Preview: St. Thomas More on Unworthy Reception of Holy Communion

We'll continue our discussion of Saint Thomas More's Treatise to Receive the Blessed Body of Our Lord on Monday, October 10 on the Son Rise Morning Show. 

By the way, check out their new website, with show notes, an archive, and other information about the program; you can even sign up to receive an email notification of who is going to discuss what every morning! And, you'll see a picture of me and my bio when I'm scheduled to be on the air (as I was yesterday, Thursday, October 6, during the repeat of my segment from Monday, October 3)!

So I'll be on about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern in the last segment of the second EWTN hour (there's a local hour after that just on Sacred Heart Radio). You may listen live here.

Last week I mentioned that St. Thomas More was allowed greater freedom during his first months of captivity in the Tower of London; he was permitted to leave his cell to go outside and might have attended Mass in the Chapel in the White Tower, named for St. John the Evangelist. (License for the photo above of the Romanesque St. John's Chapel may be found here with permission granted under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license.)

We certainly know that he is buried in the crypt of the other Royal Chapel on the grounds of the Tower of London, St. Peter ad Vincula.

We also know that in 1535, after his interrogations by Thomas Cromwell and others, the books and writing materials he had with him were taken away (although he still had his Book of Hours). This is when Sir Richard Rich famously came to his cell with two other gentlemen to collect these books and materials--and Rich supposedly led More into the trap of denying the title of Supreme Head and Governor of the Church of England to Henry VIII--an event More vehemently, adamantly denied ever occurred at his trial on July 1, 1535: "In good faith, Master Rich, I am sorrier for your perjury than for mine own peril, and you shall understand that neither I nor any man else to my knowledge ever took you to be a man of such credit in any matter of importance I or any other would at any time vouchsafe to communicate with you. . . . Can it therefore seem likely to your honorable lordships, that I would, in so weighty a cause, so unadvisedly overshoot myself as to trust Master Rich, a man of me always reputed for one of little truth, as your lordships have heard, so far above my sovereign lord the king, or any of his noble counselors, that I would unto him utter the secrets of my conscience touching the king's supremacy, the special point and only mark at my hands so long sought for?"

Anachronistically speaking, that's a "mic drop". More has at once impugned Rich's integrity and the Court's integrity for presenting his perjured testimony as evidence of the crime More is accused of committing.

But in 1534, as More was writing about the Blessed Sacrament and had his books, and pens and ink and paper, we might be surprised that he starts with the dangers of receiving Holy Communion unworthily rather than the benefits of receiving it as worthily as possible:

In remembrance and memorial whereof, He [Almighty God] disdaineth not to take for worthy such men, as wilfully make not themselves unworthy, to receive the self-same Blessed Body into their bodies, to the inestimable wealth of their Souls, and yet of His High Sovereign patience, He refuseth not to enter bodily into the vile bodies of those whose filthy minds refuse to receive Him graciously into their Souls. 

Jesus does not stop us from receiving Him Sacramentally in Holy Communion when we should not: we have the free will to ignore what our Conscience tells us. But there are consequences:

But then do such folk receive Him only Sacramentally, and not Virtually, that is to wit, they receive His very Blessed Body into theirs under the Sacramental Sign, but they receive not the thing of the Sacrament, that is to wit, the Virtue and the Effects thereof, that is to say, the Grace by which they should be lively members incorporate in Christ's Holy Mystical Body: but instead of that live Grace, they receive their Judgment and their Damnation.

Further, More warns that without repentance and Confession, the dangers increase: 

till he [the devil] finally drive him to all mischief, as he did the false traitor, Judas, that sinfully received that Holy Body, whom the devil did therefore first carry out about the traitorous death of the self-same Blessed Body of his most loving Master; which he so late so sinfully received, and within a few hours after, unto the desperate destruction of himself.

So More advises anyone who desires to receive Holy Communion to 

consider well the state of our own soul when we shall go to the Board of God, and as near as we can (with the help of His special Grace diligently prayed for before) purge and cleanse our souls by Confession, Contrition, and Penance, with full purpose of forsaking from thenceforth the proud desires of the devil, the greedy covetousness of wretched worldly wealth, and the foul affection of the filthy flesh, and being in full mind to persevere, and continue in the ways of God, and holy cleanness of Spirit . . .

We should remember that in the sixteenth century most of the laity received Holy Communion only a few times each liturgical year. Even today, the precepts of the Church require us to receive Holy Communion only once a year, during the Easter Season. In More's time, that Easter Duty may have been the only time some Catholics received Holy Communion; they attended Mass on Sundays and Holy Days, but communed infrequently, so needed to be well prepared.

When they did receive Holy Communion, More reminded his readers, as Catholics, contrary to those who were introducing Zwinglian ideas about the Eucharist in England,

. . . we firmly believe that this Blessed Sacrament is not a bare sign, or a figure, or a token of that Holy Body of Christ: but that It is in perpetual remembrance of His bitter Passion, that He suffered for us, the self-same precious Body of Christ that suffered it, by His own Almighty power and unspeakable goodness consecrated and given unto us.

Supporting this deep concern of Saint Thomas More with the state of the soul of one receiving Holy Communion is this passage from St. Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians:

“And therefore, if anyone eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord unworthily, he will be held to account for the Lord's body and blood. A man must examine himself first, then eat of that bread and drink of that cup; he is eating and drinking damnation to himself if he eats and drinks unworthily, not recognizing the Lord's body for what it is. That is why many of your number want strength and health, and not a few have died. If we recognized our own fault, we should not incur these judgements; as it is, the Lord judges us and chastises us, so that we may not incur, as this world incurs, damnation.” (I Cor. 11:27-32) Ronald Knox translation.

When More reads St. Paul's words, he notes that this strong warning shouldn't discourage us, but increase our devotion:

Lo, here, this Blessed Apostle well declareth that he, which in any wise unworthily receiveth this most excellent Sacrament, receiveth It unto his own damnation in that he well declareth by his evil demeanour toward It, in his unworthy receiving of It, that he discerneth It not, nor judgeth It, nor taketh It, for the very Body of our Lord, as indeed It is. And verily it is hard but, that, this point deeply rooted in our breasts, should set all our hearts in a fervour of devotion toward the worthy receiving of that Blessed Body.

Next Monday, on October 17, we'll look at why Saint Thomas More thinks this is true.

Blessed be Jesus in the most holy Sacrament of the altar!
Saint Thomas More, pray for us!

Image Credit (Public Domain): Rembrandt van Rijn (and Workshop?) (Dutch, 1606 - 1669 ), The Apostle Paul, c. 1657, oil on canvas, Widener Collection