Tag: Faith

Part II: The Holy Eucharist, the Virtue of Faith and the Sin of Unbelief

The worthiness to receive Holy Communion is the subject of much discussion these days, especially in regard to public sinners, and particularly in the case of politicians who support and promote gravely immoral, intrinsically evil actions, such as the promotion of legalized abortion and the many variations which depart from the sanctity of marriage. The Church’s authentic teaching states explicitly that these notorious sinners are not to present themselves for Holy Communion. It is inconsistent with the very nature of God to suggest that Christ, and therefore those remade in his image, could choose such actions. By being known publicly for supporting such sins or engaging in them, one becomes a source of public scandal. Hopefully, what I have said so far about the moral life opens us to a new dimension in this discussion. The Eucharist is the food of the new Man, recreated in Christ’s image, not the old man corrupted by illusory desires. The fruits of the Eucharist include deepening our incorporation into Christ and commits us to the poorest among us, including the spiritual impoverished. We must recognize that there is such a thing as spiritual suicide and it is very easy for those of us with some responsibility to fall into the trap of committing spiritual euthanasia.

Unfortunately, the efforts made to address abuses regarding Holy Communion, while worthy, are likely to yield very little fruit without a rekindling of faith, the foundation of the Christian moral life. In the Church we are conditioned by the apparent lack of faith and loss of the virtue of religion. Indeed, I suggest that what we are doing here and across the diocese in the context of this entire event is an opportunity for God to enlighten our minds and liven our spirits. The truth of the Holy Eucharist is so austere and beautifully compelling that those who speak for the Church should have a deep concern for their own souls should they not attempt to present, explain and defend it, insuring that its power is being manifested in a lively expression of faith among the members of the parishes of the diocese. I do not wish to delve into that subject too deeply. However, I do hope that what I have to say here will encourage you hold to and express the truth of faith regarding this mystery.

Given the circumstance of a basic belief in the truth of the Holy Eucharist, that the Lord is truly present and that the Eucharist is to be worshiped with the adoration due to God, then, it is easy to accept and hold that serious sinners should not present themselves for Holy Communion and that those who are notorious public sinners should not be given Holy Communion by any minister of the sacrament as the law of the Church directs. The divine economy in that regard is this: God has created us to know the truth and the heart, at times, needs to be treated with an external remedy to recognize the interior injury. The illusions of false belief in the interior will not easily fall if the external acts of religion continue unhindered.  

Faith in the Eucharist – Divine and Catholic Faith

The matter of the moral question with respect to the Holy Eucharist begins with the virtue of Faith itself. First of all, as we have seen, it is because divine faith engenders the new man and, by its power we are to put to death the old man who lives according to the way of death. Widespread reports indicate that a sizeable number of those who identify themselves as Catholics do not hold the faith of the Church in respect to the Holy Eucharist. We need to believe in the Holy Eucharist. And, the widespread lack of belief in the Eucharist may well be the most damaging development in the entire history of the Church.

Given the characteristics of some of the problems that plague the Church, it is not surprising that notable clerics have suggested that it is up to the laity to rise up and rescue the faith, and we can only pray this will be so. This recovery, however, cannot happen without faith in the Holy Eucharist. It must be recognized as a moral imperative that each one of us must do everything within our means to bolster faith in the Eucharist of Christ. This is as basic and essential as the proclamation of the Kingdom itself. “Teach them everything I have commanded you.”

A 2019 EWTN/RealClear Opinion Research poll found that only 49% of Catholics believed in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. A Pew Research Center poll the same year placed the number even lower, reporting that “just one-third of U.S. Catholics (31%) say they believe that ‘during Catholic Mass, the bread and wine actually become the Body and Blood of Jesus.’” 

Perhaps even more disturbingly, 43% of the Catholics polled by Pew believed that the position of the Church itself is that the bread and wine the faithful receive at Holy Communion is merely symbolic. Michael Warsaw, https://www.ncregister.com/commentaries/eucharistic-coherence, Nov. 6, 2021.

Michael Warsaw’s comments emphasize the point I made earlier about belief and practice regarding politicians and other public sinners. “This pervasive misunderstanding of the nature of Catholicism’s central sacrament might make the actions of pro-abortion Catholic politicians who present themselves for reception of Communion somewhat more comprehensible, if no less disturbing. After all, a Catholic who thinks the sacrament is nothing more than a symbol, not Jesus himself, is far more likely to be unconcerned about receiving Communion while breaking with Church teachings on moral evils like abortion.” Warsaw, “Eucharistic Coherence.”

As I have been saying the morality of the matter depends upon the virtue of faith and its grasp of the truth of the Holy Eucharist.

The virtue of faith is a supernatural gift that brings with it the gifts of knowledge and understanding of the heavenly mysteries. By the virtue of faith we are habitually enabled to accept everything that is revealed by God. To have faith is to think with assent or internal acceptance of the truths of faith. Faith contains specific articles and the assent to those articles is given on account of God Himself. He is the cause of faith. He gives the believer a sure knowledge of the divine mysteries. One cannot be said, both to have true faith, and to persist in doubt about the Holy Eucharist. One believes on account of God.

The Church understands and teaches, therefore, that there are identifiable truths revealed by God and, by God’s command, identified and defined by the authentic magisterium to be believed as a teaching of faith divinely revealed. These are such teachings as that of the One and Triune God, that Jesus Christ is True God and True Man, and the Divine Foundation of the Church. The Real Presence of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity is one such teaching that must be believed with theological or divine and Catholic faith. To refuse to do so sets one in opposition to the teaching of the Church, but once one has been taught this truth, having received the faith, it constitutes a grave sin of unbelief and separates one from the Catholic Church. An obstinate denial of this truth or an obstinate doubt concerning the Holy Eucharist is called the sin of heresy. One’s profession of the Faith carries with it the moral responsibility of enlightening the mind and is expressed in the command of the will that the intellect assent to this truth. A person who does not believe the truth of the Holy Eucharist should not receive Holy Communion until doubt is resolved and assent to the truth can be given. Here we should be mindful predominantly of the immense truth and beauty of the mystery of the Holy Eucharist and less so on the alleged bad will of the sinner who cannot resolve the doubt.

Fr. Walter Farrell, the great Dominican Theologian from the last century, speaks of the great gift saying, following the words of Christ, “They tasted and lived, lived as men had never dared hope to live; lived by the life of God.” Companion to the Summa, Vol. IV, 301. He continues,” For eleven hundred years, it never occurred to men to challenge it directly; it was too close to dreams, too wholly reality, too vibrant with life to leave room for a doubt.” However, there appeared Berengarius who denied the real presence of Christ, suggesting that man created his own heavenly food moved by the symbol of the sacrament. Before he died, he came to know “the emptiness he had introduced into his own life, admitted it and received again the Bread of Life.” 301 As Fr. Farrell observes, it was five centuries before the Eucharist was challenged again. Among the three most prominent challengers, only the Swedish Reformer Ulrich Zwingli “dared to step as far off the path of life as Berengarius had.” But the effect grew and men “steadily lost the taste for this divine food…. [As men] forgot Calvary, what meaning had the living memento of that great gesture of friendship?….To eat this Bread, a man must approach humbly to a food that is his Master, falling down in adoration; he must be stripped of the fundamental selfishness that puts himself before God, or he eats it to his damnation…This is too much to ask of a world whose prescription for life is rather pride in self-sufficiency, satisfaction at whatever cost, and escape from life rather than a challenge to it.” Farrell, 301.

Farrell goes on to teach us that he Holy Eucharist is not something that we consider a mere nicety added to the divine perfection of our humanity. Humanity needs the Bread of Life. Man cannot live without it. It would suffice to have the Eucharist in desire to lead to the life of union with God. All of the other sacraments, including Baptism, are ordered to the Eucharist. And all of the sacraments including the Eucharist are given to the Church as causes, under the power of the Holy Spirit, to bring about the completion of man’s journey to happiness. And with the intention supplied by the Church, even an infant in baptism already receives the Eucharist by desire, implicitly. Farrell, 304.