Transcript

We have the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, and we ask you, O Lord, for the gift of your Spirit to penetrate more deeply into the mystery of holy communion and our reception of it, um, through Christ our Lord, through the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.

So, in this 12th and last episode of our course on the Eucharist mystery of present sacrifice communion, we'll look at the reception of holy communion, um, and Eucharistic adoration.

So we said in earlier episodes that holy communion presupposes, um, being spiritually alive, right, by baptism and living a cour...

baptism faith in the Christian life.

And the fathers of the church speak about this in, in many places.

The give the, um, directive to first confess one's sins before participating in the sacrifice so that our sacrifice may be pure.

And we saw that Saint Justin, in the middle of the second century, put down three conditions for holy communion.

He says, "This food, which is called among us the Eucharist, of which no one is allowed to partake except one who first believes that the things we teach are true." So faith, first requirement.

Second, has received the washing that is for the forgiveness of sins and rebirth, baptism.

And third, lives as Christ has handed down.

Right?

So three fundamental conditions for, uh, receiving communion: faith, baptism, and the Christian life.

And together with the Christian life, we'll see, includes being in communion with the, the church and not being separated.

Um, and the reason for this, um, we can understand in two ways, because, um, the Eucharist is the sacrament of spiritual nourishment, and dead bodies can't receive nourishment.

You have to be alive to be nourished.

Baptism is the sacrament of spiritual birth.

Penance, the sacrament of restoring to life is, and tragically we've lost it through mortal sin, but communion presupposes life and gives increase by way of nourishment.

Secondly, we can understand it through the connection that we've made between communion and sacrifice.

The mass is a sacrificial banquet, and therefore it implies communion in the sacrifice.

And there, that means a sharing in the interior dispositions of Christ.

Obviously, not a perfect sharing, but a sharing, um, at least not, um, um, a sharing by not being in a state of mortal sin, right, which would directly contradict the dispositions of our Lord.

Uh, we can be imperfect, yes.

It's a sacrament.

It's, um, for precisely the sick who need to be healed, but we have to at least be alive in grace, and, and thus the connection with the sacrament of penance.

So holy communion presupposes, um, being spiritually alive, and we see this also in First Corinthians 11:27-30, um, where Saint Paul speaks about, um, the conditions for receiving communion.

He says, quote, "As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

Whoever therefore eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner..." That is, a manner not in conformity with Christ's sacrificial death.

"...

will be guilty," this is, Saint Paul continues, "of profaning the body and blood of the Lord.

Let a man examine himself and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.

For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself." Right?

So to receive in mortal sin would be to not discern the body of our Lord given in sacrifice, the living Torah, right?

It would contradict the kind of, um, self-gift that we're called to, right, um, by, um, by this, uh, baptism and which we're being nourished in by the Eucharist.

John Paul II speaks about this, um, the conditions for receiving communion in Ecclesiae Christi number 36.

He writes, quote, "Invisible commu-" So we're speak, communion, in order...

Sorry, step back before we go into the quote.

Um, in order to receive holy communion, I already have to be in communion, because it's the sacrament of spiritual nourishment.

Its purpose is to nourish a communion that already exists through baptism, faith, and the Christian life.

And, um, and therefore, this communion that it presupposes has two dimensions: visible and invisible.

We're gonna treat the invisible first.

The invisible communion is being in a state of grace.

Visible communion is being in visible communion with the Catholic Church.

All right?

So first, invisible communion.

John Paul II writes, "Invisible communion, though by its nature always growing, presupposes the life of grace by which we become partakers of the divine nature and the practice of the virtues of faith, hope, and charity."Only in this way do we have true communion with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Nor is faith by itself sufficient.

We must preserve in sanctifying grace and love, remaining within the church bodily as well as in our heart.

Yeah.

What is required, in the words of Saint Paul, is faith working through love.

Right?

So we need to bring that to communion and so as to be nourished in it to live it more fully.

He continues, "Keeping these invisible bonds intact is a specific moral duty incumbent upon Christians who wish to participate fully in the Eucharist by receiving the body and blood of Christ." Right?

And so we need to examine ourselves before receiving that we're in a state of grace, which means that we're not conscious of mortal sin that hasn't been brought to the sacrament of penance.

And he continues, "The two sacraments of the Eucharist and penance are very closely connected.

Because the Eucharist makes present the redeeming sacrifice of the cross, perpetuating it sacramentally, it naturally gives rise to a continuous need for conversion, for a personal response to the appeal made by Saint Paul" in Second Corinthians, "We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God." Second Corinthians 5:20.

If a Christian's conscience is burdened by serious sin, then the path of penance through the sacrament of reconciliation becomes necessary for full participation in the Eucharistic sacrifice.

Person who, and so this is also an, in the code of canon law, Canon 916 says, quote, "A person who is conscious of grave sin is not to celebrate mass or receive the body of, of the Lord without previous sacramental confession unless there is a grave reason." Now there could, and no opportunity to confess.

A grave reason, for example, would be a priest who has to celebrate mass for his parish and doesn't have the opportunity to confess.

The canon continues, "In this case, the person is to remember the obligation to make an act of perfect contrition, which includes the resolution of confessing as soon as possible." Perfect contrition, by the way, doesn't mean that I do it perfectly.

It means that I make an act of contrition for the right, for the perfect reason, which is, um, not simply out of fear for hell.

That's imperfect contrition.

But also, out of love for God who's loved me first and died for me.

Second point.

Holy communion presupposed not only the invisible communion of being in the state of grace, but also ecclesial communion, right?

The reason is we have seen that the Eucharist is the sacrament that was instituted to nourish ecclesial communion, right?

So it presupposes that communion that it seeks to strengthen and nourish, right?

And it ex- it expresses that communion precisely to increase it.

And therefore, um, both concelebration of the mass and reception of holy communion presuppose visible ecclesial communion as well as invisible.

And we'll see some exceptions, but that's the general principle.

Visible ecclesial communion involves visible unity in faith and sacraments and governance, right?

So it's a threefold bond of unity.

Unity of faith, unity of receiving the same seven sacraments, and unity of governance, which means, um, recognizing and being in communion with the successor of Peter and the bishops in communion with him.

Right?

So and full communion involves that.

Those three.

Now, there's a canon on this in the code of canon law, Canon 844, which speaks of, um, the possibility, so at least as a general principle of, um, the necessity of ecclesial communion for receiving, um, communion, penance, or anointing of the sick.

But it also states that in certain conditions, um, Catholic ministers may licitly administer penance, the Eucharist, or anointing of the sick to members of the Oriental churches, right, who don't have full communion with the Catholic church, um, if they ask for it on their own and if they're properly disposed.

Right?

But with regard to Protestants, there's a more stringent, um, conditions.

And re- so in order for a Protestant to receive, um, any of those three sacraments, there would need to be danger of death or other grave necessity.

Um, they have, they also have to be not able to approach a minister of their own communion, and they have to ask for it.

Um, and they have to manifest Catholic faith in these sacraments and be properly disposed.

Right?

And so that's not normally, that would only be very exceptionally the case.

Okay, let's look now at frequent communion.

The church teaches, and it makes perfect sense based on the effects of holy communion that we saw in the preceding episode, the church teaches that it is good for the faithful to receive holy communion frequently, and that means weekly or even daily if we can.

This practice, we find it in scripture, Acts of the Apostles, and in the church fathers.

We've seen Ambrose and Augustine make mention of daily communion.

It's continued to be recommended in the medieval period, even though in practice it didn't happen generally, and was especially encouraged by the Council of Trent.

Again, not fully implemented, um, in the post and tridentine, in the tridentine period.

Um, Saint Pius X, um, promoted this practice in his great decree, Sacra Tridentina, 1905 on frequent communion-...

I didn't, that's, um, that has been implemented, um.

And so it's now the practice of many of the people to receive, um, even daily, so it's a great blessing for the church.

And this is the fitness of frequent and even daily reception as shown by the figure of the manna in the desert, right?

The, the manna was given by God every day, right?

And they gathered every day except for, um, the Sabbath, but they gathered a double portion on Friday.

And likewise, it was prefigured in the daily sacrifice in the temple of two lambs, one in the morning and in the evening.

And it's implied in the very nature of the Eucharist as a sacrament of spiritual nourishment.

Why should we nourish our souls much less frequently than our bodies?

I eat, uh, generally three times a day at least and, um, for physical nourishment, and so it makes sense to receive spiritual nourishment if we can on a daily basis.

And we see this in the early church, um, Acts 2:46, this picture of the, the Church of Pentecost.

"Day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes." Right, breaking bread is a technical term in, in Luke, in Luke's gospel and Acts of the Apostles for the Eucharist, right?

So it, it seems to be saying day by day, celebrating the Eucharist in their homes, not in the temple , but, um, in the house churches.

They partook of food with glad and generous hearts, right?

Um, in the middle of third century, Saint Cyprian says, "We who are in Christ, daily receive the Eucharist as the food of salvation." And we also find it, um, in the Lord's prayer, right?

"Give us our daily bread." Now that refers to our physical needs, but also and particularly especially to our spiritual need and our spiritual nourishment.

Saint Basil in the middle of the fourth century writes, "It is commendable and most beneficial to communicate and partake of the body and blood of Christ every single day." Saint Ambrose, "What is it the apostle says about every time you receive it, as often as you receive it, herald the death of the Lord?

If we herald his death, we herald the remission of sins.

If whenever his blood is shed, it is shed for the remission of sins, I, I ought always to receive him so that he may always forgive sins in me." Right?

Since I'm always sinning, right?

He doesn't mean mortally, but venially, I always need the medicine.

Saint Augustine, "Receive daily that it may profit you daily, so live as to deserve to receive it daily." That is, to be in the conditions, um, of which is a state of grace.

The Council of Trent spoke strongly on this.

"Keeping in mind the great majesty and the most excellent love of our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave us his flesh to eat, may all Christians have so firm and strong a faith in the sacred mystery of his body and blood, may they worship with such devotion and pious veneration that they will be able to receive frequently their super-substantial bread.

May it truly be the life of their souls and the continual health of their minds." Right?

But again, the Council of Trent said this, um, many spiritual, um, saints and, and, um, spiritual writers strongly recommended it, but unfortunately, um, Jansenism did the opposite, right?

The Jansenistic writers, um, wrote against frequent communion, and, um, and unfortunately they had a large effect on, um, the practice of, um, Eucharistic reception in the 17th and 18th centuries, and throughout the 19th as well.

And so Pius the Tenth needed to reiterate it in a still stronger way, and he did that in the, um, uh, document that I mentioned, Sacra Tridentina.

And so he says, "It ought to be...

Moreover, we are bidden in the Lord's prayer," Pius the Tenth writes, "to ask for our daily bread, by which words the Holy Fathers of the Church all but unanimously teach must be understood not so much of the material bread, which is a part of the body, as the Eucharistic bread, which ought to be our daily food." Right?

If we can.

JRR Tolkien, um, has a, a beautiful, um, quote on this in a letter to his son Michael from 1963.

He writes, quote, "The only cure for sagging or fainting faith is communion.

Though always itself perfect and complete and violent, the blessed sacrament doesn't operate completely and once and for all in any of us.

Life, like the act of faith, it must be continuous and grow by exercise.

Frequency is of the highest effect.

Seven times a week is more nourishing than seven times at intervals." Okay.

Um, another great, um, gift of Saint Pius the Tenth to the church was, um, a lowering of the age for first communion.

Um, so there's a, a long history, can't go into it here, but we can see in the early church that, um, or we know from, um, various writings of the fathers, um, in the early Middle Ages that communion was given to all the baptized, including those newly baptized as infants receive an, um, a drop of the precious blood, um, and, um, and that continues, continues to this day in the Eastern church, um, in the Eastern rites, um, but died out in the Latin rite by about the, um, the 12th or 13th centuries, right?

But for the whole millennium, first millennium, um, children, um, including infants, received holy communion, um, according to the Lord's words on the necessity of holy communion for having life, spiritual life within us.

Um, Saint Thomas explains that our children don't need to receive, um, uh, for salvation, um, but, um, but nevertheless, um-...

we don't want to postpone, um, unnecessarily the reception of holy communion.

Um, and so, um, it's very fitting that at the beginning of the age of reason, right, children receive, um, the gift of holy communion.

Together with...

Um, so after receiving communion, um, we want to i-...

We saw that the, the dispositions with which we receive communion increase its effects.

And so, it's very helpful practice after receiving holy communion to thank the Lord for it, um, in, in prayer.

And we should recognize, we said that for about 10 minutes after receiving holy communion, each one of us is in effect a tabernacle.

We have Jesus whole and entire inside our bodies for about 10 minutes until our digestive powers, um, um, take awa-...

Um, um, corrupt, as it were, the, the appearances by turning them into our body, the, the, um, species of bread and wine.

So for about 10 minutes, we're at tabernacle, and it's an ideal time in which we speak to the Lord about our desires and ask him for things, right?

Ask him to increase love in us and be attentive to his inspirations in so far as we are a holy tabernacle.

Um, numerous popes, um, highly commend this practice of thanksgiving after holy communion.

Pius the 12th, in Mediator Dei, speaks about it.

He says, and, and he quotes the imitation of Christ, um, which says, "Remain on in secret and take delight in your God, for he is yours, whom the whole world cannot take away from you." Blessed Columba Marmion, um, who has a, uh, a great spiritual book called Christ, The Life of the Soul speaks about this thanksgiving after holy communion.

"Christ gives himself to us in the measure that we give ourselves to him, to his father, to our brethren who are the members of his mystical body." Unquote.

Right?

And so, as we said before, everyone receives the same Christ, but we don't all receive the same grace.

That depends on our dispositions of hunger, desire, and thanks.

And we wanna seek to increase that and live through it.

In other words, um, so Eucharistic, th-...

Um, we can...

I spoke earlier of the Eucharistic life, right?

The Eucharistic life is living in such a way that the ascending and descending movements of grace in the mass form our daily life, right?

So, we live, live our daily life as something to offer.

And in the mass, we offer and ask for the graces above all in holy communion to live it better and more fully, right?

We can speak of that as the Eucharistic life or a Eucharistic spirituality.

And I think it's a great need of the present day, of all days, um, to foster in the faithful a Eucharistic spirituality, right?

We speak about Franciscan spirituality, Jesuit spirituality.

We don't usually speak of sacramental spirituality, but it...

We ought to.

It would be a, um, a way to, um, make more concrete for us how the Eucharist ought to be the frame of our spiritual life and the motor and the heart, the burning, beating heart.

And Mary, of course, is the model for us.

Just as she was the model in the offering of the sacrifice, standing on Calvary with her son, so she's the model of holy communion, right?

It's not given to us directly in scripture, but if we think about it, what would Mary's life have been like after Pentecost?

Right?

We know that, um, she was in...

Given to John, right?

To be his mother, um, and so she, um, lived with the apostles, in particular John.

And she would've lived the Eucharistic life.

We don't know how long she lived after Calvary, but we can imagine something like 20 years, um, in which, in every holy communion, she would have been receiving the same Jesus whom she conceived in her womb at the enunciation.

The same Jesus, right?

Who, um, grew in her womb for nine months.

The same Jesus, right?

Who she lived with as a child, as a, as a man, um, in his public ministry.

That Jesus who, who gave himself on the cross and who continued to give himself to her in every holy communion.

John Paul II speaks about this in a beautiful way in Ecclesiae Eucharistiae, um, 56.

I'd like to say something about spiritual communion.

In the, um, time of the pandemic, last few years, um, there was a lot of talk, fortunately, about the practice of spiritual communion when we're not able to be present at mass.

But it, it doesn't have to mean just when we're not able to be there.

In other words, in every holy communion, we want to receive, not just physically, but spiritually.

In other words, with our heart.

And when we can't receive sacramentally, we can at least receive him by desire with the heart.

And that's what we mean by spiritual communion.

And it's an age-old practice of the saints.

We find, uh, numerous, um, sacred writers speaking about that practice, and popes, um, strongly recommending it, such as John Paul II in Ecclesiae Eucharistiae number 34.

He writes, "It is good to cultivate in our hearts a constant desire for the sacrament of the Eucharist." This was the origin of the practice of spiritual communion, which has happily been established in the church for centuries, and recommended by saints who are masters of the spiritual life.

Saint Teresa, Teresa of Jesus wrote, quote, "When you do not receive communion and you do not attend mass, you can make a spiritual communion, which is a most beneficial practice.

By it, the love of God will be greatly impressed on you."Pius the Twelfth, the also speaks of it.

And the holy church wishes that Christians, especially when they cannot easily receive holy communion, should do so at least by desire so that with renewed faith, reverence and humility, and complete trust in the goodness of my redeemer, they may be united to him in the spirit of most ardent charity.

Now, all things being equal, it's better to receive, um, sacramentally and with the heart and desire, right?

That's the most full way of receiving holy communion.

But when we can't receive him sacramentally, we can still unite our hearts with him and desire to receive him and receive great benefits from it that is the same spiritual effects, although maybe not the same, um, degree.

But that's up to the Lord.

And, um, and very often, all things are not equal, right?

So it could happen that a spiritual communion that's full of faith and desire can be more fruitful than an, um, a holy communion in the state of grace but without desire and, um, and received by rote.

But as I mentioned earlier, it would be good for us to join with the act of spiritual communion, also an act of spiritual offering, right?

Because the two go so intimately together.

So when we see making an act of spiritual communion, I should first offer myself or maybe make an act of spiritual communion and then offer myself, um, and there's no necessity for any particular formula, either for spiritual communion or spiritual offering, but the idea should be, "I desire to receive you," right?

And we can bring forth on the model of your mother, right?

Our Lady, um, and I desire to give myself totally to you and offer my whole life and all the aspects of my Christian life to you, um, in union with the sacrifice of the mass, right?

Um, give me your grace so that I can live more fully in accord with the model of your cross.

Right, and this idea of spiritual communion, um, is true of, um, not only of communion, but of baptism.

We speak of baptism desire, um, um, and other sacraments, just not holy orders, right?

One can't become a priest, a ministerial priest by desire, and one can't get married by desire either.

let's look now and conclude by looking at Eucharistic adoration.

Since Christ is truly present in the Eucharist in the secret humanity, right, united with his divinity, the Eucharist should receive the adoration of latria.

That's a technical term for the adoration that's given exclusively to God, right?

Adoration of Christ in the blessed sacrament is a natural consequence of the church's faith in the real substantial presence of Christ in the Eucharist and, um, in the divinity of Christ.

So adoration corresponds above all to the first purpose of the Eucharist that we saw in our very first episode, um, the bridegroom dwelling in our midst, right?

Eucharistic adoration enables us to encounter the bridegroom and to speak to him intimately, right?

To prolong, as it were, that intimacy which comes in mass and to extend it and to live it further, right?

As Israel adored the presence of God, the in the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy of Holies in the temple, how much more we ought to adore Christ, substantially present in every tabernacle.

Right, and it's also in- adoration is also intimately related to the other ends of the Eucharist, um, sacrifice and communion.

We adore, when we adore Christ in the Eucharist, in the tabernacle or exposed in a monstrance, we're adoring the victim of Calvary, right, who becomes present for us in the mass as the sacramental victim of love, um, and so that's got to be a part of our adoration is thanking him, right, for his sacrifice and seeking the grace to join ourselves to it more fully, right?

So that would be the second aspect.

And likewise, in adoration, we can ask for those graces proper to holy communion, right, as in a spiritual communion and seek to, um, be more configured to his love.

Right, and it also involves the ecclesial effect, right?

So I think often we forget this.

In adoration, we want to pray for the unity of the Church and for our part in that, in making reconciliation and union.

The growth of Eucharistic adoration is a beautiful, um, example of the organic development of doctrine and Christian life and worship.

Right, so the Church isn't something, so often, the reason I'm saying this is often, um, sometimes theologians will say, "Ah, it's a late development, Eucharistic adoration, from the second millennium." Um, now, it, that's not entirely true, as we'll see in a minute, but, um, insofar as it is true, um, it's simply a manifestation of the fact that the Christian life isn't something static, but the Church is alive.

The Church has a life in organic development, right?

Like Mary, who kept the words of the Lord in her heart and meditated on them, so does the Church reflect over the centuries on her great treasures, right?

And her greatest treasure, Christ present to her in the Eucharist.

And so it's not surprising that the second millennium has witnessed constant growth in personal prayer of the faithful before the blessed sacrament.

And it was, um, closely linked, as I mentioned earlier, with, um, the fact of needing to defend the real presence after the Berengarian heresy, um, and the growth of the, the scholastic theology of the Eucharist in the 12th and 13th centuries.I...

And that was, at that time, that Corpus Christi was, um, was instituted, the feast, and, um, Eucharistic adoration took, um, further, um, expansion.

Joseph Ratzinger addresses this objection that it's a late development in his Spirit of Liturgy.

And he comes back to it in, um, his apostolic exhortation, Sacramentum Caritatis, number 66.

Um, and he mentions the objection, people often say, "The Eucharist was given to us not to be looked at, but to be eaten." But he goes on to say, "That's a false dichotomy." He quotes Saint Augustine, the beginning of the fifth century, who says, "No one eats that flesh without first adoring it." We should sin, were we not to adore it.

And Ratzinger and Pope Benedict goes on to explain, "In the Eucharist, the Son of God comes to meet us and desires to become one with us.

Eucharistic adoration is simply the natural consequence of the Eucharistic celebration, which itself is the church's supreme act of adoration.

Receiving the Eucharist means adoring him whom we receive." Adoration helps us to deepen, um, that worship that we give to Christ in the Eucharist, right, by extending it outside of mass.

Pope Francis has a, a beautiful exhortation to Eucharistic adoration.

He writes, quote, "I want to encourage everyone to visit, if possible, every day, especially amid life's difficulties, the blessed sacrament of the infinite love of Christ and his mercy, preserved in our churches and often abandoned, to speak filially with him, to listen to him in silence and to peacefully entrust yourself to him." Unquote.

We cannot know the Lord without this habit of worship, to worship in silence, adoration.

This is from Pope Francis, sorry.

If I'm not mistaken, I believe that this prayer of adoration is the least known by us, it's the one we do least.

Allow me to say this, waste time in front of the Lord, in front of the mystery of Jesus Christ, worship him there in silence, the silence of adoration.

He is the safer, savior, and I worship him." Unquote.

Let us pray at the conclusion of this course for the grace to adore our Lord more deeply in the Eucharist, in all its aspects, so presence, sacrifice, and communion, and so grow to be more configured to his cross and resurrection day-by-day through Christ our Lord.

Thank you.

In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.