Months ago, I noticed one of our Eucharistic ministers turning down the wine at the altar. She was pregnant. I didn’t think anything of it until I noticed weeks later that two other women, also pregnant, did not. Does turning down the wine, nay the Blood of Christ, make one less faithful than the other?

Sincerely,

M.T. Weinglass

First the short answer: No. It does not make her any less faithful. 

Let me compliment you on your self correction. When people talk about the “wine” at Mass, I want to cringe. I prefer hearing fingernails scraping across a chalk board. People come up to me and say, “Father. I didn’t get any of the wine today.” To which I respond, “Neither did I.” By that I mean there was no wine present in the cup, only the precious Body and Blood of the Lord.  

For  years I was the pastor of one of the most down and out parishes in Chicago, in one of Chicago’s many skid rows.

(For you youngsters out there, a “skid row” is a neighborhood where winos and liberal do-gooders congregate.  Get used to the term, it may come in handy once again.) 

Many were the Masses during which an unfamiliar visitor would come up and chug the chalice. It was there that I understood why the Church had limited the reception of Communion to the sacred host alone, reserving the cup for the clergy for about a thousand years, give or take.

We could do this because we believe in the doctrine of concomitance. Bread doesn’t become the Body of Christ and wine doesn’t become His Blood. The whole Christ — Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity — is contained in the host and in the cup. 

Let me say this again. 

The whole Christ is made present and given to us in two forms, the form of bread and the form of wine. He who eats the host consumes the Body and Blood of Christ. He who drinks from the cup consumes the Body and Blood of Christ. Both are both!!!  

One more time..........: 

in Holy Communion, we take THE WHOLE CHRIST, BODY, BLOOD, SOUL AND DIVINITY into our very being.  

You don’t get more of God, depending on the size of the communion wafer, or the quantity of wine consecrated in the chalice. I am making a bit of a fuss about this, but it is important.

The devil seems to know all about this. I remember the story told me by a priest exorcist about a most unusual case he’d had. 

A woman had become possessed by using a Ouija board, a very dangerous thing. She had not eaten for a month and it took four people to hold her down. Still, the exorcist was not quite sure that her difficulties were not merely natural and psychological. He finished his prayer and turned to go. 

He had brought the Blessed Sacrament with him in a pyx (the little container for the Eucharistic wafer. It usually looks like a small pocket watch.)  

As he left the room, the afflicted person called out to him, “I want what you have.” 

He asked “What do I have?” 

She, or rather the demon who had possessed her, said. “You have the Blood..... and the Body of Christ!”

The exorcist had only the consecrated communion Host with him, but the unearthly voice that had taunted him had emphasized the word “blood.” He knew then that it was not the young woman speaking, but something evil and real. He returned to prayer and cast the demon out. 

The young woman came to and said, “Where am I?” She had no memory of the past month at all! Then she said, “Oh, I’m so hungry!” The exorcist gave her Holy Communion and then she had the first good meal she’d eaten in a month. 

It seems the devil is a very good theologian. He tried to impress the exorcist with his knowledge of a rather obscure Catholic teaching, about which this young  woman most certainly had no knowledge, but, as it usually is, the demon’s pride is his great weakness, and in this case, it was his undoing.

You receive no more of Christ if you receive under both forms or only one form. 

So why do we receive under both forms?  

The sacraments speak to our humanity on every level. On the deepest level, the whole Christ — body, blood, soul and divinity —  enters into communion with weak human beings. Still, the Lord who knows our nature wanted His Body and Blood to echo the great Biblical themes of bread and wine. “My Flesh is true food and My Blood, true drink.” (Jn. 6:55) 

The founders of Reformed Protestantism, 500 years ago, said that bread and wine were only symbolic. The Catholic Church has always said that they were symbolic, but they are also infinitely more. They are real in the fullest possible sense. In their symbolism they speak to the weakness of our nature. We see bread and wine and are reminded of flesh and blood. That is the symbolism Jesus intended at the Last Supper.

So, on the level of symbolism, it is a fuller symbol to take both the cup and the host, but it not necessarily better. If that communion minister was abstaining because of the effects of wine, which remain even after the consecration, she was probably doing it for the sake of love, love for her unborn child, though I hardly think that little bit can hurt. Still, love is what love is, no?  

If a person has a cold, perhaps it is better to refrain from the cup, lest we infect our brethren. I have heard people piously say that God would never allow a person to be made sick by drinking from the chalice. Have they noticed the nails in the hands portrayed on the Crucifix? Jesus, Son of God, Son of Mary, fully human, fully divine submitted to nature in His humanity. If His blood was shed by sinful flesh, I am not so sure that my sinful flesh can’t give another person a cold at Communion. In that case it may be an act of love, and thus better, to refuse the Sacred Chalice.

We don’t go to Mass just to receive. We go to Mass to make sacrifice, to unite our life’s small sacrifices with His; perfect and infinite. We go to Mass to give. 

When I hear some young, poorly catechized communicant say “I didn’t get the wine.” It breaks my heart. It would be better to restrict the cup once again if we cannot teach those who receive what they are receiving. 

I grieve to think of the abuses I’ve seen in my long years of priestly service, the swilling of the cup by those who think they are just having a free morning jolt, the swishing around with fingers as people dip their host in the cup (SOMETHING THAT IS ABSOLUTELY FORBIDDEN), the dripping of the Precious Blood on floors, to be trod on by the clueless. 

Unless we can re-instill the sense of the sacred, we should think of going back to the thousand year practice of limiting the reception of the Body and Blood of the Lord to the form of bread alone. Bread and wine is the fuller symbol, but if the symbol is not understood and not reverenced, it is no symbol at all. It is merely a desecration. 

“Therefore, whoever eats the Bread or drinks the Cup of the Lord unworthily is guilty of sinning against the Body and Blood of the Lord.... whoever eats and drinks without discerning eats and drinks to his own condemnation.” 1Cor. 11:27-29.  

As you’ve  read above, “The devils also believe, and tremble!” (James 2:19) 

Perhaps a little more trembling on our part might be a good idea.

Yours,

Rev. Know-It-All