What happens when a non-Catholic, or Catholic in sin, takes communion

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Aside from the fact it’s highly disrespectful to the congregation and the Catholic Church, what happens to the communicant on a more spiritual note?

Catholicism has always celebrated a closed communion and forbade non-Catholics, and advised Catholics in a state of sin, from eating the Eucharist, but I don’t get why.
 
Episcopalian said:
Aside from the fact it’s highly disrespectful to the congregation and the Catholic Church, what happens to the communicant on a more spiritual note?

Catholicism has always celebrated a closed communion and forbade non-Catholics, and advised Catholics in a state of sin, from eating the Eucharist, but I don’t get why.
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1 Corinthians 11:27-29
Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly.
 
Sbee0 said:
Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord
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What does that mean though? Guilty of the body and the blood?
 
It’s not about being disrespectful to the congregation, no offence but who cares about that (in comparison to the sin against God). It is respectful to God. He died for you to have His body and blood, if you whilst in mortal sin have his body you commit another mortal sin (possibly).
But what happens depends on the mercy of God.
You do know that communion is the actual Body of Christ, dont you? one must be in a state of grace to receive the Body of Christ.
Any Catholic who has done this should go to confession. A non Catholic should not receive and if they do, they should not do it again and it would not do them any harm to ask God for mercy. If they wish to become Catholic, there are proper channels to go through and they should speak to a priest about doing so. Only God can judge their motives.
 
Basically, sacrilege. From Haydock’s Commentary:
" Ver. 27. Or drink. Here erroneous translators corrupted the text, by putting and drink (contrary to the original, η πινη) instead of or drink. — Guilty of the body, &c. not discerning the body, &c. This demonstrates the real presence of the body and blood of Christ, even to the unworthy communicant; who otherwise could not be guilty of the body and blood of Christ, or justly condemned for not discerning the Lord’s body. Ch. — The real presence in the sacrament is also proved by the enormity of the crime, in its profanation. See S. Chrys. hom. de non contem. ec. and hom. lx. and lxi. ad pop. Antioch. where he shews that the unworthy receiver imitates the Jews in crucifying Jesus, and trampling under foot his sacred blood. Hence the dreadful punishments we read of in verses 27 and 30."
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We go by the Apostolic practice, as later recorded by Saint Paul in 1 Corinthians 11. A read of it is intended to be sobering.

BTW, IIRC, the Orthodox have closed communion, and there are even Baptist denominations which hold to closed communion. In the past, most likely Anglicans and Lutherans.

It is nothing new, or nothing peculiar to Catholicism.
 
Someone I know has been given a gift to be able to see some of the spiritual realities that we ordinarily don’t see on this earth. (They have no evidence of psychosis.)

This person once saw someone take Holy Communion in a state of mortal sin. He saw the Sacred Host burn red with anger inside that person. He also saw the person’s guardian angel come up to the person, take a sword, and run the person through. To him, it symbolized the death of that person’s soul.

Sacrilege is serious business. The good news is that, as with all sins, it can be forgiven with true repentance, contrition, and confession.
 
This question intrigues me as I am curious as to what would happen spiritually in the following scenario…
A Hindi attend a Mass out of curiosity and no understanding of the Eucharist. He joins the line and mimics the fellow parishioners and ingests the Eucharist. Does anything spiritual happen? Does he receive some or any grace? Does the Eucharist become just the bread in his case only? Or something else?

I hope this isn’t a disrespectful question…I certainly don’t mean it to be. I’m just trying to figure out what your Church’s position is on this. He meant no disrespect and did this out of ignorance. Can or would anything spiritually happen? Thanks.
 
He will not receive grace because Baptism is the key to all other sacraments, and he is not baptized.

The Blessed Sacrament will remain Jesus until it loses the appearance of bread and wine.

In order for something to be a mortal sin, there must be grave matter, total knowledge, and complete consent. This person did not have total knowledge. Therefore, at the very least, it would not be a mortal sin, if it is a sin at all. Of the latter, I am uncertain.
 
Thank you. If he later claimed that eating the Eucharist gave him a feeling that he should delve into Catholicism further, would you still claim he did not obtain any grace from it or would you insist that his feelings were on obtained via something else? Perhaps just being in the Church?
 
This is true. But the example given was one where the Hindu attending Mass did not know about the Eucharist and was not aware that he was not to receive.

Generally, unless it’s an occasion such as Christmas, a wedding, or a funeral, where there may be non-practicing Catholics or non-Catholics present, I have not heard a priest describe the conditions required for reception of Holy Communion.
 
It adds sin on sin and they are deeper in darkness. I think it is terrible.
I have wondered what this does to God. I decided that this doesn’t harm God at all, but only harms the person who went to communion. Out of his great generosity ad love for men, God makes this possible.
 
I went to a funeral in a Catholic church a few years ago. The Priest did offer the Eucharist to everyone - including non-Catholics. Very surprising.
 
MikeFr said:
I went to a funeral in a Catholic church a few years ago. The Priest did offer the Eucharist to everyone - including non-Catholics. Very surprising.
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He wasn’t supposed to do that. Do not be misled to believe that this is normal or accepted practice in the Catholic Church.
 
Pattylt said:
If he later claimed that eating the Eucharist gave him a feeling that he should delve into Catholicism further, would you still claim he did not obtain any grace from it or would you insist that his feelings were on obtained via something else? Perhaps just being in the Church?
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Doing something immoral doesn’t merit grace, no matter what that person may feel.
 
MikeFr said:
I went to a funeral in a Catholic church a few years ago. The Priest did offer the Eucharist to everyone - including non-Catholics. Very surprising.
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It’s becoming more common (at least in my experience) for the Eucharist not to be offered at funerals. I think it’s to avoid situations like this, and to also keep folks from getting the vapors if the pastor announces who is able to receive and who should not.
 
Do you think what he did was immoral to him? Or only immoral to you and the Church. I agree it would be immoral from your point of view but do think God would have considered him immoral in his innocence? Thanks for your thoughts!
 
Doing so will become a mortal sin in itself unless you had constraints that prevented you from going to confession and resolved to go to confession as soon as you are able.
MikeFr said:
I went to a funeral in a Catholic church a few years ago. The Priest did offer the Eucharist to everyone - including non-Catholics. Very surprising.
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He might have given a different kind of Eucharist, which is called Eucharistic Hospitality. It is different from the Eucharistic Communion that binds all Catholics together.

If it isn’t, then he is in error.
 
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So per Catholic teaching, it’s a mortal sin to take the Eucharist without being in a proper state of grace.

But to the non-Catholic Christian, or non Christian, the Eucharist is sincerely believed to be ranged from consubstatiated to a simply crispy bread wafer. Regardless of whether a Catholic priest consecrated it.

Would that sincerely held belief be acknowledged by God? It seems pretty mean of Him to count that as a sin.

A Catholic in a state of sin receiving Eucharist, is a horse of a different color tho, Imho.
 
Episcopalian said:
Aside from the fact it’s highly disrespectful to the congregation and the Catholic Church, what happens to the communicant on a more spiritual note?
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For someone who is not a baptized Christian, nothing at all. There could be, to use an example seen elsewhere on this thread, a Hindu who simply doesn’t know and thinks it is just blessed bread, similar to the Orthodox antidoron. He has obviously not committed any subjective sin. Not everyone reads what it says in the hand missals (and sometimes the bulletin) about norms for reception.

As for baptized Christians receiving in good faith, it is hard to say. Objectively, of course, they’re not supposed to be doing it. However, it is possible that a non-Catholic Christian could say any of the following:
  • I believe it is the Body and Blood of Christ (whether through transubstantiation, sacramental union, or a mystery we don’t need to define or cannot define) and I believe myself to be in the state of grace, therefore I am going to go ahead and receive, regardless of what Rome says — the Body of Christ is comprised of all baptized Christians, and they have no authority to withhold the sacrament from me.
  • Christ is truly present in some way, and I am going to receive. (Again, the communicant believes himself to be in the state of grace.)
  • Regardless of what Rome says, it’s just a symbol, and I am going to receive it with that understanding. (Ditto as regards the state of grace.)
How that affects their soul, and whether they receive grace in some fashion based on their subjective dispositions, none of us can say.

I have always understood, and this is kind of “reading between the lines”, that prior to Vatican II, we believed all non-Catholic Christians to be outside the Body of Christ, not in communion with it in any way, and that was one reason they were not allowed to received (in addition to a lack of faith in the Real Presence, which some conservative Anglicans et al could have).
 
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