Does a baby in the womb receive the Eucharist?

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mkamoski1

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Dear Friends In Christ –

While I suspect this in an original idea, it is “new” to me.

Does a baby in the womb receive the Eucharist?

Suppose the mother is carrying a child, 8 months along in pregnancy (just to be clear).

Suppose the mother receives the Eucharist.

Does the child also receive the the Eucharist?

What do you think?

What has the Church said about this?

Please advise.

Thanks,

– Mark Kamoski

(Slave to Mary)
 
There is no ruling from the Church one way or the other on this.
 
It has been said that Jesus remains within us for about 15 minutes after receiving Him. This is the time it takes for the host to no longer be what it started out as, and it begins to change its substance. I’m not a student of physiology, but if anything reaches the baby within that 15 minutes, then I guess the answer would have to be yes.

It will all come down to - at what point does the Eucharist cease being the Body, Blood, Soul, Divinity of Jesus as it progresses through our body’s digestive system, and how long it takes for food (or “Food”) to reach the baby in the womb.

~Liza
 
mkamoski1 said:
Dear Friends In Christ –

While I suspect this in an original idea, it is “new” to me.

Does a baby in the womb receive the Eucharist?

Suppose the mother is carrying a child, 8 months along in pregnancy (just to be clear).

Suppose the mother receives the Eucharist.

Does the child also receive the the Eucharist?

What do you think?

What has the Church said about this?

Please advise.

Thanks,

– Mark Kamoski

(Slave to Mary)
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No. See Canon Law
 
thomas_jd said:
No. See Canon Law
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Greetings Thomas Jd,

I have scoured the Canon Law where it talks of the Euchurist and other places where I thought you might be alluding to. I can find no definitive stance that Canon Law takes. Will you please provide your source in Canon Law?

God Bless.
Anathama Sit
 
No. If the baby did it would be a sacraligous reception of the Eucharist because he or she is not yet baptized. Not that this would be any moral fault for the baby, of course, but that’s objectively what it would be.

First Eucharist must be given after baptism.
 
For anyone to recieve the Eucharist, they must be baptized first, and in Communion with Rome. In my opinion, no, the mother is the only one in this case who recieves the Eucharist. However, the baby is being carried by the mother. The baby lives in the mother and it is the mother’s responsibility to protect her body for her sake as well as the baby’s. Since the mother recieves the Eucharist, she is getting the protection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in this way, the child is getting the protection as well. Therefore, the child will certainly benefit in an “indirect” way.

Please let me know if that makes any sense…
 
OP, Here is an earlier thread where this question came up.
Aelred_Minor said:
No. If the baby did it would be a sacraligous reception of the Eucharist because he or she is not yet baptized. Not that this would be any moral fault for the baby, of course, but that’s objectively what it would be.

First Eucharist must be given after baptism.
Click to expand...
😦 Aelred, the OP was not discussing any sacrilege at all. He was asking about the condition of an unborn child while its mother licitly receives Communion.
 
No. You misunderstand either how foetuses are nourished or what the Eucharist is.

The Eucharist remains the Body and Blood of Christ only so long as the accidents of bread and wine are present in recognisable form. What the foetus receives in the womb is in no way recognisable as bread or wine: the foetus is nourished by blood from the mother passing through the placenta along the umbilical cord into it’s blood stream. By the time the woman’s body has processed the Eucharist enough for it to be in her own blood, it is no longer the Eucharist. Foetuses do not in any way ‘eat’ normal food before birth, they receive nutrients solely through the blood stream.

It has nothing to do with the baby being baptized or otherwise, people are physically able to receive the Eucharist even when they are not sacramentally prepared.

Neither does it have anything to do with an arbitrary cut off point of 15 minutes, as though if the woman had a super-quick metabolism, she could pass the Eucharist on to her baby. 15 minutes is just a rough guide to how long an average adult body takes to digest food to a point where it is no longer recognisable.

On the other hand, it is a popular piety amongst many women to connect with their foetus especially after receiving Communion: pray for them, give thanks, ask Christ to dwell in them and their baby etc. So long as they don’t think that Christ physically comes to the foetus in sacramental form this is fine - I did it! [Not that the fact that I did it makes it kosher, but I just think it is a nice form of bonding and praying for the child].

hth 👍
 
:hmmm:

Considering that bread and wine are required for a valid Eucharist (being the proper form), I don’t think it is physically possible for an unborn baby to receive the Eucharist. Sure it may get some nutritional value out of the accidentals but the host would have been good and broken down into something that doesn’t resemble bread at all by the time any of its nutrition reaches the baby.

EDIT: OR just read what Batfink wrote. 👍
 
One of the flaws I see in these arguments is that the baby is treated as a separate being. The baby is not yet a separate being, and is one with the mother.

Making matters more complex is that the Church has not defined when ensoulment occurs. If we don’t know when ensoulment occurs, how do we know when the stain of Original Sin is present?
 
A_G said:
For anyone to recieve the Eucharist, they must be baptized first, and in Communion with Rome. In my opinion, no, the mother is the only one in this case who recieves the Eucharist. However, the baby is being carried by the mother. The baby lives in the mother and it is the mother’s responsibility to protect her body for her sake as well as the baby’s. Since the mother recieves the Eucharist, she is getting the protection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in this way, the child is getting the protection as well. Therefore, the child will certainly benefit in an “indirect” way.

Please let me know if that makes any sense…
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Baptized, yes. In communion with Rome, that’s a little more complicated. But let’s not sidetrack this conversation.
 
As Batfink suggests, it is really irrelevant whether the unborn child is baptized.

What is passed to the unborn child is not in the form of bread and/or wine, hence it is not the Eucharist.
 
Warrior1979 said:
One of the flaws I see in these arguments is that the baby is treated as a separate being. The baby is not yet a separate being, and is one with the mother.

Making matters more complex is that the Church has not defined when ensoulment occurs. If we don’t know when ensoulment occurs, how do we know when the stain of Original Sin is present?
Click to expand...
The baby is a genetically distinct human being from the moment of fertilization. Granted the line becomes difficult to draw when you get down to plasmogamy vs. karyogamy so I would agree with you we don’t know exactly when ensoulment occurs, but most Catholics with any biological knowledge would agree that it occurs by the time you have a fully formed zygote, since at that point you have a living human organism which has the potential to grow into an adult through a continuous process of maturation.

And anyway, even if you wanted to dispute that, if we are uncertain whether something is human we better treat it as if it were. And anyway the OP’s question presumes the unborn baby is human.
 
SMHW said:
As Batfink suggests, it is really irrelevant whether the unborn child is baptized.

What is passed to the unborn child is not in the form of bread and/or wine, hence it is not the Eucharist.
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This is true. Neither the host nor the precious blood reach the child, so he or she does not receive the Eucharist. My point regarding baptism is that if the child did somehow receive the Eucharist it would be a sacrilegious reception, and intuitively we can guess God wouldn’t arrange His sacraments such that a sacrilege would occur every time a pregnant women received the Eucharist.
 
mkamoski1 said:
Does a baby in the womb receive the Eucharist?
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I believe the answer to be no. I don’t know of any Church teaching on this matter. The Church does teach that the sacred species are no longer the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ once the accidents are so digested that they are no longer recognisable as bread and wine. A foetus receives amino acids, carbohydrates, lipids, mineral salts, nucleic acids, and vitamins from its mother; not bread and wine.
 
Anathama_Sit said:
Greetings Thomas Jd,

I have scoured the Canon Law where it talks of the Euchurist and other places where I thought you might be alluding to. I can find no definitive stance that Canon Law takes. Will you please provide your source in Canon Law?

God Bless.
Anathama Sit
Click to expand...
Can.913 : The administration of the Most Holy Eucharist to children requires that they have sufficent knowledge and careful preparation so that they understand the mystery of Christ from ordinary food and receive communion reverently.
 
thomas_jd said:
Can.913 : The administration of the Most Holy Eucharist to children requires that they have sufficent knowledge and careful preparation so that they understand the mystery of Christ from ordinary food and receive communion reverently.
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This has nothing to do with the topic at hand. Can 913 talks about when, in the Latin Rite, children may be admitted to Communion. The question of the OP asks about the effect of the Eucharist on an unborn child in the womb of a mother who is the communicant.
 
lizaanne said:
It has been said that Jesus remains within us for about 15 minutes after receiving Him. This is the time it takes for the host to no longer be what it started out as, and it begins to change its substance. I’m not a student of physiology, but if anything reaches the baby within that 15 minutes, then I guess the answer would have to be yes.

It will all come down to - at what point does the Eucharist cease being the Body, Blood, Soul, Divinity of Jesus as it progresses through our body’s digestive system, and how long it takes for food (or “Food”) to reach the baby in the womb.

~Liza
Click to expand...
lizaanne said:
It has been said that Jesus remains within us for about 15 minutes after receiving Him. This is the time it takes for the host to no longer be what it started out as, and it begins to change its substance. I’m not a student of physiology, but if anything reaches the baby within that 15 minutes, then I guess the answer would have to be yes.

I’m no expert in making an opinion here but IMHO without diminishing the physical Eucharistic aspect of Jesus Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity there is a supernatural essence of Christ’s presence when we consume the Eucharist, which enters our Soul. Being the fact that a Catholic mother who is pregnant in essence she carries within her entire being her own soul and that within her womb her infant precious babies soul. I don’t believe Jesus would ignore the innocent infant soul the mother carries.

Doesn’t every devout Catholic pregnant mother talk to her infant baby within her womb and who resides just below the tenderness of a mothers heart.?
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