On receiving communion in desire
There has been some kerfuffle since the Archbishops called for churches to close, but whether or not priests are saying masses in their parish churches, most other people will not be receiving communion for a while. This has led to increase talk of “spiritual communion”. Fr Jonathan Jong provides some background to this idea.
We are, most of us, going to mass rather infrequently now: we do not know when we will next receive communion in the usual way. In this time and under these circumstances, we hear much talk of the “spiritual communion” to which we still have access. Perhaps it is too obvious to mention, but the relationship between infrequent communion and spiritual communion goes back many centuries.
Like so many things, the frequency of celebrations of the eucharist has fluctuated over the Church’s history. Some claim—on the basis of Acts 2.46—that the first Christians celebrated the eucharist daily, but this is almost certainly a misreading of the text. We can be more certain, however, of an established pattern of weekly celebrations by the second century, “on the Lord’s day” as the Didache has it [1]. By the third century, there is testimony of Christians receiving communion more frequently. Tertullian (d. ~240), for example, mentions participation in the eucharist on “station days”, which were ancient fasts usually on Wednesdays and Fridays [2]. Around the same time, Cyprian (d. 258) even mentions receiving the eucharist daily [3]. What is less clear is whether the Eucharist was celebrated daily, or whether the faithful receive communion outside of the Mass (i.e., reserved sacrament). It is also unclear how geographically widespread this practice was, though there was sure to be regional variation.
Matters shifted after Constantine. The new policy of toleration followed by encouragement led to the rapid growth of the Church, which by sociological necessity meant that there were increasingly many nominal Christians or at least Christians who would be nominal if not properly catechised. Naturally, preachers felt the need to exhort their flocks to prepare for holy communion, including morally. After all, the sacrament is something to be approached with reverence, as “a sacrifice, at which the very Angels tremble” as John Chrysostom put it: therefore, Christians had to “render [themselves] worthy to partake” [4]. The unintended consequence of this—and it is unintended: Chrysostom is clear that he does not want to discourage communion—is that many people refrained from receiving communion, even though they still attended eucharistic services. Chrysostom, among others, complained about the new norm of noncommunicating masses [5], but their stern warnings against receiving communion unworthily is almost certainly causally responsible for this state of affairs.
Also at this time—and seemingly paradoxically—celebrations of the eucharist proliferated in frequency. Daily celebrations of the mass were now more common, especially in various parts of Italy, Spain, and North Africa: Basil (d. 379), Chrysostom (d. 407), Jerome (d. 420), Augustine (d. 430), and Cyril (d. 444), all mention daily or nearly daily eucharists [6]. This is an odd situation: there were increasingly many masses to attend, but many of those in attendance did not receive. For them, the sacrament was something to be gazed upon and adored.
By the ninth century, the situation had become quite dire. In 813, the Council of Tours found it necessary to decree that the faithful must receive communion at least thrice annually. By the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, the Church conceded that once a year—at Easter—would suffice. The period covering the ninth to thirteenth centuries was also a fertile one for eucharistic theology, and some of the developments likely contributed—again, unwittingly—to the the laity’s reluctance to receive communion.
Paschasius Radbertus’s (d. 865) De Corpore et Sanguine Domini is widely considered the first major treatise on eucharistic theology, defending the realist view that the consecrated bread and wine are really Christ’s body and blood, the same body (and blood) “born of Mary”. Ratramnus (d. 868) begged to differ in another work of the same name, addressed to the same patron, arguing that the consecrated elements serve as a remembrance of Christ but were not themselves Christ’s body and blood. Premonitions of things to come. Radbertus’s position ends up triumphant, of course: besides telling the faithful that they had to receive communion at least once a year, Lateran IV also clarified what it is that they are receiving. In the very first canon of the council, it says:
Jesus Christ, whose body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the forms of bread and wine; the bread being changed by divine power into the body, and the wine into the blood
The word for “changed” was transsubstantiatio.
The doctrine of the real presence is a double edged sword as it pertains to the frequency of receiving communion. On one hand, realism about the eucharist might encourage frequent communion: surely, it is a great good to be able to receive Christ’s own body and blood. Historians don’t think this happened much. Rather, the reverence the doctrine of the real presence appropriately instils seems to have dissuaded people further from receiving communion, lest their sinfulness was an affront to Christ himself, whose body and blood they were invited to consume. That is, Chrysostom’s dilemma returns: it finds itself even in Thomas Aquinas, who both recommends the benefits of receiving communion frequently and recommends that it be approached “with great reverence and devotion”. As you might expect, Aquinas explicitly draws out the inference that as many people lack those dispositions “it is not expedient for all to approach this sacrament every day; but they should do so as often as they find themselves properly disposed” (ST III.80.10). this would prove to be rather infrequent.
There are also sociological changes to the priesthood that might have had a hand in all this. From around the seventh century, it became common for monks to also be ordained priests. Soon thereafter, monk-priests began regularly saying votive masses, particularly for wealthy patrons who would pay for such things. This socioeconomic innovation led to liturgical and theological innovations. Private masses became more common, in which priests said mass with no-one else (or only a server) present: this degraded the role of the laity in eucharistic celebration, who were now seen as superfluous. It is not wrong to think even now that priests say or sing the mass “on behalf” of the laity, but this way of thinking neglects the fact that the priest is called out from the laity and that both priest and laity together celebrate the mass. The modern language of priest as president at the eucharist rather than celebrant is a good corrective. In the medieval church, the priest not only said the mass on behalf of the laity but also received communion in the same representative capacity. He certainly partook of the chalice for the laity, who generally only received the host; but very often he received both elements for the laity, who received very rarely indeed.
This brings us to talk of “spiritual communion”. This comes from Peter Lombard’s (d. 1160) distinction between two modes of receiving the consecrated elements: sacramentally and spiritually. In his Sentences (IV.8), Lombard says that the (morally) good receive spiritually: that is, they receive Christ’s mystical body, and are thereby united with him. The wicked, on the other hand, receive only sacramentally: that is, as a sign. Lombard does not intend to denigrate signs, but the way the distinction is made can be—and probably was—interpreted as prioritising spiritual communion over sacramental communion. And if there was a way to achieve spiritual communion without sacramental communion, then there is no significant cost to abstaining from the sacrament; given the risk of receiving it unworthily, perhaps it was best to say private prayers instead during mass, only looking up to adore Christ’s body and blood when the host and chalice are elevated and a bell is rung. It is no wonder then that the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament took the late medieval church by storm: the solemnity of Corpus Christi was instituted in 1264. The laity received neither in their hands nor on their tongues now, but through their eyes.
To understand what it means to receive communion spiritually but not sacramentally, it might pay to consider another distinction that is being developed at this time between sacramentum (sign) and res (thing). Nowadays, we might talk of the signifier and the signjfied. This distinction allows us to see not two but three aspects to the eucharist. First, the sacramentum tantum is that which is sign only: that is, the bread and wine. Second, the res tantum is that which is signified only, without also being a sign for anything else: that is, union with Christ. Union with Christ or incorporation into his mystical body, the Church, is the ultimate fruit of the eucharist. Third—and this is the real medieval innovation, as a response to the Berengarian controversy [7]—is the res et sacramentum, which is both a sign and a thing signified: this is, of course, the true body and blood of Christ. Christ’s body and blood signify his mystical body—the Church—and are in turn signified by bread and wine.
Ideally, a communicant receives all three: the bread and wine, under which is Christ’s true body and blood, which effects union with him. But this is not always so. Some people fail to receive the res tantum, though they certainly receive the sign and that which lies beneath it, the body and blood of Christ. Some people fail to receive even the sign, or rather fail to receive the sign as sign. In this case, the bread and wine are still—objectively, as we say—signs of the body and blood of Christ; and indeed, the body and blood of Christ are still present in them. But some people fail to receive the bread and wine qua the body and blood of Christ, and consequently fail to receive its fruits, union with Christ. The obvious example here is a nonbeliever, but medieval theologians also had another favourite test case: mice. When a mouse consumes consecrated bread, the bread itself remains a sign of Christ’s body, which is indeed still present: but the mouse does not receive the bread sacramentally, only accidentally.
The most interesting case for our purposes is what happens when we skip the res et sacramentum, the true body and blood of Christ. This is the situation in which many of us find ourselves: we are unable to attend mass, and therefore unable to consume the consecrated bread and wine under which the body and blood of Christ are “contained” [8]. If we can “receive” anything at all, it is—through our eyes—the visible signs, the bread and wine that signify Christ’s true body and blood. This is reception after a fashion [9]. In receiving the sign visually, we do not receive Christ’s body and blood at all, as Christ is present in the sacrament invisibly. Christ’s body and blood are present as substances in the bread and wine, and substances are not things received by the senses. But perhaps we can receive something else that is also invisible, and that is the res tantum, union with Christ’s mystical body. We do this not by sight, but by desire [10].
By the Middle Ages, the idea of receiving sacraments by desire had already been established, especially in the context of baptism. The classic case is of the catechumen who dies before they could be baptised. In such cases, the person clearly desires baptism—she is actively preparing for it—but this desire is thwarted. If so, the effects of the sacrament are not withheld from her. In ST III.80, Aquinas applies this principle to the eucharist too. As with the sign and the thing before, the ideal scenario is one in which the Christian receives the eucharist both spiritually and sacramentally. And when she receives only spiritually, it is ideally as preparation for receiving sacramentally: “some eat this sacrament spiritually ere they receive it sacramentally” (ST III.80.1). This makes intuitive sense, with desire preceding consummation in other cases too. As with baptism, she receives some of the benefits of the sacrament by desire: but there is more to be had. It is difficult to say what this means, and I cannot help but think that even Aquinas’s account is crudely quantitative when he says that “grace is increased” when one receives the sacrament by eating: the notion that “spiritual life perfected” is more seemly, but perhaps only because it is vague (ST III.79.1). Far be it from me to say that we can do better, but we might consider the other ways in which our eucharistic gatherings signify that res tantum, as well as the other things that our usual practice signify. Christ’s body and blood, which we receive under the species of the bread and wine, signify his mystical body, the Church: so do our gatherings as the Church Militant, looking forward together to a more perfect union with one another and with Christ. The centrality of eating and drinking in Christian practice also speaks of the goodness of creation and, in particular, of our corporeality: there may never have been a cultural moment when it has been as important to celebrate physicality, what with trends toward spending more and more time “online”. The ability to connect with each other over the Internet is, right now, a blessing: but, like receiving the sacrament spiritually—through seeing and not eating—there is more to be had.
All of which is to say that the witness of the Church has almost always been to explicitly recommend receiving communion in person and by eating, and to do so frequently. That infrequent communion was the norm for a very long time is regrettable, and we ought not return to such a practice. What to do about concerns over receiving unworthily is a topic for another day, and has much to do with the eucharist as medicine: this description is hardly new to Pope Francis [11], coming as early as Ignatius of Antioch [12] and picked up by Aquinas too. In other words, our current situation is indeed lamentable, but even so grace is not denied to us insofar as we still have the ability to desire the union with Christ that the sacrament provides. It is with both sorrow and comfort then that we should proceed during these times: a fitting combination of feelings, it seems to me, for Lent in these final days before Easter.
See also Acts 20.7; Pliny the Younger’s Epistle 10.96 to Trajan (ca. 115); Justin Martyr’s First Apology, 67 (ca. 155).
On Prayer, 19. There is ambiguity about what Tertullian means here, whether the sacrament is celebrated and received on station days, or received only from a eucharist previously celebrated. Certainly, the practice of reserving the sacrament for distribution and consumption later (and elsewhere) had by then been established (cf. Tertullianus Ad uxorem, 2.5).
e.g., Letter to Lucinius, 6.
e.g., Homily 17 on Hebrews.
For sources see Taft (1982) and Callam (1984), below.
The earliest use of this language is probably in Anselm of Laon’s (d. 1117) Sentences, but the idea exists already in Lanfranc (d. 1089), Guitmond (d. 1095), and Alger of Liège (d. 1131), who responded directly to Berengarius (d. 1088).
Of course for Christ to be “contained” under the bread and wine is not to say that Christ is physically located on the altar and thereby limited to this location. Aquinas could not be more emphatic on this point: “Christ's body is not in this sacrament as in a place” (ST III.76.5).
There are several ways to talk about this. Here I use the language of “receiving” by the eyes as opposed to by eating. In his commentary on Peter Lombard’s Sentences, Alexander of Hales distinguishes between eating by taste (manducatio per gustum) and eating by sight (manducatio per visum). The use of “eating” may have the benefit of being obviously metaphorical in one case. Aquinas also distinguishes between kinds of eating, viz., eating sacramentally v. spiritually (ST III.80.1).
Spiritual communion is sometimes called “ocular communion”. Whatever the historical merits of the term, it is theologically ill-fitting.
Evangelii Gaudium, 47.
Further reading
Hardon, J. A. (1955). Historical antecedents of St Pius X’s decree on frequent communion. Theological Studies, 16, 493-532.
Callam, D. (1984). The frequency of mass in the Latin church ca. 400. Theological Studies, 45(4), 613-650.
Taft, R. (1982). The frequency of the eucharist throughout history. In M. Collins and D. Power, Can we always celebrate the Eucharist? Concilium, 152(2), 13-
