Nor can it be otherwise. When the God of all comfort and sweetness visits us in person He must leave comfort and sweetness behind, unless we put some obstacle in His way. So advantageous then, nay, so necessary is it to receive Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament in the time of illness. “Sweeter than honey and all things is His sweet presence.” Oh, how I pity those poor souls who in different parts of the world have to live amongst infidels and heretics, where they have hardly once in the year a chance of going to holy Communion, whether they are in sickness or health! God of goodness! what a great favor Thou hast conferred on us in allowing us in this country to enjoy Thy presence as often as we please!
Christ Himself desires nothing more than thus to visit the sick and become their food, as holy servants of God know.
And truly, mv dear brethren, this good and most necessary Friend of ours desires nothing more eagerly than to pay such visits in His own person, even to the poorest of the poor, if we are only desirous to receive Him. Day and night He is ready on the altar waiting for some one to ask for Him, or to bring Him to a sick person. He has often shown, even by miracles, how intense is this desire of His, for He came to more than one of His faithful servants, during their illness, in a miraculous manner in the sacred Host. St. Honoratus was awakened one night three times by an angel and told to go at once and bring holy Communion to the holy Bishop Ambrose, who was grievously ill. God Himself commanded the priest Rudolph to bring the Viaticum to the dying St. Deodatus. He raised from the dead St. Eligius, and kept him alive as long as was necessary for him to bring the Viaticum to a person infected with the plague, because there were no other priests to be found on account of the danger of infection. It is well known of our St. Stanislaus that, as he was lying ill in the house of a heretic, and could not have a Catholic priest, St. Barbara appeared to him, accompanied by two angels, and gave him holy Communion. Some holy virgins were not allowed by their confessors to go to holy Communion as often as they wished; the sacred Host came to them of itself, because they were desirous of being visited by Our Lord. Remarkable is the fact I read in the Life of St. Juliana de Falconieris. She bore with cheerfulness the pains of her last illness; but she was bitterly disappointed that, on account of a weakness of the stomach she could not receive the holy Viaticum. In this sad state she begged of the priest at least to lay the sacred Host on her breast, since she could not receive it in the usual manner.