A reader says 1 Cor. 11:28–29 does not bar grave sinners from the Eucharist.

n his first let­ter to the Corinthi­ans, chap­ter 11, St. Paul tells us why it is nec­es­sary to have a prop­er dis­po­si­tion before we receive the Eucharist. He begins in verse 18 by rebuk­ing the Corinthi­ans for their “divi­sions” and “fac­tions.” (The more things change.) He also con­demns some abus­es that crept into the com­mon meal pri­or to the Eucharist. The rich, who could bring a large share of food and drink, end­ed up gorg­ing them­selves to the dis­ad­van­tage of the poor, who were not able to bring much. As a result, accord­ing to Paul, “one [man] is hun­gry and anoth­er is drunk.” “Do you despise the Church of God,” he asks, “and humil­i­ate those who have noth­ing?” (The more things change.) Paul has to remind the Corinthi­ans that, in receiv­ing the Eucharist at Mass, they “pro­claim the Lord’s death until He comes.”

Where­fore whoso­ev­er shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthi­ly, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man exam­ine him­self, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. (1 Cor. 11:27–28)

The Church tells us that these words bar a per­son guilty of any mor­tal sin from receiv­ing the body and blood of Christ. Glut­tony, drunk­en­ness, and steal­ing from the poor are not the only ones.

To respond to this invi­ta­tion we must pre­pare our­selves for so great and so holy a moment. St. Paul urges us to exam­ine our con­science: “Who­ev­er, there­fore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unwor­thy man­ner will be guilty of pro­fan­ing the body and blood of the Lord. Let a man exam­ine him­self, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For any one who eats and drinks with­out dis­cern­ing the body eats and drinks judg­ment upon him­self.” Any­one con­scious of a grave sin must receive the sacra­ment of Rec­on­cil­i­a­tion before com­ing to com­mu­nion.

But accord­ing to one read­er, this is an illic­it addi­tion to Paul’s mean­ing:

When St Paul spoke of exam­in­ing con­science and dis­cern­ing the body he was talk­ing about pay­ing atten­tion to what was tak­ing place and why they were gath­er­ing, backed up by his ear­li­er con­text of not shar­ing food and get­ting drunk. It did­n’t imply any­thing to do with the cur­rent con­cept of grave sin and lack of con­fes­sion as a bar­ri­er, it was just about exam­in­ing motives for why they were par­tak­ing in the com­mu­nal meal and mak­ing sure they were cor­rect.

Now, that exe­ge­sis is just strange. I know no oth­er way to put it.

One glar­ing prob­lem with it is that it unnec­es­sar­i­ly lim­its St. Paul’s gen­er­al prin­ci­ple about the right dis­po­si­tion to receive the body and blood of Christ to the spe­cif­ic mor­tal sins he hap­pens to be rebuk­ing at the moment. There’s no war­rant for that in the text. In verse 28, Paul says who­ev­er receives the Eucharist “in an unwor­thy man­ner” is guilty of the cru­ci­fix­ion itself. He has turned, in his dis­cus­sion, from the spe­cif­ic abuse to the gen­er­al prin­ci­ple.

And one does not have to look far to find that Chris­tians from the wery begin­ning under­stood St. Paul’s words the same way the Cat­e­chism does. Just turn to the first-cen­tu­ry Didache:

But every Lord’s day gath­er your­selves togeth­er, and break bread, and give thanks­giv­ing after hav­ing con­fessed your trans­gres­sions, that your sac­ri­fice may be pure. [The Didache also has Malachi 1:11 in mind here.] But let no one that is at vari­ance with his fel­low come togeth­er with you, until they be rec­on­ciled, that your sac­ri­fice may not be pro­faned. For this is that which was spo­ken by the Lord: In every place and time offer to me a pure sac­ri­fice; for I am a great King, says the Lord, and my name is won­der­ful among the nations.

The Didache cer­tain­ly did imag­ine that Paul’s words had some­thing to do with “the cur­rent con­cept of grave sin and lack of con­fes­sion as a bar­ri­er.” The Didache rec­og­nizes that a state of sin “pro­fanes” the Eucharist. You must con­fess first.

There is no ear­li­er source than the Didache for the prac­tice of the Church at the ear­li­est time. If the Church “added” to Paul’s mean­ing, it cer­tain­ly did so very ear­ly. It added to it so ear­ly, in fact, that there is no ear­li­er record of any­one under­stand­ing Paul’s words in a dif­fer­ent way.

But two lat­er authorities—St. Cypri­an and St. John Chrysostom—reiterate what we read in the Didache.

Here is St. Cypri­an, writ­ing in A.D. 251. Com­ment­ing on 1 Corinthi­ans 11, he says:

All these warn­ings being scorned and con­temned—before their sin is expi­at­ed, before con­fes­sion has been made of their crime, before their con­science has been purged by sac­ri­fice and by the hand of the priest, before the offense of an angry and threat­en­ing Lord has been appeased, vio­lence is done to His body and blood; and they sin now against their Lord more with their hand and mouth than when they denied their Lord.

Those who eat this bread and drink this cup “before their con­science has been purged” do “vio­lence” do Christ’s body and blood, just as Paul had said. They are guilty of the cru­ci­fix­ion. Accord­ing to St. Cypri­an, yes, you do have to go to Con­fes­sion first and rid your­self of mor­tal sin. To not do so is an addi­tion­al, and even graver, sin.

And here is St. John Chrysos­tom, writ­ing in the 4th cen­tu­ry. He too says what the Didache says. In his Homi­ly 28 on 1 Corinthi­ans, he writes:

Since if even that kind of ban­quet which the sens­es take cog­nizance of can­not be par­tak­en of by us when fever­ish and full of bad humors, with­out risk of per­ish­ing: much more is it unlaw­ful for us to touch this Table with pro­fane lusts, which are more griev­ous than fevers. Now when I say pro­fane lusts, I mean both those of the body, and of mon­ey, and of anger, and of mal­ice, and, in a word, all that are pro­fane. [Any mor­tal sin bars you from com­mu­nion.] And it becomes him that approach­es, first to emp­ty him­self of all these things [i.e., through con­fes­sion.] and so to touch that pure sac­ri­fice.

The Church’s under­stand­ing of Paul’s words—that mor­tal sin bars you from the Eucharist, unless you con­fess and receive absolution—is not some lat­er inven­tion. It dates back to the Didache, and it has remained to this day.