One hour?

[kern]

I was under the impression that you had to fast from midnight to receiving the communion. But now I see that you only have to fast one hour before the communion.

One hour? How is this even considered a fast? You can eat breakfast at 8:30 and go to the 9:00 mass and by the time you take communion it will have been an hour.

And there seems to be an exemption clause for sick or elderly people -- but I don't really get the purpose of this for such a short time of fasting.

-Chris, who has observed the midnight on fast but only because the dining hall breakfast closes before I wake up on Sunday morning

 

[Anise]

The elderly often have communion brought to them in the nursing home. The person with the communion could arrive whenever, and the nurses could have fed the elderly person whenever. Both being fed and when the communion arrives are not in control of the elderly person, so they can't effectively coordinate the whole thing.

How is it a fast? By not eating food. I'm not trying to sound flippant. I agree it is a light duty. But I have run up against it on many occasions. It has inconvenienced me and made it so that I skipped either communion (not mass) or some activity. On the days where it is not inconvenient, I still think about it, so it serves to remind me, before I get to mass, that I am supposed to be preparing for communion, and not just taking it without thought.

 

[kern]

Ah, I see the purpose if you go to one of the non-Sunday masses. I suppose that if I went to a 5:30 pm mass there would be a temptation to eat a snack before going to tide me over until dinner. Of course, as I said before, if I ate the snack at 5:00 it would be an hour by the time I actually received the bread at mass.

-Chris

 

[VOW]

To Kern:

I've always taken it to mean one hour before the start of the SERVICE, not one hour to when Communion begins.

Sometimes I have difficulty with this, because I've had problems with low blood sugar. I try to pace my AM snacks so I can receive Communion if I attend Noon mass or communion service. This can mean eating my lunch at 10:30 AM, though, and then giving in to temptation and buying JUNK FOOD from the snack bar in our office building to get me through the afternoon.

One thing you gotta say, though, is I SURE have my mind on receiving Communion, and it's a way to focus on Jesus. I don't look at it as a SUFFERING, or even an inconvenience. I see it as deliberately forcing myself to change my habits to allow Jesus into my weekday.

We ALL need to do that every so often!


Peace be with you,
~VOW

 

[kern]

I suffer from low blood sugar too (which is why the 5:30 evening mass on weekdays is hard for me -- I can get physically weak and a bit shaky if I don't eat by certain times). I think it's gotten better, though. When I was in middle school and high school if I had the second lunch at 11:15 it would be a struggle for me to make it through the last class before lunch -- it was sometimes hard to write notes because my hand and arm were shaking.

-Chris

 

[ZooMom]

We normally attend the 11:00 Mass on Sundays. My husband and I usually haven't eaten since dinner the night before, but the children can't fast that long. They have their breakfast at about 8 or 9, and then we have lunch after Mass. The restriction is there to make us more aware of the importance of Communion, but not to the point where we should cause ourselves serious harm by observing it. The 'one hour' rule just takes all the exceptions into account. It's the least common denominator, as anyone should be able to go without nourishment for that long without harm. Those able to observe a longer fast should, of course, do so.

 

[patriarch]

As someone who had to observe the longer fast, from food AND water from Midnight to reception of Communion up till the time I was about 22 yrs old, I can say authoritatively, the present discipline is much better. The former discipline contributed to much testiness and quarreling, at least in our home.

The fast is in fact only one hour before the reception of Holy Communion itself, not one hour before the Mass begins.

Personally, I think it is not a good idea to promote in one's own home a discipline in this area which is more stringent than that of the Church, not that anyone has suggested that, but it could be a temptation. We endeavor to think *with* the Church. No child will be the envy of his playmates who has a mother or father who is developing a well-deserved reputation for being more Catholic than the pope. Being as Catholic as the pope is tough enough!

I have never heard any priest say that those who can observe a longer fast should do so, nor have I read it anywhere until today.

Certainly I am not opposed to doing penance, and think that we Catholics of 20th c. United States are particularly soft, but laying down a general principle that those who can observe a longer fast should do so, introduces a rigorism that could easily creep into many other areas of our faith life, casting a pall of coldness and censoriousness and strain over it, to the point that we would be Jansenists and not Catholics.

Everyone is absolutely free to eat and drink right up till 59 minutes and 59 seconds before reception of the Eucharist, with no qualms of conscience nor liability to censure. At the same time, there is no room for laxity either. If the priest fails to give a sermon and your last opportunity to receive is only fifty-five minutes after eating, then you abstain from the Eucharist out of respect for the discipline of the Church. If you begin to think that this is such a little matter that you are being overly scrupulous in observing it, you're really in a very bad way, for these little obediences and observances matter very much. "He who contemns little things will fall little by little."

Lee

 

[kern]

That's an interesting viewpoint, thanks -- I never considered that it could be a bad idea to adhere to the old way.

I imagine that I will still do the midnight fast next week because I'll still be at school where the dining hall closes before I wake up in the morning.

-Chris

 

[LilyLamb]

Lee - that was well written and "food for thought"

 

[Fr. Rob]

On fasting before Communion:

The practice in the more High Church parishes of the Anglican Church is a three hour fast from all food and foodstuffs. Medication and water are permitted, if needed.

Interestingly, my shift here at work starts at 4 AM, and I make visits on pre-surgery patients from 4-6 AM. Then, I may have other visits to make, but my first Mass of the day is at 8:45 with the Nursing Home residents. Like others, I get very shaky and weak when I haven't ate, so sometimes I cannot keep my three hours. . . but I do try to keep at least an hour. After the first Mass of the day, the Priest is not obliged to continue fasting if he has a second one. My second one is at noon. I get back into my office between 9:45 and 10:00 (after making Communion or Anointing calls) and have to eat a small snack to get me through until I shift off at 1 PM.

I encourage fasting when possible, but also, some folks who come to the mid-day Mass here at the hospital are assigned lunch from 11:30 - 12:30, and others from 12:00-1:00. Both of these groups have to get a meal (most have shifted on at 6 AM), so I do generally dispense the first group from the Fast, though I ask them to eat very light foods (salads, if possible) and do some devotional reading or prayer while the eat, as opposed to chatting it up.

Insofar as I can tell, it's effective.

Father Rob

 

[fragmentsofdreams]

As with any observence, it is most important to keep in mind the purpose and to avoid pride. I see so many people who blindly follow the rules but have no response when a Protestant questions them. Thankfully, I see a far lesser number of people showing outward signs of pride.

With such a rich tradition, I wish we appreciated more.