COMMUNION UNDER ONE KIND.
Our Savior gave communion under both forms of bread and wine to His
Apostles at the last Supper. Officiating Bishops and Priests are always
required, except on Good Friday, to communicate under both kinds. But even
the clergy of every rank, including the Pope, receive only of the
consecrated bread unless when they celebrate Mass.
The Church teaches that Christ is contained whole and entire under each
species; so that whoever communicates under the form of bread _or_ of wine
receives not a mutilated Sacrament or a divided Savior, but shares in the
whole Sacrament as fully as if he participated in both forms. Hence, the
layman who receives the consecrated Bread partakes as copiously of the
body and blood of Christ as the officiating Priest who receives both
consecrated elements.
Our Lord says: “I am the living bread which came down from Heaven. If any
man eat of this bread, he shall live forever; and the bread which I will
give is My flesh, for the life of the world.... He that eateth Me the same
also shall live by Me. He that eateth this bread shall live forever.”(377)
From this passage it is evident that whoever partakes of the form of bread
partakes of the living flesh of Jesus Christ, which is inseparable from
His blood, and which, being now in a glorious state, cannot be divided;
for, “Christ rising from the dead, dieth now no more.”(378) Our Lord, in
His words quoted, makes no reference to the sacramental cup, but only to
the Eucharistic bread, to which He ascribes all the efficacy which is
attached to communion under both kinds, viz., union with Him, spiritual
life, eternal salvation.
St. Paul, writing to the Corinthians, says: “Whosoever shall eat this
bread, _or_ drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of
the body _and_ of the blood of the Lord.”(379) The Apostle here plainly
declares that, by an unworthy participation in the Lord’s Supper, under
the form of either bread or wine, we profane both the body and the blood
of Christ. How could this be so, unless Christ is entirely contained under
each species? So forcibly, indeed, did the Apostle assert the Catholic
doctrine that the Protestant translators have perverted the text by
rendering it: “Whosoever shall eat this bread _and_ drink the chalice,”
substituting _and_ for _or_, in contradiction to the Greek original, of
which the Catholic version is an exact translation.
It is also the received doctrine of the Fathers that the Eucharist is
contained in all its integrity either in the consecrated bread or in the
chalice. St. Augustine, who may be taken as a sample of the rest, says
that “each one receives Christ the Lord _entire_ under each
particle.”(380)
Luther himself, even after his revolt, was so clearly convinced of this
truth that he was an uncompromising advocate of communion under one kind.
“If any Council,” he says, “should decree or permit both species, we would
by no means acquiesce; but, in spite of the Council and its statute, we
would use one form, or neither, and never both.”(381)
Leibnitz, the eminent Protestant divine, observes: “_It cannot be denied_
that Christ is received entire by _virtue_ of concomitance, under each
species; nor is His flesh separated from His blood.”(382)
As the same virtue is contained in the Sacrament, whether administered in
one or both forms, the faithful gain nothing by receiving under both
kinds, and lose nothing by receiving under one form. Consequently, we
nowhere find our Savior requiring the communion to be administered to the
faithful under both forms; but He has left this matter to be regulated by
the wisdom and discretion of the Church, as He has done with regard to the
manner of administering Baptism.
Our Redeemer, it is true, has said: “Drink ye all of this.” But it should
be remembered that these words were addressed not to the people at large,
but only to the Apostles, who alone were also commanded, on the same
occasion, to consecrate His body and blood in remembrance of Him. Now we
have no more right to infer that the faithful are obliged to drink of the
cup, because the Apostles were commanded to drink of it, than we have to
suppose that the laity are required or allowed to consecrate the bread and
wine, because the power of doing so was at the last Supper conferred on
the Apostles.
It is true also that our Lord said to the people: “Unless ye eat the flesh
of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye shall not have life in you.”
But this command is literally fulfilled by the laity when they partake of
the consecrated bread, which, as we have seen, contains Christ the Lord in
all His integrity. Hence, if our Savior has said: “Whoso eateth My flesh,
and drinketh My blood, hath everlasting life,” He has also said: “The
bread which I will give is My flesh, for the life of the world.”
It seems to me that the charge of withholding the cup comes with very bad
grace from Protestant teachers, who destroy the whole intrinsic virtue of
the Sacrament by giving to their followers nothing but bread and wine. The
difference between them and us lies in this—that under one form we give
the _substance_, while they under two forms confessedly give only the
_shadow_.
In examining the history of the Church on the subject we find that up to
the twelfth century communion was sometimes distributed in one form,
sometimes in another, commonly in both.
First—St. Luke tells us that the converts of Jerusalem “were persevering
in the doctrine of the Apostles, and in the communion of bread (as the
Eucharist was sometimes familiarly called), and in prayer.”(383) Again he
speaks of the Christian disciples assembled at Troas on the Lord’s day,
“to break bread.”(384) We are led to conclude from these passages that the
Apostles sometimes distributed the communion in the form of bread alone,
as no reference is made to the cup.
It was certainly the custom to carry to the sick only the consecrated
Host. Surely if there is any period of life when nothing should be
neglected which conduces to salvation it is the time of approaching death.
Eusebius tells us that the aged Serapion received only the Sacred Bread at
the hands of the Priest. In the _Life_ of St. Ambrose we are told that in
his last illness the consecrated Host alone was given to Him.
The Christians in time of persecution, confessors of the faith confined in
prison, travellers on their journey, soldiers before engaging in battle
and hermits living in the desert were permitted to keep with them and to
fortify themselves with the consecrated Bread—as Tertullian, Cyprian,
Basil, Ambrose and other Fathers of the Church testify.
Moreover, the Mass of the _Presanctified_, celebrated in the Latin church
on Good Friday only, and in the Greek church on every day in Lent, except
Saturdays and Sundays, the officiating Priest receives the consecrated
Bread alone.(385)
In all these instances the communicants never doubted that they received
the Lord’s Supper in its integrity. Surely the conscientious guides of the
faith would sooner withhold altogether the Sacred Host from their flocks
than permit them to partake of a mutilated Sacrament.
Second—In the primitive days of the Church the Holy Communion used to be
imparted to infants, but only in the form of wine. The Priest dipped his
finger in the consecrated chalice and gave it to be sucked by the infant.
This custom prevails to this day among the schismatic Christians of all
Oriental rites. In some instances the Sacred Host, saturated in the cup,
is given to the child.(386)
Third—Public Communion was, indeed, usually administered in the first ages
under both forms. The faithful, however, had the privilege of dispensing
with the cup and of partaking only of the bread until the time of Pope
Gelasius, in the fifth century, when this general, but hitherto optional,
practice of receiving under both kinds was enforced as a law for the
following reason:
The Manichean sect abstained from the cup on the erroneous assumption that
the use of wine was sinful. Pope Gelasius, in order to detect and condemn
the error of those sectaries, left it no longer optional with the faithful
to receive under one or both forms, but ordained that all should
communicate under both kinds.
This law continued in force for several ages, but towards the thirteenth
century, for various causes, it had gradually grown into disuse, with the
tacit approval of the Church. The Council of Constance, which convened in
1414, established a law requiring the faithful to communicate under the
form of bread only; and in taking this step, the Council was actuated both
by reasons of propriety and of religion.
The wide-spread diffusion of Christianity throughout the world had
rendered it very difficult to supply all the faithful with the consecrated
wine. Such inconvenience is scarcely felt by Protestant communicants,
whose numbers are limited and who ordinarily communicate only on certain
Sundays of each month. The Catholics of the world, on the contrary, number
about three hundred millions; and as communion is administered to some of
the faithful almost every day in most of our churches and chapels, and as
the annual communions in every parish church are generally at least twice
as numerous as its aggregate Catholic population, the sum total of annual
communions throughout the globe may be estimated in round numbers at not
less than five hundred millions. What effort would be required to procure
altar-wine for such a multitude? In my missionary journeys through North
Carolina I have often found it no easy task to provide for the celebration
of Mass a sufficiency of pure wine, which is essential for the validity of
the sacrifice. This embarrassment would be increased beyond measure if the
cup had to be extended to the laity, and still more in the coal regions,
where the cultivation of the grape is unknown and where imported wine is
exclusively used.(387)
It would be very distasteful, besides, for so many communicants to drink
successively out of the same chalice, which would be unavoidable if the
Sacrament were administered in both forms. In our larger churches, where
communion is distributed every Sunday to hundreds, there would be great
danger of spilling a portion of the consecrated chalice and of thus
exposing it to profanation.
But above all, as the Church in the fifth century, through her chief
Pastor, Gelasius, enforced the use of the cup to expose and reprobate the
error of the Manichees, who imagined that the use of wine was sinful; so
in the fifteenth century she withdrew the cup to condemn the novelties of
the Calixtines, who taught that the consecrated wine was necessary for a
valid communion. Should circumstances ever justify or demand a change from
the present discipline the Church will not hesitate to restore the cup to
the laity.