Communion under both species in the 1300s?

[Contarini]

Edwin, I am going to find some citations for you. They are looming in my brain, but I cannot place them. Perhaps one of Carolyn Walker Bynum’s works? Wonderful Blood is probably where she writes about this. Also there must be some citation in Companion to the Eucharist in the Middle Ages. I might have picked up various bits and pieces in Fred Paxton’s work Christianizing Death, which I know better than Carolyn’s various tomes.

The point I remember is that from say the 10th to 12th centuries, the laity were fearful of the Eucharist and tended toward adoration and the visual more than actually receiving. There was also the fear of being tainted by either the communicant’s immorality or the just as likely, the priest’s state of sin. That was a concern for a good century or two. Many people left (or tried leaving) receiving the Eucharist until the moment of death, much like earlier Christians postponed Baptism. Don’t underestimate the power/magic of the Eucharist until the very end.

But the Lateran Council did make a point of requiring all people to receive at least once a year. So it got people back into the rhythm of yearly consuming.

I wasn’t disputing the basic point, only whether it’s true to say that there was a while when no one at all was receiving.

There may well have been. The references you cite are good ones–I need to read that book of Bynum’s. Wilsnack is relevant to the Hussite discussion, marginally, because Hus was sent by his bishop to investigate Wilsnack early in his career, and strongly recommended against approving it.

Edwin

 

[TimothyH]

But it doesn’t matter. If one accepts the doctrine of concomitance , the Church is perfectly free to offer communion under one Kind exclusively, for all time. The Church does not need to “justify” this practice. The Church could continue this practice today, and forever, for no reason whatsoever. The Church chose to implement this practice in the 1300’s, which She was perfectly free to do, and chose to reverse this practice in the 1900’s, which She was perfectly free to do.

I ask you AGAIN: do you accept or deny the doctrine of concomitance? Do you believe that we can receive “half of Jesus?”

The doctrine of concomitance is certainly true and the Church is free to offer communion under only one species. This cannot be denied.

This is a reductionist approach however, which taken further, states that it is sufficient to receive communion only once per year or that no one but the priest need to receive communion at any given Mass. The Church offers communion to the laity 365 days/year because it is good for them.

What is sufficient may not always be best and Christ’s Church has a pastoral responsibility to do what is best for the people she has been entrusted with. Christ did everything - died on the cross - and the Church should do nothing less. Christ didn’t die on the Cross so that his Church could do the absolute minimum.

-Tim-