'STAND FAST IN THE FAITH'

New Zealand Tablet, 24 July 1913, Page 3

'STAND FAST IN THE FAITH'

(A Weekly Instruction specially written for the"JV.if. Tablet by 'GJaiSiBL.') COMMUNION UNDER ONE KIND! II; It must be freely admitted that in the days of the Apostles Communion was given under both kinds—St; Paul in 1 Cor. xi., 28, supposes this to be the case—and that this practice continued to be the general norm for public Communion in the churches of East and West down to the twelfth centuryV Butand this is the point we insist on very strongly—-during all these centuries the Church never looked upon Communion under both kinds as a matter of principle, obligatory because of a Divine precept. The whole question was then, as it is now, one of discipline. A change took place in the manner of administering Holy Communion in the twelfth and following centuries.' Obvious reasons suggested and justified the change. If it was a sacred duty for the pastors of the Church to encourage and facilitate the frequent reception of the Holy Eucharist, it was no less a sacred obligation to .safeguard the , reverence due to the Majesty of our Lord in the Sacrament. ' Nor can it be doubted that the modern Catholic discipline best secures these ends. The danger of spilling the Precious Blood and of other forms of irreverence; the inconvenience and delay in administering the chalice to large numbers the difficulty of reservation for Communion outside of Mass; the not unreasonable objections on hygienic and other grounds to promiscuous drinking from the same chalice, which of itself would act as a strong deterrent to frequent Communion in the case of a great many otherwise well-disposed people; these and similar "weighty and just reasons" . . . are more than sufficient to justify the Church in forbidding it' {Oath. Encyl. iv., 175). We are concerned to show that the Church has always, even during the centuries . when she commonly gave Communion under both kinds, considered the question as a purely disciplinary one; a matter of ceremony, like the kind of bread consecrated, or the language used in the Mass. That the Church has never made a principle of Communion under both kinds will appear irom the following consideration: from the earliest days there were many occasions when, notwithstanding the prevalent usage of receiving under both forms, the Church allowed the faithful to receive under one kind only. The Church considered this form of reception just as good as the other, and that quite apart from cases of necessity, for, as Bishop Hedley remarks, ' she could not have allowed it at all, as a sacramental reception, had she not held it to be the Sacrament. She has never allowed the Sacrament to be celebrated, for example, with any other liquid than wine, although in many circumstances wine has been practically impossible to procure.' . . The conviction of the Church even during the early centuries ' that Communion in one kind was enough for the full and complete Sacrament as instituted by our Lord' appears in the following practices:

(1) The practice of home or -private Communion was a commonplace of Christian life, and a feature of the life of the solitaries in the desert. It took its rise, no doubt, in the troubled days of persecution, but it continued as a general practice in Alexandria and Egypt long after all danger had disappeared, and it remained in the East even as late as the eighth century. The point to be noted' is that when the faithful thus took the Holy Sacrament to their homes in order to be able to receive when they could not be present at Mass, they took the species of Bread alone.

(2) Communion of the sick was given from the earliest days in cases of need, and from about the middle of the third century even in ordinary cases, under the species of Bread alone. His biographer tells us how St. Basil (fourth century) received Holy Communion several time in the day of his death, and under the species of Bread only. This was the case also with St. Ambrose, and as confirming our contention that

the Church looked upon the whole matter as one of discipline, it ' may be mentioned that the sick, who could not consume the Host, which in those days was very; large, were allowed to receive under the species of wine alone. ...:•."..' ' • /: ..-:..-.••

,(3) The Mass of the Presarictified. In the Latin -Church on Good Friday, and in the Greek. Church on all fasting days, there is no Mass; that is, no consecration proper; but the Sacrament is received under the species of Bread alone. ~ It is true that in the Latin Church at the present day, Communion not ..being given on Good Friday, the celebrant alone so receives; but in ancient times in the Latin Church, and down to this very day in the Greek Churches,- the practice of communicating the people at the Mass Presanctified existed and exists, and the Comm&i was, and is, given with the species of Bread that consecrated at a previous Mass. As the 'MwSkth'e Presanctified was "ancient" as far back aslsgp||kh' century, we have .striking demonstration of iraKtiK ancient Church thought of the validity of ComrSBW under one kind.' (4) Communion of children. In the early days of the Church children often communicated even before they came, to the use of reason. Sometimes they received one kind only, bread or wine, sometimes both. For the rest, our Lord's action at the Last Supper is still imitated at every Mass by one person at least, for the celebrant always receives under both kinds'.