examination of the heart 264 get rid of your burden, and to satisfy your spiritual hunger. Yet it is necessary now to inquire of yourself: how many imperfections do you have? What qualms of conscience do you feel? What is lacking for your perfection? What is lacking for your goodness? That way you will know better how to place your needs before the most gracious Lord. After Holy Communion 1. “because they have been with [M]e now three days” (Mk 8:2). Consider that this crowd following the Lord was given some refreshment not at first, but only after three days; so that you may be taught that there are a countless number of people, [f.69r] who having spent many years in the service of God, do not receive any gift of consolation, which is a sign of the good will of the eternal King. Take as an example the singular St. Teresa. Although she was a handmaid of God distinguished by very rare virtue, she was for a long time among very grave storms of affliction and persecution and she was not granted any of the refreshment of heavenly consolations, with which sanctity on the earth usually abounds.116 Persisting in the service of God, your duty, therefore, will be to try to refresh your good Lord by fulfilling His will, rather than desiring to be refreshed by Him with those sublime delights which are more to be reserved for the future life. 2. “And they ate, and were satisfied” (Mk 8:8). Consider that it is a greater miracle that we eat Christ so many times and do not consume Him wholly, than that the four thousand people who were fed with seven loaves left seven baskets of crumbs and fragments. Yet, we are astonished at this miracle of the loaves and we proclaim it, whereas it seems as if we do not notice that other miracle. The reason for this fact is nothing else than the frequent use of Holy Communion. All things, when 116 St. Teresa of Avila, The Book of Her Life, in: CWTA. Trans. Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez, 2nd ed. rev., vol. 1, ICS Publications, Washington, DC, 1987, pp. 256-257, 259-261 (Ch. 30, §§ 8, 13-15); pp. 264-267 (Ch. 31, §§ 1-7); pp. 284-292 (Ch. 33); pp. 309-322 (Ch. 36).
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