christ by one who receives Communion in an unworthy manner, the very thought would make us die of fright. This Jew, after having satisfied all his fury against Jesus Christ by treating this Holy Host so indifferently, resembles a venial sin more or less like a mortal sin, if we compare it with a sacrilege committed by a bad Christian who has the misfortune to approach the Holy Table without being in a state of grace. No, no, hell could never have invented anything more horrible than sacrilege to make Jesus Christ suffer.

2. I say that to the perfidy of Judas, the unworthy comrade adds the ingratitude, the fury and the malice of the Jews. Let us listen to the tender reproach that Jesus Christ made to the Jews: "Why do you persecute Me? Is it because I have enlightened the blind, straightened the lame, restored health to the sick, and raised the dead? Is it then a crime that I loved you so much?" Such is the language that Jesus Christ addresses to the profa-nors of his adorable body and precious blood. And yet, He tells us through the mouth of one of His prophets, if this insult and this affront had been done to Me by enemies or by idolaters who never had the happiness of knowing Me, or even by heretics born in error, it would have been less sensitive to Me; but you, He tells us, whom I have placed in the bosom of My Church, you whom I have enriched with My most precious gifts; you who, through Baptism, were made My children, the heirs of My kingdom!You, my son, dare to insult Me with the most horrible sacrilege; you, my son, can still strike at the heart of the best of all fathers, who loved you to the death. Why, you ungrateful people, you are not yet satisfied with all the cruelties that have been done to my innocent body during my painful passion! Have you forgotten the pitiful state in which I was reduced after my painful and bloody scourging, where my body was like a piece of chopped meat? Have you forgotten, ungrateful men, the suffering I endured in carrying my cross, the many steps, the many falls, and the many times I was kicked up? Have you forgotten that I died on the infamous wood of the cross in order to rescue you from hell and open heaven to you? Ah, my son, will you not be touched again? Could I have carried my love for you any further? Stop, my son. Ah, please spare your God who loved you so much; why do you want to give me a second death, receiving me with sin in your heart?

Tell me, which one of us, after such tender and loving reproaches of his God, would have the courage to go to the Holy Table with a sin-stained conscience? My God, who can understand the blindness of these unfortunate people? Oh, if, before rising to give death to their God, they thought of those terrible words of St. Paul, that they are going to incorporate their judgment and condemnation, would they dare to carry their audacity to such excess? Could this God of love have thought, not that those who do not have the happiness of knowing Him, but that Christians are not yet satisfied with what the Jews made Him endure during His painful passion? On Calvary, could he have thought that the majority of Christians would become his executioners, would take his life, and would crucify him in their hearts by receiving him in their sin-stained conscience? Listen to what He tells us through the mouth of a prophet: Will He heal a soul that loves its wounds, that is, its passions? Will he inflame with the ardor of his love a heart that burns with the profane love of the world? No, no," he says, "as God as He is, He will never do it.

Yes, M.F., Jesus Christ, in a criminal heart, is without action and without movement, so that he who is unfortunate enough to receive communion unworthily, the spiritual death he gives to his God is even more surprising than the one he endured on the Cross. Indeed, M.F., if the Jews persecuted Him in such an unworthy manner, it was only during His death, but the unworthy communicant outrages Him in the abode of His glory. If the death of Jesus Christ on Calvary seemed so violent and painful, at least the whole of nature seemed to bear witness to its sorrow, and the most insensitive creatures seemed to be moved by it, and in this way seemed to want to share His sufferings. But here, none of this appears; he is insulted, he is outraged, he is bruised; ah! what shall I say? he is slaughtered by a vile nothingness; all is silent and all seems insensible to his sufferings. The sun is not eclipsed, the earth does not tremble, the altar is not overturned; can this God of goodness, so unworthily outraged, not complain more justly than on the tree of the Cross that He is forsaken? Should He not cry out, "Ah, Father, why have You abandoned Me to the fury of My enemies, must I die every moment?" But, my God, how can a Christian have the courage to go to the Holy Table with sin in his heart to give death to his God? No, no, hell in its fury could never invent anything more outrageous to Jesus Christ than the sacrilege committed by Christians.

But, you may ask, who are those who have this great misfortune? - Alas! M.F., how great the number is! - But, you will say to me, who could be capable of it? - Who could be capable of it? It is you, my friend, who have told your sins with so little pain as an indifferent story. Who is guilty? Is it not you, my friend, who after your confessions fall back into the same easy way of life; who have no change in your way of life; who always have the same sins to tell in all your confessions? Who is guilty of this? It is you, wretch, who have closed your mouth before accusing your sins. Who is guilty of this? It is you, poor blind men, who have understood well that you did not tell your sins as you knew them. Tell me, why do you dare to go to the Holy Table in this state? - You say it is because I want to make my Passover, I want to take Communion. - You want to take Communion, but where, unhappily, do you want to put your God? Is it in your eyes, which you have soiled with so many impure and adulterous glances? You want to receive Communion, but where will you put your God? Is it in your hands, which you have soiled by so many infamous touches? You want to receive Communion, but where will you put your God? Is it in your mouth and on your tongue? Hey, great God, a mouth and a tongue which you have so often profaned with impure kisses! You want to take communion, but where do you hope to place your God? Is it in your heart? Oh horror! O abomination! A heart that is darkened and blackened by crime, like a firebrand that has been rolling in the fire for a fortnight or three weeks. You want to take Communion, my friend; you want to make your Easter? When Judas, the infamous Judas, sold his divine Master, he was like a desperate man until he handed Him over to his executioners to be condemned to death. You have just sold Him to the devil, to the tribunal of penance, by hiding and disguising your sins; run, you wretch, and deliver Him to the devil. Oh, great God, will your nerves be able to support this body which is going to commit the greatest of all crimes? Rise up, wretched man, go forward, since Calvary is in your heart and the victim is before you, walk on, let your conscience cry out, only try to stifle your remorse as much as you can. Go, unhappy man, and sit at the Holy Table, and eat the bread of the angels; but before you open your mouth, soiled by so many crimes, listen to what the great Saint Cyprian is going to say to you, and you will see the reward of your sacrileges. He tells us that when a woman dared to come to the Holy Table with a sin-stained conscience and I was giving her Holy Communion, a thunderbolt from heaven fell on her and crushed her at my feet. Alas, my God, how can a person who is guilty go to Holy Communion to commit the greatest of all sacrileges? Yes, M.F., St. Paul tells us that if the Jews had known Jesus Christ for the Saviour, they would never have caused Him to suffer or die; but you, my friend, can you be unaware of the one you are about to receive? If you did not think of it, listen to the priest crying aloud to you, "Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who blots out the sins of the world." He is holy, He is pure. If you are guilty, unhappy, do not go forward; if you do, fear that the thunderbolts of heaven will come rushing down upon your criminal head to punish you and throw your soul into hell.

continued below…