Dear Dzheremi,
I’m not sure about that interpretation. Earlier in the Encyclical, he mentions how the Eucharist makes the partaker worthy to inherit His Kingdom in an eschatological sense.
And does this eschatological sense necessarily contradict what I have written? (Obviously, I don’t think it does, but now that you have read the encyclical, I am open to being convinced otherwise, and changing my mind should I be wrong; the Church is not the Jeremy show.)
Perhaps he is talking about being united with Christ in an eschatological sense.
Perhaps. I don’t see why it couldn’t be both.
The reason I doubt that we can interpret it in a way that could support brother ConstantineTG’s understanding (which I admit sounds very strange - he seems to be claiming that it is normative for Easterns to NOT confess and receive with sin on one’s soul and conscience)
With due respect (and ample room for Constantine to explain his own view, should he choose to), this is not how I interpret Constantine’s writings at all. To say that we (and here I am speaking of Easterners and Orientals, both Catholic and non) do not have the strict legal mindset of the Latins that makes it an impossibility for someone to receive the Eucharist while in sin is a mere statement of fact. It is
not saying what is normative in practice, but what sort of mindset leads us to different conclusions than those of the Latins. Believe me, as I have written before, this is a big change in mindset for me. I didn’t even
want to receive upon being told that this is how the Copts do it, because it was so successfully drilled into me as a Latin that it would be the worst possible thing I could do, but Father really calmed me down (because I was so uneasy about it, I asked him directly when he came by with the censer during the censing of the church): “Yes, you will confess afterward; be at peace”. :console:
is because HH wrote in that same Encyclical:
“Dearly Beloved; Because of the sacredness of the Holy Eucharist, it is required that the believers be prepared, body and soul, before they receive it. Their bodies must be clean, and they must be in a state of grace; meaning that they had offered a true penance and lawfully confessed before the lawful priest. They must also adhere to the order of communion abstaining. Concerning this matter, Saint Paul says: “But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner, eats and drinks judgment to himself not discerning the Lord’s body”. ( 1 Corinthians 11:28,29 ). Thus, Whoever comes to receive the Holy Eucharist must gather his thoughts and proceed, with the fear of God, with humility and meekness, and with a burning desire that matches "the desire of the deer to the streams of water " ( Psalms 41:2 ).”
I definitely see what you are getting at here, Mardukm, and you do have a point that it can be read to be in accordance with the Latin way of doing things. Not knowing HH personally or being near any Syriac Orthodox Christians, I’m not sure how to get clarification on exactly what he meant. All I can say is that it seems to boil down to what we mean when we say “state of grace”. Being Orthodox people, is it more likely that we mean an actual, legal(istic) state? From my experience with the Copts, who are at least in union with the Syriacs, common sense would tell me that this is the less likely interpretation, since we do not have such legalistic categories in the first place. So, and again this is more from inference rather than a literal reading of the phrase, I would assume that “state of grace” is not some literal category that you can check off, but an internal, soul matter that is manifested in a pureness of repentance (e.g., that you will repent before God and the lawful priest not as a means to be admitted to communion, as though you are checking off a literal list, but because you are actually conscious of your iniquities, and your sins are at all times before you). I mean, are we going to treat confession like magic, whereby if we have confessed, that in and of itself
puts us into a state of grace (regardless of whether or not we actually felt contrite, which is not something that anyone else can know)? I do not think that is wise. HH is absolutely 100% right to caution all of us that we are not to receive unworthily, but regarding the steps or mindset needed, I think a less legalistic mindset is more in line with the actual
practice of the Church, in which a person may receive communion prior to confession if his father deems this to be the acceptable arrangement (again, I am not so much speaking from opinion at this point, but from having experienced it myself).
Just so we’re clear: We are not talking about receiving without confessing or without contriteness. We are talking about receiving
with contriteness
before confessing. Confession is not in any sense optional, but a certain flexibility is possible in the East and the Orient in the ordering of the sacraments that is apparently not possible in the Latin or Latin-influenced world. You could say that this reflects are certain sloppy approach to the whole process relative to what HH has written above, but I have a hard time imagining that any bishop in the Orthodox Church would not agree that the Eucharist is given for the remission of sins, and as such may save even those who for whatever reason have not had a chance to confess properly before a priest prior to the start of the day’s liturgy. (In our case here in Albuquerque, we only have our priests for a few hours every two weeks, so this perhaps influences the practice at the parish level.)
As I made an effort to tell Father that I had unconfessed sin and did not feel myself worthy to receive in that day, and was unsure what to do with this (new, to me) information that in the Coptic Church it may be possible to receive in such a state Father made the determination that I would receive, and confess afterwards. He could have made some other decision, but he decided this time that I should receive and confess afterwards. Such is the importance of the Eucharist as medicine for the sick in the Oriental view, I guess.