Sitting in my pew for a few minutes as the Priest gives out Communion to the 137 extraordinary ministers, readers in shorts and sandals, and altar girls I often have some time to reflect before the priest gets around giving out Communion to the rest of us.
Sometimes I even reflect upon the concept of “the rest of us.” It really means all of us, every last dang one of us. Occasionally, the thought has popped into my head, I wonder if ALL these people have gone to confession? I mean when I go to confession, held once a week for 45 minutes, the lines are just not that long. How is it that all these people are prepared to receive Our Lord in the Eucharist?
Well, as we all know, many of them are not but they go anyway. A good deal of the fault with this lays squarely on the offending receiver, but I can’t help wonder if we are all collectively guilty to some degree. These days, there is almost a culturally enforced mandate to go up and receive, prepared or not. I have written before (See The Case for Chaos) that I think that usher enforced orderly communion is partly to blame. However catechesis, personal responsibility, a mind your own business mentality (namely don’t give the person next to you the once over if they choose not to receive) and a well formed conscience are also critical elements.
With all this as the background, I was moved by a story relayed by Fr. Ray Blake pastor of St. Mary Magdalen in Brighton UK. Fr. tells us of a man, who is in an unfortunate irregular situation, who attends the TLM because as he says “…because I don’t feel forced to come to Holy Communion.” Out of respect for the Eucharist, he will not receive unless properly prepared. Fr. Ray relays some details followed by some comments.
“I come to Mass every Sunday,” he said, “I am living with “M”, she is divorced. Most Lents we have determined to live as brother and sister, sometimes it works and I go off to Confession, receive absolution and receive Communion, normally a few weeks after Easter our resolution breaks down. The last couple of years we haven’t got very far, so I haven’t been to Holy Communion for three years. I want to come, of course I do, but I know I know what Jesus said about the permanence of marriage and marriage to divorcee. It would be hypocritical to receive Him and not live by His teaching.”
I of course suggested looking at an annulment, he said he had tried that but “M” just couldn’t bring herself to go through the procedure.
I was so impressed by this man, so impressed by his extraordinary love for the Blessed Sacrament, impressed by his honesty and the heroism of his Christian life.
For certain, the man and the woman should do what is right and at least attempt to fix the situation if it possible and refrain from any further sin. But it does my heart good to see a man honest enough with himself and respectful enough of the Eucharist not to receive. Thanks for Father Blake for sharing this.
There was a time in my life many years ago in my early twenties when I was not properly prepared for communion. Unfortunately, I would just avoid mass altogether so as to avoid the embarrassment of not receiving. I cringe now when I think of it. I think that this fear of embarrassment kept me away a lot longer than I otherwise would have.
The culture of “everyone goes” is detrimental to the faith, especially to those in most need of reconciliation. We should do what we can to eliminate this phenomenon. Again, I say let’s start with dumping orderly communion.
September 25, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Of course, this is all the other side of the the Liturgical Movement and the reforms of St. Pius X. Many resourcement theologians saw that people who went to Mass only to view the Host at elevation and do their own things were somehow participating in an inferior way. They viewed the participation in the Body and Blood of Christ as a far more superior way to participate in the Mass, to the point that they saw going to Mass without receiving Communion was almost without point. This slowly evolved in the Catholic Church in the twentieth century in the developed world to everyone present receiving Communion. It became a social rite rather than a supernatural right: the communion of the People of God with each other.
While it is pretty clear in many Patristic writings that frequent Communion was always to be encouraged, we are making the assumption that the Patristic church is exactly the same as the one today. If that were so, we would still have canonical penances of seven years for fornication. That particular bete noire, Jansenism, made this type of thinking verboten in the Western Church. I always thought the Jansenists had a point. It also doesn’t help that sacramental scholastic theology in the West has become so pervasive that it has become distorted; the sacrament may be confected ex opere operato, but the benefits of the sacrament do not come that way.
Still in many parts of Latin America, and in churches of Latin Americans in the diaspora here, many don’t go to Communion if they know that they aren’t “living right”. Even in the most liberal Greek Orthodox churches, only about half go to Communion. In Russian churches, the only ones who seem to go to Communion with any frequency are the infants. Most modern American Catholics would be scandalized by how few even devout Orthodox go to Communion on any given Sunday.
I think pastors do their congregations a great disservice by not preaching worthy reception of Holy Communion from the pulpit. Sacrilege is the frightening name of crime of receiving Holy Communion unworthily, and it is on par with murder, abortion, and other atrocities of humanity. It takes the eyes of Faith to see that. And St. Paul is very explicit that it is a matter of life and death.
September 25, 2008 at 3:50 pm
Corrigenda: It should above read, “supernatural rite”. Sorry.
September 25, 2008 at 4:02 pm
“Most modern American Catholics would be scandalized by how few even devout Orthodox go to Communion on any given Sunday.”
Not if they knew what happens first. The Russian church is especially strict. Basically, Orthodox Christians are known personally by their pastor, who can then vouch for their having attended confession and Vespers the evening before. They must also observe fasting from midnight. If they visit a parish in another town, they must introduce themselves to the parish priest first, who determines their worthiness.
I don’t think Pius X realized how he was setting the stage for this. Were it left to me, confirmation would be conferred at the age of reason (seven years old), and first communion would be conferred at puberty (about twelve years old). Confession would be an occasional event, say during penitential seasons, until one was old enough or first communion, when monthly confession “of devotion” would be encouraged. The traditional order of sacraments of initiation would be restored, and the eucharist would be less likely to be received lightly.
September 25, 2008 at 6:11 pm
David L Alexander said…
“I haven’t personally gone through [an annulment] but I know MANY people who have…”
Not THAT many.
Well, I guess “many” is a relative term. I would say I know about 30 people who have gone through annulments, and it is quite circumstantial: I used to go to a parish where they had a ministry/ support group for divorced people, whose aim was actually to pair up these divorced people and marry them off again to each other (after an annulment). It was the church’s way of keeping divorced people in the fold. I met most of these couples in the late 80’s, but their divorces/annulments/remarriages happened for the most part in the 70’s and early 80’s. They were all very open and talkative about the process they went through. And in that particular diocese, it was pretty “automatic”, in that if you went through the process, you were guaranteed an annulment (it generally took about a year).
Like I said, I can’t say first hand (thanks be to God) and I don’t know if times have changed/become more difficult to get one. But I rather doubt it.
So, yes, there is definitely more to any story. But I can’t think of one reason why a divorced Catholic man or woman would not go through the process of an annulment if a) they realised there was no way they would ever be able to remarry their former spouse (i.e. if the marriage never sacramentally existed) and b) they want to “move on” as you say.
I’d be interested to understand why it is you find her story “believable” as you put it. What are the barriers, hinderances or other reasons one WOULDN’T go through the process? You don’t have to cite your own, but I would be interested in any cases you know of, simply because I have never heard of any (note: following a and b above).
September 25, 2008 at 6:59 pm
“I’d be interested to understand why it is you find her story “believable” as you put it. What are the barriers, hinderances or other reasons one WOULDN’T go through the process? You don’t have to cite your own, but I would be interested in any cases you know of, simply because I have never heard of any (note: following a and b above).”
In the first place, there is more to “moving on” than getting an annulment. Whether you get one or not, at the very least, something resembling a marriage happened (the term describing it is “putative.”)
Most “separated and divorced ministry” at the diocesan level is a joke. Mine was run by people who were under-qualified, many of them not even Catholic. The local church (in my case, the Excruciatingly Orthodox Diocese of Arlington) assumed no responsibility for their conduct, even after I was tossed out of one program for “not being ready.” You are basically left to process the whole thing on your own. Maybe you can find a priest who is capable of helping you through the process. But people whose spouses have left them are the most difficult to work with, their emotions having been rubbed raw by the heartbreak of a deserting or unfaithful spouse.
Then you are asked to relive how you got into this mess. If you wait until you can stomach the experience (and for some, that is what it means), essential witnesses may or may not want to speak on your behalf. Sometimes a misunderstanding of the process (“we don’t want to take sides here”) makes them not want to co-operate.
Sometimes members of a tribunal can be jerks. Who is going to tell them not to be? Is there a 1-800 number in Rome you can call when a chancery bureaucrat is too full of himself? Not likely.
My point (and I do have one) is that a) anyone who says annulments are “automatic” [is an idiot who] doesn’t know anything except what others want to hear, b) most divorced Catholics don’t need to be told what they need to do to remarry in the Church, and c) “the heart has its reasons, that reason knows not.”
That’s the short explanation. For the long one, you’ll have to wait for my book to come out, like everybody else. Or read my blog.