Question Three. Whether the Sacrament of the Eucharist was fittingly Instituted after the Cena, or whether it could be Received by those not Fasting

156. The third questiona is whether this sacrament could be celebrated or received by those not fasting.

a.a [Interpolation]: Proceeding thus to the third question, I ask, since the Eucharist was given to the disciples after the Cena, whether...

157. It seems that it could be:

Because Christ gave the Eucharist after the Cena to his disciples when they had eaten.

158. Again in I Corinthians 11.34 it is said, “if anyone is hungry, let him eat at home,” where the Apostle is giving approval that, before the Corinthians come together to church, they should satisfy their hunger at home, so that they not take of the species immoderately in church. Hence he rebukes them in the same place [11.21] saying, “One is hungry and another drunk.”

159. On the contrary.

Gratian Decretum p.3 d.2 ch.24, from Augustine To the Questions of Januarius 1.6, “It has pleased the Holy Spirit that, in honor of so great a sacrament, the body of the Lord should enter the mouth of a Christian before other food does; therefore is this custom observed everywhere.”

I. To the Question

A. About the Four Ways of Receiving this Sacrament

160. I reply that one can receive this sacrament and not receive it sacramentally; one can receive the sacrament and receive it sacramentally but not spiritually; one can receive the sacrament sacramentally and spiritually.

161. He receives in the first way who receives the consecrated host, which is truly the sacrament there but, however, does not receive it as consecrated but altogether does not discriminate it from common food. And such a one, according to the Apostle in I Corinthians 11.29, “eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord,” that is, not discriminating it from common food. And this can be done either from lack of faith (as a pagan, if communion were given to him) or, when there is faith as well, from contempt (as in the case of a bad Christian).

162. He receives it in the second way who not only receives the sacrament but receives it as a sacrament, believing that the body of Christ is there and that he is receiving the communion of the body of Christ in the way such communion is accustomed to be done in the Church. But if he is in mortal sin, lacking contrition, he does not receive it spiritually, because he does not receive the spiritual effect (to which this sort of spiritual reception is ordered), and this effect is spiritual nourishment of the soul through the grace given by Christ received in the sacrament, or it is incorporation in the received Christ himself, as Christ said, according to Augustine Confessions 7.10.16, “I am the food of the mature.”

163. In the third way the good among the faithful receive it, being, as far as they can, without mortal sin. For they have examined their conscience carefully, and such are spiritually nourished and united and incorporated in Christ their spiritual food, according to Augustine [ibid.], “Grow and you will eat me, not converting me into you, but you will be converted into me.” For there is this difference between bodily and spiritual nutrition, that bodily nutrition is converted into him who needs nourishing, while he who is fed on spiritual nourishment is converted into the food.

164. It is plain, then, that he receives in all these three ways who receives it as a sacrament, and as containing the body of Christ, and does so with due reverence and devotion, so that he is nourished spiritually, the way sacramental reception signifies.

165. In a fourth way the sacrament is received spiritually but not sacramentally, namely when a good man is prepared well and devoutly according to his ability, yet abstains out of reverence or some infirmity or perhaps because he cannot get a minister. With this agrees the remark of Augustine On John’s Gospel tr.25 n.12 [Gratian Decretum p.3 d.2 ch.47], “Why do you prepare your teeth and stomach? Believe, and you have eaten.” And such a one is nourished spiritually.

B. A Difficulty as to the Third Way and its Solution

166. As to the matter at hand I say that the sacrament can be received in the first two ways by those not fasting just as by those who are fasting (speaking not of ‘can’ licitly but absolutely). But about the third way, namely not about ‘can’ absolutely but licitly and usefully, the question poses a difficulty.

167. I distinguish between the fast of nature and the fast of the Church.

The fast of the Church is only broken by some extraordinary replenishment outside the custom of the Church; hence the fast of the Church is not broken because of the taking of health supplements or medicines or through drink, at least after a meal.

168. But the fast of nature is the lack of food taken or to be taken in the stomach, or at least taken on the way to the stomach so as to enter the stomach, and this on the day of fasting, counting from the beginning of the day when someone is said to be fasting.

169. Likewise I distinguish between ‘ought’ and ‘permitted’, because either it is being understood as a matter of rule or in some particular case.

170. I say therefore that as a matter of rule the receiver should, for spiritual and sacramental reception, be fasting simply, that is, with the fast of nature. Nor is there any main reason for this except divine institution, which either Christ gave to his disciples or promulgated through them or left to be instituted. And indeed the institution is reasonable because of reverence for the sacrament, which reverence is regularly lesser in someone who has eaten than in someone who is fasting - and also so that one may seek spiritual food before bodily food.

171. But if a particular case is being understood [n.169], I say that there can be a case in which someone not fasting is quasi regularly permitted to approach [the sacrament], as someone in a grave sickness when danger of imminent death is feared; for then it would be dangerous to deny the sacrament to an ill person who, although having eaten, is begging for the sacrament, because it is viaticum. And therefore it must be given to him who is departing from this world, so that he may thereby be led to the goal.

172. Another special case is as when in some region the sacrament is regularly celebrated using white wine, and an assistant prepares the chalice for the priest and, by some negligence, puts in water instead of wine; the priest however supposes the assistant has prepared the chalice well and proceeds to say the sacramental words and to do the other things up to when he receives, but on receiving the liquid from the chalice he realizes it is water. It seems that he could not on that day receive the blood, if the receiver should be fasting.

173. I say therefore that in that case the priest is bound to consecrate the blood again and to receive the consecrated element.

174. The proof is that when two precepts are in a certain order, the precept of higher order is more binding. One precept is that of Christ and the Church, and the sacrament, by the very idea of the sacrament, should, when it is confected, be confected and received integrally, because the sacrament in itself is something integrated from two things.

175. For the obligation of the Church is rigid about keeping this integrity, Gratian Decretum p.3 d.2 ch.12, “Either let them receive the whole integrated sacrament or refrain from the whole integrated sacrament,” and Gratian is speaking of priests who confect and afterwards do not communicate. And a reason is added: “because the division of the sacrament cannot arise without grave sacrilege.”

176. Therefore, when any other precept is set down by the Church, and especially one that does not have regard to the proper and essential idea of the sacrament, every celebrant is always bound to keep the integrity of the sacrament. Therefore, he who has received water is simply bound to complete what he has omitted, namely omitted for consecrating the sacrament. And then further, if he is bound to consecrate the wine, the same person is bound to receive what is consecrated. Hence is contained in Gratian Decretum ibid. ch.11, “It is certain that those who sacrifice and do not eat are guilty of the Lord’s sacrament;” and there follows, let him who is such “know that he is expelled from communion for a year; therefore it must be in every way maintained that, as often as a priest immolates the body and blood, he make himself a participant in receiving the body and blood.”

177. He is necessarily bound, then, by the institution of Christ and because of the integrity of the sacrament, to confect the blood and, by the strictest precept of the Church (under pain of being expelled for a year), bound to receive what is consecrated.

178. And if it be objected, ‘he is not fasting, so he sins mortally by confecting the sacrament; either then he should not confect so that he does not receive, or if he must confect and receive he must sin against the precept of the Church. And then he is in perplexity, which is not to be said about any of the precepts of God and the Church’ - I reply that the Church does not as strictly prescribe that a receiver be fasting (by prohibiting the non-faster from receiving) as it prohibits the division of the sacrament (rather the division is prohibited by Christ and from the first institution of the Eucharist). Nor does the Church as strictly prohibit the non-faster from receiving as it commands the consecrator to receiver. Therefore, on the one side he has the precept of Christ about thus consecrating, and, after the consecration, he has the most strict command of the Church about receiving. On the other side he has only a comparatively light command of the Church about fasting. For it is not set down that a non-fasting receiver is guilty of the Lord’s sacrament, or that there is sacrilege there, or that he is expelled from communion for a year, as it is in the former case. The Church then simply did not intend to bind one to fast in this case; to the contrary, because the other two precepts are, both by virtue of Christ and by virtue of the Church, stronger and more binding.

179. Nor is he then perplexed, because he does well by keeping the precept of superior order and the stricter precept of the Church; and if he does not keep it, he sins mortally. But by omitting the less strict precept he does not sin with a new sin, because in this case he is not bound to keep the precept, nor did the Church want to bind him to the precept in this case, but rather to the opposite.

180. It is also manifestly plain that fasting is not as necessary a condition in a priest who receives, because on the day of Preparation for the Passover a particle [sc. of the host] placed in the chalice is received with pure unconsecrated wine, because the chalice from some preceding day is not preserved. And it is likely that the wine descends more quickly into the stomach than the particle of the host that is chewed. Therefore, by the custom of the Church, the priest in this case receives the eucharist when not fasting, and it is likely that the wine more quickly reaches the belly than the particle of the host that is chewed does. Therefore, by the custom of the Church the priest there receives the Eucharist when not fasting.

181. And if it be objected that there will be scandal if the people perceive the priest confecting the blood for a second time - one response is that if they were scandalized the scandal is that of the Pharisees, namely taken and not given, for the deed in itself is good and necessary. And everyone should judge that the deed, if they do not know the cause of it, is good, and should suppose that the priest has a good cause. Everyone too should, if he know the cause, approve of it. Hence Christ, when contemning such scandal, says of it, Matthew 15.13-14 about the Pharisees, “Let them alone. They are blind and leaders of the blind; every plant that my Father has not planted etc.”

182. One can reply in another way that the priest can very well avoid the supposed scandal, if he acts with caution. For by going to the side of the altar, as if for receiving the wine after communion, and pouring in wine and water (whether the already remaining water, because he has not consumed all of it, or water freshly put in), he will be able to return to the middle of the altar, and in a little time from the place ‘In like manner, after having eaten, Christ took the chalice,’ he will be able to continue to the place ‘As often as you do this’ or to the place ‘Therefore.. .mindful...’; and, after uttering these words, he will be able, with due reverence, to receive it as true blood. Nor will all this be perceived [by others], because it can be done in a short time; and so he will not take up so much time that the people can have enough occasion for scandal taken.

183. And if against this is argued what was said about the integrity of the sacrament [nn.173-177], that the priest does not receive the blood on the day of Preparation, I reply: the integrity is required in the consecrating, namely that no one consecrate the body unless he also consecrate the blood. Now it is not required in any reception of the sacrament (for the laity can well receive the body and not the blood); but it is required in the reception that follows consecration (this is contained in Gratian Decretum p.3 d.2 n.11).

II. To the Initial Arguments

184. To the first argument for the opposite [n.157] Augustine well replies, To the Questions of Januarius 1.6, in Gratian Decretum p.3 d.2 ch.24, “That the Lord gave the Eucharist to the disciples after a meal is not a reason that those should receive as they did who have eaten. They are rebuked by the Apostle (I Corinthians 11.20-22).” And Augustine adds the cause why the Savior did it then, “For the Savior,” he says, “in order to commend more forcefully the greatness of this mystery, wished to fix it last in the hearts of his disciples. But in what order it should be taken thereafter he left for the disciples to teach, through whom he was going to make disposition for the Churches.”

185. The same point serves for the second argument [n.158]: because according to Augustine [n.184] the Apostle rebuked those who took the Eucharist after eating. And therefore the words “if anyone is hungry, let him eat at home” should not be understood to mean he should eat at home before he comes to church but after departure from the church, so that he not sate his hunger on the Eucharist (the way he says “another is drunk”). Rather, waiting for what will be necessary for him at home he should receive what is his own. And for this reason is the custom of the Latin Church praiseworthy, which dispenses the Eucharist to no one save in small quantity (so that it cannot be taken to get drunk) and very well sufficient for due reverence of the sacrament.

186. From this is plain that a man can eat soon after communion, because the sacred species are soon converted - which seems must be conceded here [Gratian Decretum p.3 d.2 ch.23].