Tag Archives: Holy Communion

Preparation for Holy Communion

Eucharist, Mary, Sacraments, , , , ,

As mentioned in a previous post, the Church has long understood Sacramental Grace as operating in two dimensions.  On the objective plane we say that the Sacraments contain grace ex opere operato.  What this means is that grace is made available by the Sacrament regardless of either the faith of the recipient or the minister.  It is created “from the work performed.”  This does not mean however that the recipient of the Sacrament is a recipient of grace or even all the grace that is available.  That is because there is also a subjective plane by which the grace received is proportional to the disposition of the receiver.  In no other Sacrament is this distinction more important than in the Eucharist, not only because It contains grace, but because it contains the Author of Grace Himself.  Therefore, there is an abundance of grace available to the receiver provided that he is properly disposed to receive it.

Obviously then, preparation to receive Holy Communion ought to be the primary focus for those who desire closer communion with Christ and through Him the Holy Trinity.  But for most of us, our preparation is sorely lacking either through ignorance, neglect, or distraction.  Thankfully St. Louis de Montfort has left the Church a surefire way to prepare to receive Holy Communion that is sure to increase the graces we receive.

Our Lady of the Eucharist

To grasp the simplicity of his method we must first remove any abstractions we might have related to Our Blessed Mother.  What is meant by this is that we all too often forget that she was a real person who lived out her Christian life in the Early Church.  When Our Lord left her in St. John’s care, He wasn’t just taking care of her physical well-being.  Nor was He abandoning her to someone else’s care.  Instead, He was leaving her in the care of one of the men whom He had empowered to make Him present to her.  In other words, Jesus left Mary with St. John so that she could receive Him in the Eucharist daily.

Once we realize that Our Lady received the Eucharist regularly, we can begin to let our imagination take to flight as to what her disposition was like when she received Him.  Her heart was found worthy for her womb to house the Son of God would have daily received Him into that same Immaculate Heart with a renewed and deeper love than at the Incarnation.  Her fiat would have echoed in her Amen.  Separated from His physical presence, she would have run to the Communion rail to taste that presence once again.  She would have offered herself yet again as the Sorrowful Mother at the foot of the Cross and renewed her commitment to be Mother of all the Elect just prior to receiving.  She would have overflowed with adoration and thanksgiving after her reception.  She would have longed to receive Him again when she wasn’t at Mass.  The love with which she received Him grew so much that upon receiving her Viaticum she was taken body and soul to Heaven.  She was and is always Our Lady of the Eucharist.

St. Louis de Montfort, Our Lady, and Holy Communion

Knowing that Our Lady’s disposition was perfect for receiving Our Lord in the Eucharist may inspire us to imitate her example, but that is not the reason why this reflection is necessary.  When Our Lord is received by one of her children, she flies to that child in order to adore His Eucharist presence.  As she draws closer to Jesus within the bosom of the believer, Jesus only draws closer to the believer.  Her act of adoration brings more glory to God than all earthly acts of adoration and He pours His pleasure of being in her presence out on this child of His Mother.

All of this may go on without our awareness or we might, following the advice of St. Louis de Montfort, actively and consciously participate in it.  The Saint says in The Secret of Mary that the best way to prepare for Holy Communion is to “implore that good Mother to lend you her heart, that you may receive her Son there with the same dispositions as her own.”  We pledge that if she will give us her heart, then we will place Jesus in it.  For those fortunate souls that who are consecrated to Jesus through Mary, the two of them during Holy Communion will lodge within our soul.  Our Lady will share with Our Lord all our needs and will glorify Him more than in our asking.  As St. Louis de Montfort puts it, “Let us allow the King and Queen to speak together. Let us not disturb their divine colloquies by our restless thoughts and unsettled desires. Let us entrust to them the care of our future and the choice of means.”

Making the Ordinary Extraordinary Again

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G.K. Chesterton once said that there is “a silent anarchy eating out our society” because there is a wholesale “incapacity to grasp that the exception proves the rule.”  What he meant by this the very fact that when we treat something extraordinary, we are in fact admitting that there is an ordinary.  The anarchy has come in because we now treat the exception as the rule.  Possible is interpreted as probable and all dogmatic statements are rendered useless.  Unfortunately, this habit has crept into the Church as well and has led to a widescale adoption of things that were hitherto thought sacrilegious.  One such example considers special attention today and that is the use of so-called Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion. 

The Church has not been immune to the Covidiocy that has attacked our world, especially in the Liturgy.  Not only was there a long-term liturgical blackout, but the dictatorship of the hygienic has led to all kinds of abuses of Our Lord in the distribution of Communion.  Part of the issue can be placed at the feet of bad catechesis. 

The Real, Real Presence

In the 12th and 13th Centuries, the Church was confronted with a Eucharistic heresy that might be described as an exaggerated realism in which the broken Host or half-filled chalice was thought to no longer contain the whole Christ since the sacred species had become corrupted.  The Church, adopting the view of St. Thomas that Christ was wholly present as long as the appearances of bread and wine were not corrupted (say through digestion for example) was quick to defend the truth that Christ is wholly present in even the smallest particle of the Host or the smallest drop of the Precious Blood.  As St. Thomas puts it:

If there be such change on the part of the accidents as would not have sufficed for the corruption of the bread and wine, then the body and blood of Christ do not cease to be under this sacrament on account of such change, whether the change be on the part of the quality, as for instance, when the color or the savor of the bread or wine is slightly modified; or on the part of the quantity, as when the bread or the wine is divided into such parts as to keep in them the nature of bread or of wine. But if the change be so great that the substance of the bread or wine would have been corrupted, then Christ’s body and blood do not remain under this sacrament; and this either on the part of the qualities, as when the color, savor, and other qualities of the bread and wine are so altered as to be incompatible with the nature of bread or of wine; or else on the part of the quantity, as, for instance, if the bread be reduced to fine particles, or the wine divided into such tiny drops that the species of bread or wine no longer remain. 

ST III q.77, art.4

In summary, provided that the Eucharist does not undergo a substantial change, Christ remains whole and entire in each and every part.  This foundational truth has profound practical implications both in the manner in which we receive and respond.  If Christ remains whole and entire as long as the borrowed accidental appearances of bread and wine are present, then we truly have Christ wholly present within us until the species are digested.  This ought to inspire in us a profound reverence and gratitude by which we remain wholly attentive to the Divine presence.  We should be slow to leave the Church and never omit sentiments of sincere thanksgiving and self-offering.

Our response however is conditioned on our reception and so a special emphasis needs to be placed on the manner in which Communion is distributed.  Communion in the hand, which I have spoken of previously, is one such abuse that should be avoided.  The passing of the Sacred Host back and forth most certainly leads to particles of the Host falling to the ground.  Add to this the phenomenon of masks which are usually touched after receiving the Host in the hand and there is an even greater risk that the small particles of the Host is lost.  Receiving in the hand is also by far the less sanitary means of receiving as our hands are far dirtier than our tongues, especially considering that Communion on the tongue, when done properly, does not lead to any tongue to hand contact the way that there is hand to hand contact when receiving in the hand.

The hygienic considerations hinge on the clause “when done properly”.  Those who receive on the tongue know to tilt their head back and extend their tongue and priests know how to place it on the tongue without touching it.  Consider further that when the Priest is taller than the person receiving (which happens 100% of the time when Communion is received while kneeling) then the chances of contact are far less than if Communion was received in the hand.  The problem of course is that far too often, Communion is distributed by someone other than a Priest.

“Eucharistic Ministers”

All of this leads up to the question of Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion.  This “office” is a relatively new phenomenon in the Church and was not present anywhere at any time during the first 1900 years of Christianity.  It was added as part of the Liturgical changes made in the wake of the Second Vatican Council.  It was meant to facilitate the distribution of Holy Communion when some extraordinary circumstance dictated it.  The problem of course was that it fell upon the soil of anarchy that Chesterton mentioned so that it became ordinary and thus has led the way to great abuse of the Blessed Sacrament.

One of the reasons the Church has traditionally avoided the sanctioning of Extraordinary Ministers is certainly the practical things we have already discussed.  But there are deep theological reasons for not using them also.  Not only does it lead to abuses of Our Lord in the Sacrament, but it ends up being an attack upon the Faith itself.

Traditionally only men who received the Sacrament of Orders could touch the Eucharist because only they, by virtue of their ordination, have been consecrated to the service of God in the Liturgy.  This consecration is not merely symbolic but real.  Sacraments effect what they signify so that they have been Sacramentally conformed to Christ the Priest through a Sacramental Character.  It is Christ who distributes the Eucharist and only those who have been Sacramentally conformed to Him should do so.  This power cannot be delegated.

If that is true then why did the Church reverse course?  They thought that there might be times when, because of some extraordinary circumstance such as a Priest not being available or too infirm to come off the Altar and distribute Communion.  But like all “exceptions” those who have a clear agenda to Protestantize the Church seized the opportunity to further blur the distinction between the Ministerial Priesthood and the Priesthood of All Believers.  The exception became the rule. 

The Vatican has repeatedly cautioned against the “habitual use of extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion…[as something that is] to be avoided and eliminated where such have emerged in particular Churches” (Ecclesia de Mysterio, 1997).  Despite the clear mandate and the fact that most churches are now at less than 50% capacity, the practice has continued.

The Mandate

The Congregation for Divine Worship in 2004 called upon all the Faithful to maintain Eucharistic integrity, saying “In an altogether particular manner, let everyone do all that is in their power to ensure that the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist will be protected from any and every irreverence or distortion and that all abuses be thoroughly corrected. This is a most serious duty incumbent upon each and every one, and all are bound to carry it out without any favoritism” (Redemptionis Sacramentum §183).  It is in that spirit that “everyone” should actively work to remedy the abuse.  This can be done, not in some democratic way, but through an application of the law of supply and demand.  Those who want to see greater reverence for Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament should not serve as Extraordinary Ministers to cut off the supply.  To reduce the demand, one should avoid receiving from them in situations where it is reasonable to receive from the Ordinary Minister of Holy Communion.

St. Paul informs the Corinthians that many of their infirmities are being caused by their Eucharistic irreverence.  Abusing the Blessed Sacrament is literally causing their sickness.  That is why it is ironic that in the name of keeping people from getting sick, the Church has turned a blind eye to the many Eucharistic offenses.  What if, rather than making it better, it was actually making people get sick?  We need to all work to restore Eucharistic piety, which starts by eliminating the ordinary usage of Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion.