The code did, however, make a slight concession to sick people who wanted to receive Holy Communion. Note that under the former code, even medicine was considered to break the Eucharistic fast! But that changed in , when Pope Pius XII rewrote the rules so that taking water and medicine did not count.
This was a big step forward in reforming the law on fasting before Holy Communion. Many people who previously would have been unable to receive the Eucharist think of young children and pregnant women who really needed a drink of water! A few years later, Pius XII changed the law even more radically, reducing the time-period of the fast.
Instead of fasting from midnight of the preceding night, all those who wanted to receive the Eucharist now needed to fast for only three hours in advance. In , Pope Paul VI took it even further. The three-hour fast was further reduced to only one hour. The law was relaxed even further for sick persons in , when the Sacred Congregation of the Sacraments today the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments issued an instruction with the approval of Paul VI.
Now sick persons including sick priests , elderly people who were homebound or in nursing homes, and those who cared for them, needed only to fast for 15 minutes before receiving the Eucharist. We can see that the reality of the practical difficulty often involved in long fasts for such persons was understood and acknowledged.
The first paragraph lays out the norm: whoever is to receive the Eucharist is to fast for at least one hour before Communion from all food and drink, with the sole exception of water and medicine c. The one-hour fast applies to priests as well, but those priests who celebrate Mass two or three times may take something—food or drink—before the second or third Mass, even when the interval between Masses is less than an hour c.
What a difference from the law that was in force only a century ago! By now it should be clear that the Church gradually changed its traditional rules to accommodate Catholics in the various sorts of circumstances that made following the earlier law so difficult.
The Church is balancing the need to approach Holy Communion with reverence, with the desire to allow its members to receive Communion even in difficult physical circumstances. It could be that these Catholics are mentally equating fasting and dieting , and they wrongly conclude that since coffee and tea have no calories, they are the equivalent of water.
Your coffee or tea may be cheap and contain no sugar or cream, but that does not mean you can drink it less than an hour before receiving the Eucharist, unless you fit into one of the categories mentioned in the second or third paragraph of canon So now Anna has the complete answer to her question, with some historical context thrown in for good measure.
The indescribable spiritual benefits derived from our reception of Christ in the Eucharist are certainly worth a brief fast from food or drink! And while the law has become very lenient and easy to follow, it is still a law that Catholics must obey. Why is Google hiding the posts on this website in its search results?
Reference is made to Canons through The key canon for this question is No. It states, "A person who has already received the Most Holy Eucharist can receive it a second time on the same day only within the eucharistic celebration in which the person participates, without prejudice to the prescript of can.
There was a doubt regarding the meaning of the word iterum which can mean either "again" or "a second time" in Canon The Holy See's body for authentically interpreting laws decided that it meant "a second time. Thus, a Catholic may receive Communion a second time but only during a Mass. Outside of Mass a second or even third Communion may only be received as viaticum for the dying. Religious Catalogue. See of Peter. Daily Readings. Seasons and Feast Days. Prayer Requests. Practice Of The Faith.
Common Questions On Liturgical Norms. Fasting Before Mass. The discipline of fasting before communion has a long history, as Pope Pius XII states in his apostolic constitution, "Christus Dominus": "From the very earliest time the custom was observed of administering the Eucharist to the faithful who were fasting.
In the above-mentioned constitution the Pope, while stressing the importance of the fast, affirmed: "It should nevertheless be noted that the times in which we live and their peculiar conditions have brought many modifications in the habits of society and in the activities of common life. Except in the case of viaticum, one should fast for an hour before both receptions of Communion.
Irondale, AL viewer ewtn. Last of all, fasting before Mass is an image of the Eucharistic stories in the Gospels, specifically the Feeding of the Five Thousand.
After a long day the disciples urged Jesus to send the crowd away so that they could buy food for themselves to eat. Sebastian Duda Shuttertstock. The discipline highlights our need to be hungry for the Eucharistic bread we eat. Tags: Liturgy Sacraments. Support Aleteia! Here are some numbers: 20 million users around the world read Aleteia.
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