The Blessings—and Dangers—of Holy Communion

 From Crisis:

In this article I have made the case for frequent Eucharistic Communion for those who are already in communion with the Church and who approach with faith and the fear of God. Tragically, in the past five decades and more, the sense of God’s holiness, with the moral and spiritual demands it rightly places on us, has been increasingly lost. John Paul II and Benedict XVI complained of routine Communions, where row after row goes up because “everybody’s doing it.” They reminded pastors that the faithful must go to Confession to unburden themselves of mortal sins before approaching the heavenly banquet. (This presupposes, of course, that catechesis and preaching about mortal sin is taking place—an assumption on which one would not be prudent to bet much money.) They emphasized that notorious public sinners, such as Catholic politicians who dissent openly from the Church’s solemn teaching, must not be admitted to Communion, because they have already sundered their communion in faith.

We have seen a rash of irreverence at every level: the many problems with giving communion into the hands of standing communicants, the excessive and illicit use of Extraordinary Ministers (and with it a general confusion of the roles of ordained ministers and laity), informality and banality in the way Mass is celebrated, and so forth. These evils are not merely regrettable: they are catastrophic in their effects on souls and their long-term effects on the Mystical Body of Christ. (Read more.)

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