The benefit is inherent in the act, so too in the word, communion, coming in union with Christ. The invisible, though effective presence of Christ in the consecrated host, may be preventing many Catholic Christians from determining the seriousness involved in receiving Communion.
And so instead of focusing on the substantive spiritual gains derived each time one receives the body of Christ, many Catholic Christians continue to allow perceptible, but less substantive factors, to interfere with their coming in union with Christ. A human weakness though, which is not to say an effort should not be made to overcome it when it does show up.
The Code of Canon Law, canon 934 to 944, defines in elaborate terms how the Eucharist should be kept or handled, but says nothing about who should administer it. From observation, bishops, priests, the religious and some lay people, are those who constantly share Holy Communion to those who are eligible to receive it. The National Marine Chaplain and director of L’Effort Camerounais, Rev. Fr. Jean Benoît Nlend, says it is up to the Local Ordinary and the Episcopal Vicar of each diocese to decide who qualifies to share Communion.
Being an integral part of their pastoral responsibility, consecrated people share Communion, but many are still surprised and resist receiving Communion from lay people who have been duly designated for the purpose. This selective or discriminatory tendency is not limited to this level as many Christians continue to choose even among the consecrated who to receive Communion from.When questioned, Catholic Christians gave different reasons why they prefer receiving Communion from a particular person and not from another, though qualified person. Many scramble to receive Communion only from a Cardinal or bishop for they believe they are holier than other ministers and so those who receive Communion from them also receive more graces.
The Mass and Eucharist have more power than the simplistic human mind can perceive. During Mass priests and Christians ask the Lord not to look on their sins, but on the faith of His Church. The prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ… By your holy body and blood free me from all my sins and from every evil,” which priests say before receiving Communion, is meant to put those who say it genuinely in a state of grace. From this standpoint it is therefore illogical to consider a priest as holier than another when they have all said this prayer.
Besides, spiritual worthiness spans more than the defective human eye and judgement can determine. There are many priests who are spiritually more worthy than bishops and cardinals, so too are Christians who are spiritually more worthy than priests and religious. Does an adage not say, it is not a cassock that makes a priest? If it is not the cassock, which represents the external, then it is the heart, which represents the internal and spiritual and therefore beyond human understanding and evaluation. Have the Consecrated and Christians not all become saints? What accounts for the erroneous conclusion that cardinals and bishops are holier than priests and that priests and religious are holier than the Lay Faithful? This is simply weighing a spiritual value using a human scale.
It is paradoxical that during important events Christians no longer want to receive Communion from the priests who serve them daily. Does this mean in the absence of a cardinal or bishop during an important Mass, those who think this way are not going to receive Communion? If they do, is the act spiritually motivated or does it simply become a ritualistic obligation?
Being choosy who to receive Communion from defeats the purpose of communing and can be compared to allowing the substance and running after the shadow. By the way, it is really less about the person giving Communion and more about the one receiving it. If one is impure when receiving Communion, how can the spiritual worthiness of the minister administering Communion be automatically transferred to the person receiving Communion? Ideally the person sharing Communion and the one receiving it should be in state of grace to benefit from the body of Christ.
Christians cannot come in union with Christ if they fail to see him in the person fashioned in Christ’s own likeness. If they continue to see spiritual concerns through corporal prisms, then they are like Poor Richard in The Ways of the World, who listens to what his pastor says, but when he leaves church he practices just the opposite.
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