15 June 1998
The Pious Clergy and Faithful
of the Holy Diocese of
Denver
Beloved in the Lord,
The Lord Jesus Christ came into the world and became one of us, so that we may become like Him. He died on the Cross so that we would be able to share His divine Body and Blood as He said we should do, in order to become heirs of His coming Kingdom. In other words, by receiving Holy Communion we are sharers of Christ's eternal glory.
However, Holy Communion can be detrimental to us if we receive it without taking seriously its importance and the fact that we could be harming ourselves to the point of sickness and even death. Saint Paul writes:
Therefore whoever eats this bread and drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. For this reason many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep. (1 Corinthians 11:27-30)
An increasing number of our people have become careless in how they should prepare themselves and their children for Holy Communion. For example many receive Holy Communion while having feelings of resentment against others. They do not talk with relatives and former friends and yet they approach the communion cup as if they are receiving dessert. Others do not abstain from certain foods as they should. Still others eat before receiving Holy Communion and some are even feeding their school-age children food in the back of the church before they send them up to receive Holy Communion. A number of people go to receive Holy Communion and they are chewing gum!
Still others enter the church after the Divine Liturgy has started and even after the Lord's Prayer has been recited and they proceed to enter the communion line, as if they are going into a fast food line.
Probably the ones who are in the greatest danger of allowing Holy Communion to harm them are they who have gone through the procedure of preparation with prayer and abstinence, but who are afraid to touch the communion spoon with their lips. These people are afraid of "catching something," if they touch the communion spoon with their mouths after others have gone before them. They think that they will catch AIDS or some other terrible disease. Aside from the fact that the priest must consume the remainder of the Holy Communion at the end of each Divine Liturgy Ñ and in 2,000 years there has never been a case in which a priest has contracted a communicable disease Ñ fear nevertheless exists in the hearts of a number of our people that they will catch something harmful. Actually such behavior which indicates a lack of faith in the believer should convince them never to receive Holy Communion until they have changed their thinking. For even though their lips may not touch the communion spoon, they could very well become ill to the point of death because of their lack of faith. In this way Holy Communion can definitively prove harmful not because of what is in it but because the Holy Spirit Who changes the bread and wine into the Divine Body and Blood of Christ is offended.
I ask the priests of this holy Diocese to warn their parishioners about the seriousness of receiving Holy Communion and I ask the people of this Diocese to begin to be strict with yourselves because the receiving of Holy Communion is one of the most important things we do on a regular basis in our religious experience. Christ our Lord came into the world to give us eternal life and to give it more and more abundantly. Let us not take His extreme humility and His sacrifice so casually that we do not really discern how much Holy Communion can really help us in so many ways, as well as harm us to the point of sickness and death. How we receive Holy Communion is up to each one of us; we decide if it will help us or harm us; the Lord will respond accordingly.
With Paternal Blessings,
+Metropolitan Isaiah
Presiding Hierarch
of
the Diocese of Denver
TO BE PRINTED IN THE PARISH BULLETINS AND NEWSLETTERS