galea salutis

So, how did we get to the current situation? The simple answer: confusion. Since the days of the Second Vatican Council, many ideas and many documents have come out. It is a struggle to sift through it all. Satan was certainly thrilled with this opportunity and raised up agents who, though fully well-intending, propagated a false understanding of the Council, the Church and the Liturgy. These ideas have had the convenience and ease of transmission of modern media, proclaiming lies and infidelity faster and louder than documents of law from the pillar of truth, the Church.

So we’re not doing exactly what we should be, what’s the big deal? Well, quite honestly, the Only big deal is the big deal. We profess that the object of our worship, the summit of the universe, God himself, is present in the Sacred Species. If we are not vigilant and dutifully careful in regard to the Blessed Sacrament, what will we be attentive to? The Eucharist is the greatest gift we have, Christ our Savior. It is justice for us to ensure that every precaution is taken to avoid profanation and irreverence, risks to which distributing Communion under both kinds, unfortunately, lends itself. Therefore, the Church has stated that the advantages and risks must be judged to determine fitting cases for “taking the risks.” The Church says that this judge is the diocesan bishop. This is why Sacramentali Communione and Liturgicae Instaurationes define that the permission he grants is to be “Specfic.”

The presumption here is an important distinction. The ‘communion’ we share is with Christ and, through Him, the Church. However, it is only through Him that true communion is reached. One of symbols of the Communion procession is the unity of the people gathered together, however, the purpose and reality of the procession is union with Christ. We must never over-emphasize a symbol to the detriment of the reality. In the Sacraments, Christ choose material symbols to convey supernatural reality. These symbols point to the true reality; they are not ends in themselves. I get the impression from many lay people that they feel ‘entitled’ to received Communion under both species and would be very upset (if not sinfully angry) if they did not get the ‘full’ deal. These reflects a lack of catechesis and an over-emphasis on the symbol, an over-emphasis which has crippled their understanding of the reality.

There is also a great need for clarity about the missions of the laity and clergy. More than a few are confused about their mission in the world. The Church, entrust with teaching, has no alternative but to shed her light on the subject. Our Lord’s commands to “Take and eat” and “Take and drink” and “Do this in memory of me” were spoken to the first bishops of the Church. The bishops and the priests they have ordained are bound to receive both kinds to complete the sacrifice Christ instituted. As the Catechism says in No 1341,

The command of Jesus to repeat his actions and words “until he comes” does not only ask us to remember Jesus and what he did. It is directed at the liturgical celebration, by the apostles and their successors, of the memorial of Christ, of his life, of his death, of his Resurrection, and of his intercession in the presence of the Father.

The laity have no such requirement. Their participation is not as a priest. The Catechism explains the laity’s side in 1384,

The Lord addressess an invitation to us, urging us to receive him in the sacrament of the Eucharist: “Truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.”

This is an invitation to be nourished by the Sacrament, not “to repeat his actions and words” (CCC 1341). Christ is fully present under one species, as the Compendium states:

284. Does the breaking of the bread divide Christ?
The breaking of the bread does not divide Christ. He is present whole and entire in each of the eucharistic species and in each of their parts.

Therefore, our Lord’s invitation in John is not a mandate to receive both kinds, for in receiving Him under one form is to receive Him “whole and entire” “Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity.” The Council of Trent makes this very clear in Chapter One of Section XXI

For although Christ, the Lord, in the Last Supper, institued and delivered to the Apostles this venerable sacrament in the species of bread and wine, not therefore do that institution and delivery tend thereunto, that all the faithful of Christ be bound, by the institution of the Lord, to receive both species.

And the first Canon from “On Communion Under Both Species and On the Communion of Infants”

If anyone saith that by the precept of God, or by necessity of salvation, all and each of the faithful of Christ ought to receive both species of the most holy Sacrament of the Eucharist; let him be anathema.

Lest anyone doubt the authorty or relevance of these quotations, the Second Vatican Council, in Sacrosanctum Concilium declared that they still “remain intact” in No 55. For while the priest has been called to offer the Body and Blood of our Lord to the Father for us, the laity have the mission to offer the body of the Christ, the Church, to the world. Our faith and the mission of the laity is not something the pertains to one hour of our lives a week, but encompasses our whole life. It is this over-emphasis on the details that leads us away from the true meaning of the Sacrament and begins to affect the way we encounter God and live our faith. That is why the Church regulates the details.