One hour before Mass or Communion?

[ysicmg]

I’ve been watching this tread with interest. It seems that the communion fast is so forgotten and a well kept secret for many - or should i say from most of the younger Catholics.

I would like to bring it to the attention of our parish by putting it into a series of bulletin article on the Liturgy (I’m chair of the Worship Commission and we’re trying to raise the level of reverence and knowledge of Liturgical matters).

Someone will surely ask WHY do we have such a rule/law/precept? (I’m not yet sure which it is).

Someone brought up the fact that we don’t fast afterward - we’ll likely get questions on that, too.

I just need to have answers before bringing it up.

 

[Fergal]

maggiec:

My husband and I get up on Sunday morning and have a cup of coffee. I feel eating anything in the morning before communion would be wrong, I want by whole body open for Jesus.
maggiec

I take it your cup of coffee is outside the required one hour beofre receiving?

Any way isn’t it strange the length we will go to in order to maintain the required fast to be ready to receive Christ. The as soon as we leave the Holy Church after Holy Mass we throw all kinds of stuff e.g. coffee, toast, cereal etc down on the Lord himself!!!:whacky:

How many of us are aware that the Lord is present Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Blessed Sacrament for at least 15 mins after we receive? I know some of you will jump to remind me that Jesus told us that if we live in Him, He will live in us and correctly too!!! I am , however only talking about the presence of the Lord in the consummed Host.

Wouldn’t it be lovely to see people recognise this and stay in prayer after Holy Mass for some part of this 15 mins???

Just a thought!
Fergal
Naas
Ireland

 

[philjane]

it is one hour before holy communion, not one hour before mass—we don’t know what time holy communion is but we can estimate what time it will be—fasting one hour before mass will guarantee that we can go to communion, fasting one hour from when we think holy communion is may not give us enough time to go to holy communion as the sermon may be shorter or the choir may not be there or many other reasons why mass is shorter than we expected.

 

[BananaMan]

I have a related question to this discussion: Is it considered by the Church to be a mortal sin to NOT abstain from food and drink for one hour before receiving Jesus in the Eucharist? I am not asking because I’m wanting to see how much I can get away with (God forbid!), but I’m rather curious as to how serious the Church regards violating it, and whether or not its considered a mortal sin. And do gum and breathmints count as “food or drink”? They obviously aren’t “water or medicine” (the explicitely mentioned exceptions to the rule). What should one do if, without thinking, you pop-in a breathmint while driving to church?

 

[Fergal]

Hi Banana Man!
This quote might help from oldforum.catholic.org/discussion/messages/41/24888.html?1011112700

***"As you might recall, for you to incur the guilt of some sinful action you must both know that it is a sin and then will to do it anyway. Some action be in itself be objectively sinful, but if it is done unwittingly or without will, then the guilt for that sinful action is diminished or entirely vacated.

The Church’s law is that we must fast for at least one hour before reception of Holy Communion. Thus, if you knowingly and willingly violate that you are guilty of a sin. If you did that without being fully aware of what you were doing, the sin is diminished. Should you have been more aware? Yes. I would not be too worried about this. Do confess it, but don’t fret about it. In the future try to be more careful. After all, the Church really requires very little of us in this respect. Catholics used to fast from midnight."

---

I think you answered your own question in regard to mints and gum when you said "They obviously aren’t “water or medicine” (the explicitely mentioned exceptions to the rule)".

You see the problem is the liberties people take with the fast. Wording come into it moreso that the love and respect due to Christ. If we love Him and duely anticipate His arrival we will fast. If not we will look for ways around the fast or ways to minimise it.

We have a gentleman in our Parish who each and every Mass takes out a flask of water during the Prayers of teh Faithful and has a good slug or two of it in front of us all. :tsktsk: Worse still he always occupies the front row. What does this say??? Kind of a sad picnic attitude. Oh I know well he might need it etc etc etc… but morning Mass is only max 20-30 mins long. Slug before or immediately after but during the Mass? To me nothing more than arrogance.

Blessings,
Fergal
Naas
Ireland

 

[pnewton]

BananaMan:

Is it considered by the Church to be a mortal sin to NOT abstain from food and drink for one hour before receiving Jesus in the Eucharist?

I would say no in that you are missing a component of a mortal sin and that is grave matter.

 

[mercygate]

EsclavoDeCristo:

I agree. I try not to eat any solid foods until after Mass. But I always gotta have that coffee :whacky: .

OK. Picky question. At the Church in East Harlem, where I used to attend morning Mass on weekdays, the Priest and sacristan(s) often had a cup of coffee together in the half hour before Mass. Is that OK?http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/icons/icon5.gif

 

[pnewton]

One hour before receiving communion would still apply to the above situation. I wonder if the homily goes extra long to compensate.

 

[ms_cilantro]

I don’t mean to be splitting hairs but is water ok for those needing to take medicine or is water ok regardless? Just curious.
Ms. Cilantro

 

[KennySe]

ms cilantro:

I don’t mean to be splitting hairs but is water ok for those needing to take medicine or is water ok regardless? Just curious.
Ms. Cilantro

Water for the purpose of taking medicine is ok.

That’s it.

 

[loyola_rambler]

ms cilantro:

I don’t mean to be splitting hairs but is water ok for those needing to take medicine or is water ok regardless? Just curious.
Ms. Cilantro

It’s not splitting hairs, but it’s not the easiest question to answer, either. Lots of, “It depends…”

If someone needs to take medication with water, then yes they can take it by all means. Of course, the next part of that is that they should try to time it so that it’s outside of that hour…or go to a later mass if the timing of the medication can’t be altered. But if neither the timing of the medication nor the relation of that to the time of the eucharist can be changed, then it’s proper to discuss with the priest ahead of time and get it worked out so that everyone’s happy and proper.

If the weather’s extremely hot and a person is going to pass out without a sip of water, then have the sip, even if it’s within the hour before communion. But then again, if there’s an opportunity to receive communion later, it should be done…well, unless it would mean putting oneself in further risk of illness.

But these are all the nuances that make theologians’ jobs very secure. The real answer is talk to your priest and let him know what the situation is. He’ll tell you how to properly handle it so that no one is desanctifying the mass or the Sacrament of the Eucharist.

 

[Harland]

JimG:

Oh yes. Refraining from drinking water was worse than fasting from food! But our habit on Sunday mornings was to get up, get dressed, go to Mass before thinking of any of that.

Jim you obviously didn’t grow up on a farm. We had chores to do before we went to Mass so it was a sacrifice for us to fast from midnight then receive Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. But we did it without whining about being hungry. Mass was 9 or 10 and we had to drive 7 or 8 miles to Mass so we didn’t eat ntil noon. One Easter temptation got the better of me so I took a small nibble from an Easter egg. To this day I haven’t told why I couldn’t receive Jesus.

 

[prodromos]

digitonomy:

Is there a different rule for a divine liturgy in the Eastern churches?

If they follow Orthodox tradition, not only will they not eat or drink anything prior to Divine Liturgy from the night before, but they will also have fasted from meat, eggs, milk, cheese, yoghurt, alcohol and sex the day before. For the priests it is a bit more relaxed if they are serving at Divine Liturgy daily, otherwise they would be living on bread and water for most of their lives

John.

 

[bluerose]

I don’t know if this is a cultural thing or not, but my mom (Mexican) always insisted that the first thing we consume after Mass be water… whether a sip or a full glass, didn’t matter. The idea was to make sure that the Sacred Species be “washed down the hatch” before we proceeded to eat or drink anything else.

For the longest time, I always wondered why, whenever we’d happen to go out for breakfast after Mass, we’d no sooner sit down and Mom would order water for everyone and no one would have their coffee until after they had that first sip of water!

To this day, I still fast from midnight Saturday on (Saturday evening Masses, I fast from about 1 p.m. on) and I still go for that water right after Mass.

Blue"see, Mom, I was listening!"Rose

 

[Catholic_Eagle]

12 hours but of course[3 hours if you can’t handle 12 hours]