Let us examine more closely the culminating point of Gemma's devotion–Holy Communion–in which precisely the Mystery of the Love of Jesus is accomplished. Would that she who so often disclosed to me the secrets of her soul on this subject would now enable me to relate adequately and exactly what she then told me of the fire that the Divine Spouse enkindled in her heart at the Holy Table. It was her hunger and thirst for Holy Communion that made this young girl hover like a butterfly near the Tabernacle. Her heart longed for this Divine Food only. And we have seen that even when quite a child her ardent desire to make her first Communion almost brought her to death's door. Now I add that this hunger and thirst, far from being satisfied by her daily Communion, kept on increasing until they consumed her whole being. "Every morning," she said to me, "I go to Holy Communion. The greatest and only comfort I have, although I am in no wise provided with what is needed to worthily approach Jesus. The loving treatment that Jesus bestows on me every morning in the Holy Communion excites within me an unutterable sweetness and draws to itself all the weak affections of my miserable heart." And then she exclaimed: "Behold O Lord, my heart and my soul; come Lord, I open my breast to Thee. Send in Thy Divine Fire. Burn me, consume me, come and delay no longer. I would fain be the dwelling of all Thy fires."

The Life of Gemma Galgani
Fr. Germanus, C.P.