Back in the day, Catholics had very strict rules when it came to fasting before mass:
no food or drink, even water, was allowed between midnight until you received communion
the next day.
A powerful commitment and act of penance, yes, but admittedly, it was a bit harsh for
many people.
It’s for that reason that over the last 100 years, the Church has lessoned the nature
of the fast and offered more exceptions than ever.
Why did the rules change and what does the Church teach today?
This is Catholicism in Focus.
For as long as anyone can remember, the Church has insisted that a fast from food be observed
prior to receiving communion, with evidence of its common practice dating all the way
back to the 3rd century.
Church leaders like Tertullian and Hippolytus are specifically noted for their insistence
on the practice.
In his Apostolic Tradition, Hippolytus writes:
The faithful shall be careful to partake of the eucharist before eating anything else.
It’s not known how widespread this custom was at this point in history, but by the end
of the 4th century, it was codified into law.
Proposed at the Synod of Hippo in 393 and again at the Council of Carthage in 397, fasting
before receiving communion became the rule of the Church more than 1600 years ago.
So… yeah.
It goes way back.
Fast forward to the 20th century, and one sees that, not only has the law remained in
effect, it has become even more strict.
While early practices did not specify the length of time one needed to fast or what
exceptions could be made, the 1917 Code of Canon Law was very clear: no food or water
was allowed from midnight until one received communion.
According to that code, “Those who have not kept the natural fast from midnight are
not allowed to receive, except in danger of death, or in case it should become necessary
to consume the Blessed Sacrament to safeguard it against irreverence.”
The code goes on in the following line to offer one additional exception for those who
are sick, but stipulates that it only applies to those who have been sick for an entire
month, and only if their confessor gives them special dispensation.
In that case, and only in that case, was even medicine allowed.
So basically, unless you were in mortal danger, were stuck in bed for a month, or the tabernacle
was under attack, nothing—not food, not water, not even medicine—was allowed before
communion.
It didn’t matter if you were young or old, healthy or sick, priest or lay—even if you
were pregnant or were a child—the rule was the same.
Fast, or don’t receive communion.
The idea behind the rule was that the Eucharist should be the most important meal that one
eats in a day, and so one should be not only spiritually ready, but also physically ready
to receive it.
If you were going to a great banquet, you wouldn’t stop on the way to pick up some
cheap fast food; why then would you eat earthly food prior to celebrating at the banquet feast
of the lamb?
It was a spiritually powerful practice… that had some major practical limitations.
Naturally, fasting for the elderly, temporarily sick, pregnant women, and children poses a
potentially great problem to one’s health.
While fasting for a 7am mass might be doable on a regular basis, later masses put a major
strain on the weakest of the community.
This also posed a problem for the growing number of people who worked at night, far
from home, doing grueling labor.
They are often forced to seek nourishment, either during or after their shift, excluding
them from the following day’s Eucharist.
Maybe most straining of all was the burden this placed on priests.
While fasting from midnight until a 7am mass was hardly a sacrifice, many priests would
have been expected to celebrate multiple masses a day.
Missionary priests may have had to walk many miles, even having to wait until the afternoon
to celebrate mass.
According to the 1917 Code of Canon law, they were not only not exempt from the fast in
such cases, they were told that any mass they celebrated after breaking the midnight fast
was considered illicit.
Meaning that they would be breaking not one, but two laws for having even a drink of water
before celebrating mass.
Clearly, this was an issue of us serving the sabbath rather than the sabbath being created
for our benefit, and something needed to be done about it.
Having a fast before communion was a part of the tradition of the Church, and so no
one suggested removing it completely, but a renewed approach needed to be taken.
In 1953, pope Pius XII began such a process.
In an Apostolic Constitution entitled Christus Dominus, the pope acknowledged many of the
burdensome realities facing the faithful, and offered great leniency.
Water was now allowed for anyone in any situation; medicine could be consumed by anyone who was
sick, not just those who were bedridden for a month; and priests who were required to
celebrate multiple masses or travel a far distance, as well as those lay people burdened
by work or travel, could take a beverage outside of one hour before mass, assuming it wasn’t
alcohol.
In 1957, he extended these permissions with Sacram Communionem, a motu proprio that further
simplified the law.
Now, instead of fasting from midnight, all communicants—priest or lay—were expected
to maintain a three hour fast from solid foods and a one hour fast from water and medicines.
To put it mildly… this was a game changer.
Besides making it far easier for people to receive communion without undue burden, it
opened the door for regular afternoon and evening masses.
With only a three hour fast required, priests and lay people could eat lunch, wait at least
three hours, and then celebrate a mass in the evening.
With a midnight fast in place, this was essentially never a possibility, but now, those working
overnight or early morning shifts could comfortably go to mass on a Sunday, or even daily mass,
in the evening.
Permissions were extended even further by pope Paul VI in 1964, designating a common
one-hour fast for all food and beverage and allowing priests to consume beverages between
multiple masses, even if within an hour from mass.
In 1973, he added to this by requiring the sick to fast for only 15 minutes prior to
communion.
All of this culminated in what is contained in the 1983 code of canon law, the current
law of the Church.
Canon 919 states:
A person who is to receive the Most Holy Eucharist is to abstain for at least one hour before
holy communion from any food and drink, except for only water and medicine.
§2.
A priest who celebrates the Most Holy Eucharist two or three times on the same day can take
something before the second or third celebration even if there is less than one hour between
them.
§3.
The elderly, the infirm, and those who care for them can receive the Most Holy Eucharist
even if they have eaten something within the preceding hour.
In other words… fasting is important, but it should never be a reason to miss communion.
And really, I think those are the two points that matter in all of this.
Despite the growing laxity over the years in practice, the Church has always maintained
an insistence on fasting before communion.
This is not optional, and it is not something to easily dismiss.
For more than 1600 years, maybe even back to our Jewish roots, we’ve understood the
importance of preparing our bodies for something holy.
But we also know that what we receive is holy, and worth receiving, whether or not we are
pure enough to receive it.
While the significance of fasting should not be dismissed, and many may rightly insist
on a return to even greater measures, it should never be a reason to turn down an experience
of the real presence of Christ.
I mean, c’mon people.
When the rules are this flexible, taking into account so many of life’s difficulties and
offering so many exceptions, there is no reason why anyone should have to choose between the
two.
We can all handle this fast, and so we can all receive with at least some sense of preparing
not just our souls and minds, but our bodies as well.