Why Can’t Everyone Receive Communion at Mass?

This question often comes up at weddings and funerals, when friends or family who are not Catholic wonder why they cannot receive Holy Communion.

Holy Communion is the Body and Blood of Christ. When we receive Him, we are joined to Him and to one another. Saint Paul wrote, “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.” We share one life in Christ.

Around the year 155, Saint Justin Martyr described the Sunday Eucharist for a Roman emperor. No one could receive, he wrote, unless he believed what the Church believed, had been baptized, and lived as Christ taught.

When we come forward, the minister says, “The Body of Christ,” and we answer, “Amen.” That Amen means we believe Christ is truly present in the Eucharist, and that we are united with the Catholic Church.

Christians not yet in full communion with the Catholic Church do not ordinarily receive Holy Communion, because the Eucharist expresses a unity they do not yet fully share.

The Church recognizes the Orthodox priesthood and Eucharist as valid. Orthodox Christians may receive from a Catholic minister if they ask freely and are properly disposed, while respecting the discipline of their own Church.

Other baptized Christians may receive only in danger of death or other grave necessity. They must be unable to approach a minister of their own community, must ask for Communion themselves, must believe what the Catholic Church teaches about the Eucharist, and must be properly prepared.

A Catholic conscious of grave sin ordinarily goes to Confession before receiving again. Anyone who cannot receive is still welcome at Mass. They hear God’s Word, pray with us, and may make a spiritual communion, asking Jesus to draw them closer to Himself.

If someone comes with you to Mass and cannot receive Communion, explain the Church’s teaching and help them feel welcome. Pray for the day when all Christians can receive the Eucharist together in full unity.

References: 1 Corinthians 10:16–17; Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1374, 1385, 1396, 1398–1401; Code of Canon Law, canon 844.

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