A Misunderstood Meal

Last updated on: May 30, 2014 at 12:27 pm by David Mills

A Misunderstood Meal 2014-05-30T12:27:28-04:00 David Mills

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There has in the Catholic Church “grown up the opinion, or better the heresy, that Mass without communion is not valid. The whole preoccupation with communion for the divorced and remarried, which has little to do with the Eastern vision and practice, is a consequence of this,” writes the Catholic theologian Nicola Bux here.

“Not valid” seems so extreme no educated Catholic would ever claim it, but Bux knows the world he’s describing. Most American Catholics, I think, wouldn’t use that language but very many seem to believe, in a vague sort of way, that Mass without communion is almost pointless. You get something out of it, but you don’t get the main thing, so why not sleep in once in a while? It’s like going every Sunday to stand by a table in a very expensive restaurant and watching rich people eat for an hour.

Then-Cardinal Ratzinger explained the problem:

Since the Eucharist is not a ritual banquet, but the communal prayer of the Church, in which the Lord prays with us and takes part with us, it remains precious and great, a true gift, even if we are unable to receive communion. If we were to regain a better understanding of this fact and thus see the Eucharist itself in a more correct manner, various pastoral problems, as for example that of the position of the divorced and remarried, would automatically lose much of their oppressive weight.

The article goes on to give Ratzinger’s explanation of the theological sources of this error.

This makes perfect sense, but a friend of a friend responds:

I do, of course, agree with what Ratzinger wrote but I do wonder one thing here. Would it have been as unthinkable to the Christian community, in the primitive understanding of the eucharist, to have unreconciled sinners (as, indeed, catechumens) present throughout the entire eucharist as to have them receive communion? This question makes me slightly uneasy with the idea that the Church should make remarried divorcees fully welcome in all respects other than in receiving communion. Exactly the same thing is often proposed for homosexual couples.

Does even this, though, not play down the sin? After all, I cannot imagine that anyone would suggest that unrepentant and active pedophiles should be made fully welcome at church even if they cannot receive communion. This is no doubt a necessary concession and it is consistent with the way eucharistic practice has developed but I wonder about the theology.

For Bux’s comments on Orthodoxy and remarriage, see A Bad use of Orthodoxy.

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