Tuesday, XII Ordinary Time
(Matthew 7)
A few years ago a magazine parodied the Church’s concern that people who are not prepared to receive Holy Communion nevertheless go to take it. The magazine compared giving notice that reception of the Eucharist is intended for faithful Catholics in the state of grace to having a bouncer at the Communion rail. Yet the gospel proscription today of giving “what is holy to dogs” has been interpreted from early times in the Church as a warning not to admit the unbaptized or the unrepentant to the Eucharist.
The Eucharistic bread and wine are, after all, Christ himself. He comes to bring us peace and to strengthen us against evil. Everyone, of course, needs this assistance. But unless one recognizes him and is not encumbered by sin, accepting him in Communion is like exercising immediately after a full meal. It will not improve but only jeopardize one’s well-being.
Of course, suggesting that people are like dogs sounds rash to our ears. It was an expression of first century Judaism just as twenty-first century Americans innocently call the elderly as well girls “guys” – a term once reserved for young men. We do well not to judge Jesus by the colloquialisms he uses but to judge ourselves by the universal standard he sets when he says, “Do to others whatever you would have them do to you.”
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