Courtney McGrailDear Editor, Your newspaper has carried many reports and opinion pieces in recent weeks regarding the issue of Holy Communion for divorced and remarried Catholics. It is a challenging question, and my heart goes out to all who have experienced relationship breakdown.
I feel that the broader question of worthiness to receive Jesus in the Eucharist has been inadequately presented. We are all sinners. Any of us guilty of serious and unrepented sin is unworthy of and excluded from reception of the Eucharist. That includes those of us who habitually miss Mass on Sundays or Holy Days, those of us who use, dispense or prescribe artificial contraceptives or abortifacients, persons engaging in pre-marital sexual intercourse, anyone who has abandoned the Sacrament of Reconciliation, persons engaged in domestic violence or violent crime or theft, tax evasion, fraud, etc. I read again and again about the unworthiness of divorced and remarried Catholics, when in fact many of these people have had experiences that are truly heart-breaking, their flight to a loving relationship being the most understandable and human of responses. This group is by no means the most obviously unworthy of receiving Jesus in the Eucharist, and yet they seem to get all the bad press.
I agree with the need for a strong discipline around the Eucharist. I just think that if the discussion were broadened to a consideration of unworthiness generally, we would all be challenged to purify our lives, and the divorced/remarried wouldn’t feel singled out as being uniquely unworthy.
Yours etc.,
Shane Hogan,
Bruff, Co. Limerick.