The importance of the sacraments, and our need to receive them
Catholics today are forced to decide where they will and won't receive the sacraments. But is it rational or "emotional" to think that we need to receive them?
The dripping blood our only drink,
The bloody flesh our only food:
In spite of which we like to think
That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood.
T.S. Eliot, East Coker
Contents
The decision facing all Catholics in our day
The sacraments vs. the Faith?
St Thomas Aquinas and our need for visible signs
Why Christ established the Holy Eucharist
The way in which the sacraments are necessary for salvation
Spiritual Communion vs. Actual Communion
Conclusion – “Dragging grace from God.”
Read Part II here:
The decision facing all Catholics in our day
At some point or another, every traditional Catholic reaches a decision that some set of Masses or priests are morally inaccessible to them, and that it is not the case that “any traditional Latin Mass will do.”
Most of the time, these conclusions are based on considerations of prudence and doctrine, rather than on the idea that the various other groups are non-Catholics.
In a crisis like ours, each Catholic needs to form his own conclusions on these matters, and to act on them. However, it is necessary that we be realistic about the consequences of such a decision, wherever one draws the line.
The more severely one thinks that we are restricted, the more important it is to be realistic about these consequences.
However, in a rush to decide which Masses we will and will not attend, it is possible to overlook some important points, and to fall into presumption and a situation of grave danger for ourselves, and our dependents.
The dichotomy of the sacraments vs. the Faith
Some believe that there is a dichotomy between the sacraments and the Faith – specifically defending, preserving and spreading the faith and doctrine.
Disagreeing with this framing of the issue can seem like evidence of compromise, and even of sacrificing the faith on the altar of a possibly “emotional” need for the sacraments.
Let’s be clear. It is indeed possible that a Catholic (or even many Catholics) may be left without easy access to the sacraments for a long time.
It is also true that an individual person’s desire or perceived need for the sacraments does not justify receiving Holy Communion under any and all circumstances.
It is also true that Masses offered by certain classes of priests, or in certain settings, can be morally inaccessible to Catholics.
In his book The Doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ According to the Principles of the Theology of St Thomas Aquinas, Abbé Anger writes:
“No-one, therefore, has the right to assist at a Mass or receive Holy Communion offered by priests who are excommunicate, heretic or schismatic. The Church has explicitly rejected them from her bosom and deprived them of their powers.
“Without doubt, these priests consecrate validly – for priests validly consecrated can never lose their priestly power and character.
“But since they have been excommunicated they have no right to celebrate in the name of that Holy Society which is the Church, nor to dispense her sacraments, particularly the sacrament which symbolizes the unity of the Church.”[1]
Contrary to certain Novus Ordo apologists, it is an established principle that we are bound to avoid communicatio in sacris with open heretics, schismatics and excommunicates.
There are also further reasons that would justify or require us holding ourselves back from attending Mass and receiving the sacraments.
But while there can indeed be no unity without the Faith, we must make sure that we do not treat “the Faith” as equivalent to “any religious thesis, doctrine, truth, conclusion or position.” They are not equivalent. Not every disagreement about non-dogmatic matters requires us to deprive ourselves of the sacraments.
We need to maintain the so-called “Catholic sense,” part of which is understanding that peace and unity amongst Catholics, especially at the altar, are precious goods which should be protected.
We should be reluctant to break even a practical unity with other Catholics, even if we hold that true communion remains. Indeed, Christ instituted the Holy Eucharist specifically for fostering and building this unity and communion.
We should not break actual communion ourselves, and we should only separate ourselves in a practical or prudential way from other Catholics when, for serious reasons, we are sure that we are obliged to do so. The alternative is running the risk of creating an actual schism, with ourselves on the wrong side.
There have been periods of history in which Catholics have had no choice but to stay at home – such as the English Reformation or anti-Christian Japan.
But we must recognise that in these terrible situations, most people lost the faith.
In order to consider this issue, and the dangers of being without the sacraments, let’s consider what St Thomas Aquinas says about external acts of religion.
Our need for the visible signs
In considering whether the virtue of religion can be said to have external acts, St Thomas writes:
“We pay God honour and reverence, not for His sake (because He is of Himself full of glory to which no creature can add anything), but for our own sake, because by the very fact that we revere and honour God, our mind is subjected to Him […]
“Now the human mind, in order to be united to God, needs to be guided by the sensible world, since ‘invisible things . . . are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made,’ as the Apostle says (Rm. 1:20).
“Wherefore in the Divine worship it is necessary to make use of corporeal things, that man’s mind may be aroused thereby, as by signs, to the spiritual acts by means of which he is united to God.”[2]
As a result, while internal acts are essential to the virtue of religion, and external acts are secondary and subordinate to these internal acts, they are nonetheless necessary and useful for us. They may not have been as necessary prior to the Fall (see III Q61 A2): but we are not living in a state prior to the Fall.
The chief among these external acts are the seven sacraments of the Church. These external acts also include the rites of the Church, by which these sacraments are administered.
St Thomas teaches that these sacraments are necessary for salvation. He explains this further, first quoting St Augustine:
“‘It is impossible to keep men together in one religious denomination, whether true or false, except they be united by means of visible signs or sacraments.’
“But it is necessary for salvation that men be united together in the name of the one true religion. Therefore sacraments are necessary for man’s salvation.”[3]
St Thomas gives three reasons for this necessity.
1. “[T]he condition of human nature which is such that it has to be led by things corporeal and sensible to things spiritual and intelligible.”[4]
God, in his providence and wisdom, provides for everything as its condition requires – and as such he “fittingly provides man with means of salvation, in the shape of corporeal and sensible signs that are called sacraments.”
2. “[T]he state of man who in sinning subjected himself by his affections to corporeal things.”[5]
St Thomas points out that a remedy or medicine should be applied in such a way as to reach the part of us that is affected by a disease. He then concludes:
“Consequently it was fitting that God should provide man with a spiritual medicine by means of certain corporeal signs; for if man were offered spiritual things without a veil, his mind being taken up with the material world would be unable to apply itself to them.”[6]
3. “[T]he fact that man is prone to direct his activity chiefly towards material things.”[7]
As a result, it is hard for us to be drawn away entirely from bodily things, and there is a bizarrely persistent tendency in man to fall into superstition, idolatry, devil-worship “and all manner of harmful action, consisting in sinful deeds.”[8]
To mitigate this, St Thomas says, “bodily exercise was offered to [man] in the sacraments,” by which we may be “trained” to avoid these dangers.
St Thomas summarises these three points:
“[T]hrough the institution of the sacraments man, consistently with his nature, is instructed through sensible things; he is humbled, through confessing that he is subject to corporeal things, seeing that he receives assistance through them: and he is even preserved from bodily hurt, by the healthy exercise of the sacraments.”[9]
Whilst acknowledging again that graces can be supplied without the sacraments or external rites, we must note that they are not supplied in these ways which are so fitting to our nature, and which dispose us towards virtue as described.
St Thomas teaches that while God’s grace is indeed a sufficient cause of salvation, we are given this grace in a way which is suitable to us. The grace of Christ’s Passion is “applied to man through the sacraments according to the Apostle [St Paul, Rm. 6.3],” and this is how it is supposed to be.
“Hence it is,” St Thomas says, “that man needs the sacraments, that he may obtain grace.”
Why did Christ establish the Holy Eucharist in particular?
The theologian Fr Emile Mersch SJ answers this question:
“The effect of the Eucharist, as of the other sacraments, is to unite us to the Church and thereby to Christ, and to give grace. The Eucharist does this in a different and much more perfect way than the other sacraments.”[10]
More could be said on why Christ instituted the Holy Eucharist and the Sacrifice of the Mass than can be said in this part. In this essay, we will primarily consider the Eucharist as the sacrament which Christ instituted as our daily bread.
Without food and drink, we die. Is it therefore necessary for salvation for us to receive the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist in Holy Communion?
Fr de Aldama SJ et al. state the following:
The sacrament of the Eucharist is not necessary with a necessity of means, neither actually nor in desire, in order to obtain salvation; but it is necessary with a moral necessity in the broad sense in order to persevere for a long time in the state of grace.[11]
What does this mean? Something is necessary with a “necessity of means” due to the nature of the end and the necessary thing in itself, rather than an external command to make use of it. Something is “morally necessary” when there is a great difficulty in attaining an end without it; and it is morally necessary “in the broad sense” when the difficulty can indeed be overcome, but only very rarely.
Based on all this, they summarise:
“[T]he Eucharist is morally necessary actually or in desire in order to obtain the capability of persevering for a long time, with moral necessity in the broad sense.”[12]
Why do de Aldama et al. talk of “desire”? St Thomas writes:
“Accordingly, before actual reception of [Holy Communion], a man can obtain salvation through the desire of receiving it, just as he can before Baptism through the desire of Baptism.”[13]
The idea of a “spiritual communion” – that one receives actual graces from God by desiring and begging him for the graces of a sacramental communion – is an ancient and venerated devotion, praised on many occasions by the Church, doctors and saints.
But if one can receive enough actual graces in this way to be persevere and be saved, then in what sense is it necessary to receive the actual sacrament of Holy Communion – or indeed of Baptism, or any of the other sacraments?
Spiritual Communion vs. Actual Communion
First, one does not desire what one refuses to attain when it is possible to do so. “Some eminent divines, like Suarez,” claims Mgr Joseph Pohle:
“… claim that the Eucharist is at least a relatively and morally necessary means of salvation, in the sense that no adult Catholic can sustain his spiritual, supernatural life if he voluntarily neglects to receive holy Communion for a long time.”[14]
Pohle continues:
“This view is supported by the solemn words which Christ spoke when He promised the Eucharist, by the helplessness and perversity of human nature, subject as it is to many and violent temptations, by the very nature of the Sacrament as the spiritual food and medicine of our souls, and by the daily experience of confessors.
“Several of these considerations furnish additional proofs for the wisdom of Pius X in fixing the age when children should be admitted to the Holy Table at about seven years.”[15]
It does not seem that someone who refuses to receive the actual sacrament when he can do so will benefit from a reception “by desire.” As Anger writes:
“[T]he prayer of a soul that neglects or abstains from the Holy Eucharist and then would seemingly drag from God graces and aids which God has already placed within his reach would hardly be acceptable, hardly worthy of being heard.”[16]
It may frequently be the case that what might appear to be “graces and aids which God has already placed within [our] reach” are actually morally inaccessible to us. But even if this is so, it does not follow that a reasonable appraisal of the importance of actual reception of the sacraments is an “emotional attachment” or as “individualistic,” as some might argue.
Next, the grace imparted through a spiritual communion depends upon the dispositions and fervour of the person. It is true that a person’s subjective dispositions may be such as to receive as much grace through a spiritual communion as they would receive in the actual reception of the sacrament.
But do we all really have such dispositions? Most men do not, and it does not seem to be a wise course to think of oneself, “I am not as the rest of men.” (Luke 18.11.) As St Paul said: “[H]e that thinketh himself to stand, let him take heed lest he fall.” (1 Cor. 10.12)
Further, whilst he acknowledges that “the effect of the sacrament can be secured by every man if he receive it in desire,” St Thomas also makes the following comment:
“Nevertheless sacramental eating is not without avail, because the actual receiving of the sacrament produces more fully the effect of the sacrament than does the desire thereof, as stated above of Baptism.”[17] (Emphasis added)
In the section to which he refers, St Thomas writes:
“[B]efore Baptism, Cornelius and others like him receive grace and virtues through their faith in Christ and their desire for Baptism, implicit or explicit: but afterwards when baptized, they receive a yet greater fulness of grace and virtues.”[18] (Emphasis added)
In the same question, talking still of Baptism, St Thomas writes:
“[W]hen an adult approaches Baptism, he does indeed receive the forgiveness of all his sins through his purpose of being baptized, but more perfectly through the actual reception of Baptism.”[19] (Emphasis added)
He also says of Holy Communion:
“Sinners suffer great loss in being kept back from receiving this sacrament, so that they are not better off on that account.”[20] (Emphasis added)
It is clear that St Thomas teaches that there is a difference between the actual reception of the sacraments and their reception “by desire.”
The spiritual writer Fr John G. Arintero OP also notes that while spiritual communions are a worthy practice, they only supply for the privation of sacramental grace “to a great extent” and that this extent depends on the love and desire of the person:
“The involuntary privation of sacramental Communion or the inability to receive it as often as we might wish to is supplanted to a great extent by spiritual Communion.”[21] (Emphasis added)
Pohle takes a much more cautious view than some express today on this matter:
“On the other hand, cases of necessity may arise (e. g. on a long sea voyage), in which a person would be dispensed from receiving Communion, and the sacramental graces of the Eucharist might be supplied by actual graces.”[22] (Emphasis added)
The objective superiority of sacramental communion is borne out in a short text by St Alphonsus Liguori, in which he notes that God manifested the value of sacramental and spiritual communions with gold and silver vessels:
“How pleasing these spiritual communions are to God, and the many graces which He bestows through their means, was manifested by our Lord Himself to Sister Paula Maresca, the foundress of the convent of St Catherine of Sienna in Naples, when (as it is related in her life) He showed her two precious vessels, the one of gold, the other of silver; He then told her that in the gold vessel He preserved her sacramental communions, and in the silver one her spiritual communions.”[23]
Dom Columba Marmion also tells us:
“[T]he most perfect participation in this divine mystery of the altar is Sacramental Communion.”[24]
Elsewhere, Marmion also writes:
“Sacramental Communion, the fruit of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, is for the soul the most certain means of remaining united to Jesus.”[25]
The Council of Trent itself taught the following:
“The holy council wishes indeed that at each mass the faithful who are present should communicate, not only in spiritual desire but also by the sacramental partaking of the Eucharist, that thereby they may derive from this most holy sacrifice a more abundant fruit.”[26]
Dom Gaspar Lefebvre refers to this teaching of Trent, and states clearly:
“Sacramental Communion is the supreme degree of participation in the holy Sacrifice.”[27]
As suggested by Pohle above, it was for these reasons – the efficacy and importance of actual reception of the sacraments – that Pope St Pius X re-established the practice of frequent and daily communion, and for this to be first received at younger ages. In Quam Singulari, the holy pope wrote about the effects of depriving children of Holy Communion:
“This practice of preventing the faithful from receiving on the plea of safeguarding the august Sacrament has been the cause of many evils.
“It happened that children in their innocence were forced away from the embrace of Christ and deprived of the food of their interior life; and from this it also happened that in their youth, destitute of this strong help, surrounded by so many temptations, they lost their innocence and fell into vicious habits even before tasting of the Sacred Mysteries.”[28]
St Pius X’s warning and encouragements would have little sense if he thought that spiritual communions were per se as efficient as actual communion.
On the contrary, the “many evils” mentioned are precisely what is entailed in being deprived of the Mass and the sacraments, whether for weighty or for trivial reasons.
As we have already noted, we all agree that some Masses must be avoided, but we must also realise that the deprivation of the sacraments, even for proper reasons, comes with serious risks and dangers.
Preliminary Conclusions
Abbé Anger provides a worthy summary of the issues discussed here:
“The needs of our soul: the necessity it is under of preserving friendship with God and union with the Mystical Body – such is the principle that ought to determine the frequency of our reception of Holy Communion.
“If such reception, as we order it, is not ensuring us an habitual state of grace, we are not receiving Holy Communion often enough. We need to receive it more frequently.
“If the Church has not expressly formulated this rule in her commandments, it is the rule which our Blessed Saviour has expressed from the day when He promised the Holy Eucharist as nourishment and as food necessary for the life of grace.
“We should use the Holy Eucharist even as we use bodily nourishment. We have no right to allow our body to die by depriving it of necessary nourishment. We have no right to allow our souls to grow weak and perish from hunger.
“We are obliged under a strict and grave obligation to receive Holy Communion as frequently as it is needful for us to do so in order to keep ourselves living members of the Mystical Body.”[29]
He continues, in even stronger terms:
“Prayer brings us the help of heaven; it does not bring us life itself. It brings not within the very centre of our being the God of the strong, who leads us in our fight against the passions.
“Moreover, the prayer of a soul that neglects or abstains from the Holy Eucharist and then would seemingly drag from God graces and aids which God has already placed within his reach would hardly be acceptable, hardly worthy of being heard.
“No one can change the economy of Providence. No one can modify the order established and categorically affirmed by Christ. The Holy Eucharist is essentially life, the bread of life, the nourishment of life. […]
“And our duty towards the Holy Eucharist – we speak of grave duty and of the minimum – may be formulated as follows:
“‘The obligation of receiving Holy Communion with sufficient frequency so as not to die of hunger, so as not to fall into mortal sin, so as to remain a living member in the Mystical Body.’”[30]
We will not be saved without the Faith, without which it is impossible to please God. We can be saved without the sacraments – but as it is considerably harder, we might also be lost.
Christ and his Church have commanded us to make use of these means of grace. This is not an absolute order, such that we should receive the sacraments in any and all settings.
But treating this question lightly, underestimating the importance of the sacraments or the dangers before us, presuming on God’s grace, and depriving oneself and encouraging others to deprive themselves of them on insufficient or dubious grounds is very rash, to put it mildly.
Nor were these considerations, which we have presented, foreign to the faithful clergymen who stood against Vatican II and the New Mass. Despite themselves being clear about the need to avoid Masses offered by certain classes of priests, these men (such as Archbishop Lefebvre and Bishop Guérard des Lauriers) did not underestimate the importance of the sacraments or the presence at Mass, as is clear in their writings.
And the witness of these modern confessors will be the subject of the next part:
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[1] Abbé Anger, The Doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ – According to the Principles of the Theology of St Thomas Aquinas, p 128. Trans. Fr John J. Burke, Benziger Bros., New York, 1931.
[2] St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica (ST) II-II Q81 A7
[3] ST III Q61 A1
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Fr Emile Mersch SJ, The Theology of the Mystical Body, p 590. Trans. Fr Vollert SJ. B Herder Book Co., London, 1951.
[11] Fr Joseph A. de Aldama SJ, Sacrae Theologiae Summa IVA, Part II, Thesis 24.
[12] Ibid., p 279.
[13] ST III Q73 A3
[14] Msgr. Joseph Pohle, Ph.D., D.D., The Sacraments, Vol. II, p. 244.
[15] Anger 125
[16] ST III Q80, A1
[17] ST III Q69 A4.2
[18] ST III Q69 A1
[19] ST III Q80 A11
[20] Very Rev. John G. Arintero OP, The Mystical Evolution in the Development and Vitality of the Church, Vol. I, p 323. Trans. Fr J. Aumann OP, B. Herder Book Co., London, 1949.
[21] Pohle 245.
[22] Ibid.
[23] St Alphonsus de Liguori, Visits to the Most Holy Sacrament and the Blessed Virgin Mary. Trans. Rev. R. A. Coffin, P.J. Kennedy, New York, 1855.
[24] Dom Columba Marmion, Chrst in his Mysteries, p 354. Sands & Co., London, 9th Ed.
[25] Dom Columba Marmion, Christ the Life of the Soul, p 261. Angelico Press, Tacoma WA, 2012.
[26] Council of Trent Sess. 22, Ch. 6.
[27] Dom Gaspar Lefebvre OSB, Catholic Liturgy: Its Fundamental Principles.
[28] https://www.papalencyclicals.net/pius10/p10quam.htm
[29] Anger 125
[30] Anger 125-6