XXXI

MAKING A SPIRITUAL COMMUNION

Receiving communion is the climax of the Eucharistic celebration. Jesus said:  Unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood you have no life in you (Jn.6:53).

If we cannot receive Holy Communion physically, either because we cannot make it to Mass or because we need to go to Confession first, we can pray an Act of Spiritual Communion, in which we express our desire to be united with Christ and ask Him to come into our soul. A spiritual communion is not sacramental but prayed devoutly, it can be a source of grace that can strengthen us until we can receive the Sacrament of Holy Communion once again.

As we saw earlier, the Eucharistic species is real presence of Jesus and not symbolic presence. He told his disciples, if you do not believe that it is true, you also can leave me like others did. He did not welcome any compromise on that belief. There had been several miracles over the centuries by which Jesus wanted to convince us that it is his real presence, his real flesh.

 A famous Eucharistic miracle took place in Lanciano, Italy, in the year 700. A monk who feared he was losing his vocation was celebrating Mass, and during the consecration the host turned into flesh and the wine turned into blood. Despite the fact that the miracle took place almost 1300 years ago, you may still see the flesh in a monstrance which is exposed every day and the blood in a glass chalice. The blood has congealed and is now in five clots in the glass chalice. In 1971 and 1981 a hospital laboratory tested the flesh and blood and discovered that the flesh is myocardium, which is heart muscular tissue, so we could say it is the heart of Jesus, the Sacred Heart, and the blood is of the blood group AB. In 1978 NASA scientists tested the blood on the Turin Shroud and interestingly also discovered that it is of the blood group AB. (The Sudarium, Face Cloth of Christ, in John 20:6 is also of the blood group AB.) Despite the fact that human flesh and blood should not have remained preserved for 1300 years, the hospital lab tests found no trace of any preservatives. One final interesting point about the five blood clots in the chalice is that when you weigh one of them, it is the same weight as all five together, two of them together weigh the same as all five. In fact no matter what way you combine the blood clots individually or in a group to weigh them, they always weigh the same.  (This shows that the full Jesus is present in a particle of the Eucharist no matter how small.)

There are at least over 100 Eucharistic miracles approved by the Vatican.  We will see a couple more of them next weekend.

XXX

Many Non-Catholics do not understand why the Catholics don’t share communion with other Christians while they are ready to share their Lord’s supper with the Catholics. They say the Catholics are very rigid and very unchristian in not sharing their Eucharist with them.

First of all, a priest does not have that power to do it as the Canon 844 says a Catholic Priest can licitly administer sacraments only to Catholics. Therefore he would be violating the law when he does give communion to Non-Catholics. The Eucharist belongs to the Church, not to the Priest. Therefore he cannot do as he wishes even though he may like to. If he thinks of being charitable with what does not belong to him he will be unfaithful to the Church.

Eucharist is the sharing of Christ and the Church. The Eucharist can be received only in the Church and not outside the Church. Therefore those who are not members of the Catholic church cannot share the Eucharist.

The Church is the bride of Christ as Apostle Paul clearly says. Receiving the Eucharist is having a spiritual communion. It is something like having sex between a husband and a wife. Sexual union is permitted only between a husband and a wife. It is not permitted between friends, even if they are the best of friends. Christians of other denominations are like friends or neighbors or relatives. Only those who are in the Church become the bride of Christ. Those outside, even though they may be having a very good relation with Jesus, are not permitted to have that spiritual sexual union with Christ. Not only Catholic mystics but even Hindu mystics say that human soul is feminine and the soul accepts God in Christ in the communion like a bride accept groom in sexual union. Bride takes the role of receiving which a member in the Church takes.  All through the bible God compares himself as the Husband of Israel, the wife. There are numerous references for that in both the Testaments. John the Baptist mentions Jesus as the bridegroom and him as the friend of the bridegroom. The book of revelation ends with the marriage of the lamb and his bride the church in glory.

For most non-Catholic Christians this deep level relationship understanding is not there. They think it is just a piece of flesh of Jesus and it is the symbol of the body of Christ. Therefore in most denominations after the Lords supper they put all the remaining hosts back with the old stock. And they consider it as like unconsecrated. This is not the Catholic understanding. Once consecrated it remains consecrated till the quality of the bread remains, a bread.

Therefore even if a non Catholic is holier than a Catholic he is not permitted to receive the Holy Eucharist from a Catholic Mass, because he does not believe what the Catholic Church teaches.

There are some former Catholics who think they can receive communion whenever they show up at the Catholic Mass. For Instance when a Catholic who marries outside the Church because he or she does not want to go through the regulations of the Catholic church, he or she is not allowed to receive communion. I sometimes think of them as someone who refused to invite his mom for his wedding and then shamelessly show up next day at mom’s kitchen and eat the food what his mom prepared. He did not want his mom who gave him birth and brought him up to be part of his most important event in his life but he wants the food his mom prepared. Catholic Church has given this person birth in Christ by baptism and fed him with the Eucharist and strengthened him with other sacraments and when he got married he refused to have the Church a part of his life. Actually they are spiritually dead members of the Catholic Church. Such people can receive communion only after rectifying their marriage and making a confession and then can receive communion. But we sometimes see that at weddings and funerals just show up and receive communion. It is mostly due to lack of understanding of the real nature of the Eucharist. 

XXIX

Can a non-Catholic  receive Communion at a Catholic parish or a Catholic may take the "Lord's Supper" at a non-Catholic church?

Canon 844 of the Code of Canon Law makes it clear. That canon has five sections. The first says that "Catholic ministers may licitly administer the sacraments to Catholic members of the Christian faithful only and, likewise, the latter may licitly receive the sacraments only from Catholic ministers." But there are exceptions, and those are handled in the following three sections of the code.

Section 2 permits a Catholic to receive Communion in a non-Catholic church if that church has a valid Eucharist. Since no Protestant church, including the Anglican, has a valid Eucharist, Catholics who sit through the "Lord's Supper" at, say, a Baptist church may not partake of the bread and wine there.

The problem is that the bread and wine are just that bread and wine and not the body and blood of Christ. Protestant churches have no valid Eucharist because they have no valid priesthood, because the l6th-century reformers did away with the episcopacy.

By contrast the Eastern Orthodox churches have maintained a valid episcopacy and priesthood and thus have all seven sacraments. These are the non-Catholic churches at which a Catholic might receive Communion provided "it is physically or morally impossible" for the Catholic "to approach a Catholic minister." This could occur if the Catholic were living for a long time in an area, such as Siberia, where there are few or no Catholic parishes.

Section 2 is not applicable to Catholics in this country who simply want to "sample" another religion. The permission is given only when "necessity requires" and "provided that the danger of error or indifferentism is avoided. Almost no American Catholic will ever be in a position to take advantage of Section 2. After all, if a Catholic in the United States can make it to an Eastern Orthodox parish, he likely can make it to a Catholic parish.

Section 3 deals mainly with Eastern Orthodox who want to receive sacraments at a Catholic parish. It says that Catholic ministers may give penance, anointing of the sick, or the Eucharist "to members of the oriental churches which do not have full communion with the Catholic Church."

This holds also for members of other churches, which in the judgment of the Apostolic See are in the same condition as the oriental churches as far as these sacraments are concerned. 

Non-Catholics who qualify under Section 3 must "ask on their own for the sacraments" this means there can be no general invitation to them and they must be "properly disposed," which means in the state of grace.

The possibility of a Catholic receiving from the minister of another church, when the first three conditions are fulfilled, is limited to the Orthodox Churches, other Oriental Churches, Old Catholics, Polish National and others whose sacraments are recognized by the Holy See.

Section 4 applies mainly to Protestants. (Anglican, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist etc.), none of whom have valid sacred orders, and therefore, a valid Eucharist. This Section says that "if the danger of death is present or other grave necessity," and if the diocesan bishop approves, Catholic ministers may give the three sacraments to Christians who are neither Catholic nor Eastern Orthodox. Such people must not be able to approach a minister of their own community, must ask for the sacraments on their own (again, there is to be no general invitation to non-Catholics to "come up and receive Communion"), must be in the state of grace, and must "manifest Catholic faith in these sacraments."

This means their understanding of the Real Presence, for example, must be the Catholic understanding. Several Protestant churches describe what they have as the Real Presence though in fact none of them have it and they do not mean by the term the same thing we mean. This causes no end of confusions.

Some Protestants who profess belief in the Real Presence have in mind a "really meaningful" symbolism. Others say Jesus is "really," though only "spiritually," present at their churches' celebration of the "Lord's Supper." Not a single Protestant church teaches the Catholic doctrine, though a few individual Protestants have come to accept the Catholic understanding on their own. It is for them that this Section makes provision. Section 5 says that no diocesan bishop or conference of bishops may institute general norms regarding the four preceding sections of Canon 844 "except after consultation with at least the local competent authority of the interested non-Catholic church or community."

We don't want to step on anyone's toes, and we don't want anyone to step on ours.