Those of Us Who Receive Communion Are Not Perfect

Two days ago my 20-year-old son came into the kitchen looking worried and said: “Mom, I don’t understand why some bishops agree that divorced and remarried people (who are not living chastity) should receive Communion, when the Pope has told us young people that we must have a chaste courtship and a marriage for life, and that we must fight with all our strength, as if we were in the World Cup, but to become saints.”

So I sat down to explain to him that the issue of the divorced and remarried is truly painful; that we know several couples in that situation, very good people, who are raising their children in the faith and who sadly cannot receive Communion, so they make spiritual communions instead.

It is not that they cannot receive Communion because they are not good people. The problem is that they cannot receive Communion because they are not in a state of grace, and one cannot receive Communion in mortal sin. And when one is living in adultery, one is living in mortal sin. That is the Truth. Not a truth some of us made up, but the Truth Jesus Christ stated very clearly in the Gospel: from the beginning of creation God made them male and female; for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh, so that they are no longer two but one. What God has joined together, let no one separate. And whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery (cf. Mk 10:5-12).

That Truth is also set out masterfully in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. And our divorced and remarried Catholic friends know it; out of respect for God they do not ask for Communion, because they know that as long as they live in adultery they cannot receive it. It should be remembered that in the Catholic Church there are very specific cases of divorced and remarried people who do receive Communion, but always together with a penitential path, that is, living as brother and sister, under the guidance of a priest and/or the bishop.

I told my son: “It’s like your own case: if you have a girlfriend, you can’t receive Communion if you’re having sex with her before marriage. It’s that simple.” And the Pope has asked young people to be brave in living chastity, to be brave and fight to lead a holy life, to have a chaste courtship and a marriage for life. Pope Francis has said so at the World Youth Days. My children, aged 22, 21, 20, 18, 15 and 14, have heard it and read it together as a family, like everything the Pope says to them.

Another thing I did not quite understand at the Synod on the Family was hearing some participants say that perfect marriages in the 21st century are a kind of utopia, that they don’t exist. I know, of course, that no marriage is perfect, because we all have flaws and faults to overcome until the day we die. But a great many Catholic marriages all over the world (and specifically here in Venezuela, because my husband and I know quite a few) are striving to be holy, following the universal call to holiness given to us by the Second Vatican Council. That call is not for the Catholics who are already in heaven but for those of us who are alive, and alive in a world full of problems and setbacks. Jesus Christ himself told us: “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48). It isn’t easy, we all know that, but it isn’t impossible, because we have the help of God and his Most Holy Mother.

In the world there are a great many Catholic couples who are open to life even though they pray, with serious difficulty, for their daily bread. There are a great many Catholic couples who face countless difficulties and temptations and stay faithful to their husbands or wives. There are a great many Catholic couples who go to confession frequently, and to spiritual direction, so that the priest can advise them on how to live their married life better, because that too is what our pastors are for.

Those of us who go to Mass on Sundays and receive Communion are not perfect. Here in Venezuela the lines at the confessionals are long, and they are full of couples who are not perfect but who know they must live in a state of grace in order to keep going in their struggle to be holy and to raise children who are holy too. That will be the best legacy we can give the world.

And there are a great many couples who go to the Eucharist (with no stain of mortal sin, because that is essential for receiving Communion) so that the Body of Christ will give them the strength to keep going and not fall into anything wrong, because all of us! are tempted all the time, and all of us! are capable of the worst.

That is why I found it a little hard to understand other things I heard in connection with the Synod, where it was said that the Eucharist is needed by the sick and not by the healthy. I think all of us Catholics would like everyone, absolutely everyone, to have the immense joy of receiving the Body of Christ; but what we want most is for every “sick” person, everyone in mortal sin, to be converted, draw near to God, go to confession and live trying not to sin again.

Jesus Christ himself tells us so in the Gospel when he forgives the woman caught in adultery: “Go, and from now on sin no more” (Jn 8:11). Jesus Christ is infinitely merciful and welcomes everyone with open arms; what he wants most in this world is for all his children to be in his arms and to be able to “eat” him. But for that it is necessary to “sin no more.”

And I want to make it very clear that “healthy” marriages also need frequent Communion so as not to fall into sin, because that can happen at any moment; no one is immune to evil.

So I ask those who agree with giving Communion to the divorced and remarried who are not living as brother and sister: how can a 21st-century Catholic couple teach their children chastity and a healthy courtship if a divorced person living in adultery is allowed to receive Communion? How can a Catholic couple today teach their children that marriage is one man and one woman for life, until death do them part, if Communion is given to someone living in adultery?