The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1913-03-08
THE EASTER COMMUNION.

The command under threat of
ecclesiastical pains and penalties to
receive the Blessed Eucharist at
Easter time, dates only from the
Fourth Council of Lateran in the year
1915, writes Father Thurston, S. j., in
Lent and Holy Week" But, eccles-
iastical authorities had previously ex-
pected from the laity a great deal
more than Communion once in a
twelvemonth. Even the secular laws
of King Ethelred prescribed, as a
ceive the Blessed Sacrament three
times in the year, while Archbishop
Wulfstan and other Bishops of that
age, exhort all the faithful to approach
the Holy Table on Maundy Thursday,
Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday, to
say nothing of what might be GUS
tomary at other seasons.
What is of more interest is the i'm
portance which the Ceremoniale
Episcoporum seems to attach to the
Easter Communion itself. 1t directs
that on Easter Day the Bishop ought
by all means (debet omnino), to cele-
brate Mass solemn1y in his own cathe-
dral, and there distribute Holy Com
muniOn to the people. In its refer
ence to this solemnity the rubrical
code of the Church seems to perpetu-
ate the memory of an earlier usage,
whereby, as on Maundy Thursday, so
on Easter Sunday, the Bishop alone
fn oIad
lay folks received Communion from
his hands. In the earliest ages of the
Church we read that the monks of
the desert gathered together to the
number of fifty thousand to celebrate
their Easter in common and to be
present at the Mass of their Abbot
st. Pachomius. At a somewhat later
period, the same instructive desire for
some outward manifestation of their
unien in Christ on this great founda-
ton festival of the Christian faith,
found expression in the kiss of peace,
with which all the faithful, whether
monks or lay folk, saluted each other
when they first met on Easter morn
ing 1t is even probable that the
Ceremoniale Episcoporum still pre-
serves a striking memorial of that
pious usage, for it directs that when
at this paschal Mass the Bishop dis
tributes Holy Communion to the
canons and the sacred ministers, they
are first of all to kiss his hand as he
holds before them the Sacred Host,
and then when they have received
Holy Communion to kiss his cheek
The intimate association between the
pax" and the reception of the Blessed
Eucharist has come before us more
than once in the course of these
chapters, and indeed the very name
Communion teaches the same les
son. Nothing can symbolic in
more striking way the truth that we
are all members of one mystical body
than this participation in common of
the Flesh and Blood of Christ. See
ing" says st. Paul, chat we, who are
one bread, one body, all that partake
of the one bread"
The General Communion enjoined
upon all the faithful was in the be-
ginning prescribed for Easter Day
alone The obligation was not salts
fed by receiving the Sacraments even
on Maundy Thursday or Easter Tues
day; and it is easy to understand that
the sense of union and fellowship
among Christians which the Church
undoubtedly wished to promote by
this ordinance must suffer in a meas
ure from any relaxation in the strict
ness of the rule.
However, in her consideration for
human infirmity, the Church has
thought we'll to concede so ample an
interval for the satisfying of these
obligations that no excuse can be
pleaded by the backward and the
iilatory. On the other hand the
tendency to look upon Easter as a
home feast, day when each mem
Der of the Christian family ought to
occupy his own place in his Fathers
house, has fingered in spite of all re-
laxations. Where parishes exist in
the strict canonical sense, the faith
full are normally bound to hear their
Sunday Mass and to make their Easter
Communion in the parish church. In
Rome itself, and in many other places,
on Maundy Thursday and Easter Sun
day, Communion is given in the parish
churches and nowhere else. In this
country there are no parishes, ac-
curately speaking, and consequently
no strict obligations exist to attend
any particular church for Mass and
Communion. But the collections made
on this day for the support of the
clergy suggest that the faithful are
not expected to be absentees from the
mission church which they are bound
to support, and to which they must
look for their Sacramento.
LENT FOR YOUNG MEN.