I fast as much as I can but I accept the determination of the Church as to what the fast minimum is, and I don’t ‘scrupulously’ indulge in a fantasy notion that I must exceed the Church’s requirement. The Church leads us to Heaven, and doesn’t mis-lead us. If she says that we must fast one hour, this is because she knows our needs. Period. Many people would be prevented from communion if they were required to fast from midnight or for three hours. Think of commuters: are they supposed to eat breakfast at work? Or have lunch at 9:30am so they can receive Our Lord at noon Mass?
Holy Mother Church knows best. The role of the fast is to prepare us for Our Lord. It is not to protect Our Lord from us. Traditionalists love to rail against the one-hour fast, but the fact is, that time frame fits the modern day. The Church is not indifferent to the conditions in which the faithful live.
The bolded portion of your post may be true, but have you ever stopped to ask the question of whether the modern day fits the Church? When setting disciplines the Church has to keep in mind a very wide range of souls, but in this instance it seems we can focus on the extremes, since you seem to be thinking only of daily communicants, a class of people generally devoted to strong spiritual striving, and the traditionalist critique focuses on those who will only ever rise to what is required of them, the class of people who want to do the bare minimum and the reason the Church has to set bare minimums (if we weren’t all fallen, and thus all to some extent averse to spiritual effort and spiritual common sense, the Church wouldn’t need to write so much of this down or bind it through obedience).
You are worried about those who wish to approach the graces of the altar as much as possible, and it’s true that some might have to curb the frequency of their reception of the Eucharist if bound to a stricter fasting regimen. While I accept that grace is always a good, I still question whether the Church should tailor her discipline to a piety that has only emerged in the last 100 years or so and would challenge you as to whether a fasting regimen that somewhat curtailed reception but invested it with much greater intentionality could not make the experience more fruitful on the whole. Some of our greatest saints, moved by devotion to our Lord in the Eucharist, had to get special permission from their confessors to partake of His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity so much as weekly. It’s a tried and true spirituality, so I don’t think we can dismiss it out of hand.
Given, then, that I don’t think your focus on frequency carries as much weight as you do, I would also propose that the main reason traditionalists worry about the relaxation of the communion fast is not that they think the most devoted among us will be affected (the most devoted can, after all, add all the supererogatory discipline they please) but that the weakest of the brethren will be left behind. We sinners have to put in effort in order to be transformed by grace, and as you rightly pointed out, the fast is supposed to be preparing us. How much preparation has the weakest among us received if all that is expected of him is, basically, that he not snack in the car or, for the bulk of the fast, simply refrain from eating in the pew. How has that “fast” served the purpose you propose for it, and doesn’t it run the risk of doing us a disservice by fostering a familiarity with reception of the Eucharist not grounded in constant spiritual preparation for encounter with the Savior? I know I have personally required more preparation, which is why I have made the personal choice to try to exceed the minimum. I am weak enough to need more than the law forces me to take up.
(NB - I’ve already pointed out that I sometimes avail myself of the one-hour fast, so let it be known that I do not dispute the authority of the Church to set and change her disciplines, nor do I consider adherence to the minimum on any particular standard at any particular time to be an automatic sign of spiritual laziness.)
). Though allowed by the Church, I don’t agree with Communion in the hand, girl servers, extraordinary ministers (we never needed them until the last forty years), women lectors, standing for Holy Communion, and the Sign of Peace; and I’d like to see the ad orientem posture made the norm. So what would you call me???
. Live and loin.
