We often hear about people who shouldn’t receive Communion – because of actual or perceived sins or public opposition to Church teaching. But it’s less common to hear about people who don’t receive when they should, or could.
I’m one of those people. Although it doesn’t happen often, there are days when I go to Mass but opt to stay on my kneeler when the rest of my family gets on the Communion line. On those days, I’m not skipping Communion because of terrible secret mortal sin I harbor but rather because I just don’t feel in right relationship with God at that moment. It could be any number of things that cause it – a disagreement, a rough day with the kids, a work issue that has caused spiritual turmoil.
This Communion debate has been in the news a lot this week. On the one hand, some are sticking to the usual argument about who should be denied Communion. But one news story took the opposite tact, looking at those who – like me – sometimes feel they’re just not ready or worthy to receive. And it seems that at least one priest in that story sides with my husband on this issue.
Father Adam Forno occasionally notices parishioners skipping the Eucharist at St. John the Evangelist and St. Joseph parish in Rensselaer, where he is pastor.
Sometimes, a Massgoer doesn't receive Communion because he or she has remarried without having a first marriage annulled. Other times, it is because of personal shame.
"We've got some people who just feel they're not worthy," Father Forno explained. "People have a strong sense of not being in right relationship with God, and so they honor that by not going to Communion as they were taught. But my sense is that you need Communion more than ever then."
A man in one of Father Forno's former parishes attended daily Mass, but he never received Communion. Father Forno approached him and said: "You come to supper with the Lord, but you don't eat." The priest asked if the man needed to reconcile anything with God and offered to help.
Father Peter Sullivan, assistant judicial vicar to Albany Bishop Howard J. Hubbard, also quoted in the story, had this to say:
"I tell people Communion is not a reward for having been good, but the spiritual food necessary to continue the journey," Father Sullivan said, recalling the Gospel story of the vine and the branches: "(Jesus is) saying, 'If you do not receive my body and blood, you do not have my life in you.'
"You need to go to Communion, and you can do so very humbly. You're not doing this with pride; you're doing this out of a need and out of a command."
Let’s hear how OSV Daily Take readers weigh in on this. Are there times when you refrain from going to Communion not out of mortal sin but due to a spiritual restlessness that makes you feel unprepared to receive Jesus?
