← The Fr. Mike Schmitz Catholic Podcast
The Fr. Mike Schmitz Catholic Podcast
Do NOT Receive Communion Until You’ve Seen This (w/ Fr. Mike Schmitz)
00:05:29
"Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord. A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment* on himself." - 1 Corinthians 11:27-29 Fr. Mike explains that receiving Holy Communion in a state of mortal sin, is itself a mortal sin. However, he also advises that if you’re genuinely uncertain about whether you’re in a state of mortal sin, you should go ahead and receive Communion. The reason is that true mortal sin requires three conditions: - Grave matter - Full knowledge - Deliberate consent If you’re honestly unsure, the third condition isn’t fully met — meaning it can’t be a mortal sin.
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Say you're going to Mass, and all of a sudden you're like, wait a second. I don't know if I've committed a mortal sin. Maybe I did. Maybe that was that a mortal sin. Now, here's what I heard as counseled to me, and I will counsel it to you. And maybe until the day I die, it's this. Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and this is Ascension Presents. When I was in college, we kept the priests up so late we had mass at 9 o'. Clock. That was kind of like the big student Mass we had on our campus. So we'd have Mass really late. And I remember one guy, one man I know very, very well, he'd come to Mass every single Sunday. And when everyone else would leave their pew for Communion, he would not get up and come forward. He would just sit in the pew. I think that he's sitting there thinking, like, here, I'm the failure. Like, here I am. I'm the one who can't receive Jesus today. I'm the one who can't receive Holy Communion today on Sunday night because of what I did Saturday night or Friday night or whatever. I'm not assuming anything. It's just like he knew himself. He knew that he was in such a state that he was not able to receive Holy Communion. I'm guessing he saw that as a failure, as a great lack of witness to Jesus. But I remember seeing that and thinking, that man gets it. By not coming forward to receive Holy Communion, he's honoring the Lord more than many of us who are coming to receive holy communion unworthily. St. Paul writes about this in 1 Corinthians, chapter 11. He says that there are some who are going to Mass, and they are receiving the body and blood of Jesus unworthily. And in doing so, they're guilty of his. Of his murder, they're guilty of his death. That's actually the weight. If we receive Holy Communion in a state of mortal sin, if we receive Holy Communion unworthily, it's a mortal sin. And 1 Corinthians makes that absolutely, abundantly clear. And yet how often we kind of, in a cavalier way, approach the altar, not really weighing out, wait, let's ask the question, am I in a state of grace? Am I conscious of any. Am I conscious of mortal sin? Right. We know what the requirements for mortal sin are. That it has to be grave sin. Right? I have to know it's a sin, and I have to freely choose to do it anyway. So I recognize that, okay, If I'm aware that I've previously skipped Mass. That is a grave sin. If I knew it was a grave sin and chose to do it anyways, that's a mortal sin. I can't receive Holy Communion if there's another mortal sin, another grave sin that I knew was a grave sin and freely chose to do anyway, I can't receive Holy Communion then either, because that's another grave sin. We're called to Mass. We're called to be there, but also we must abstain if we're aware of. Of mortal sin. St. Paul's language is so serious. The idiomatic expression I've heard explained to me is that we're guilty of the very body and blood of Christ in the sense that we're guilty of his murder. Which puts the stakes pretty high. Now, a couple things. Requirements for mortal sin are that it's grave sin. Yes. And you had then you. And you knew it. So if you didn't know that until now it was a sin, but you weren't guilty of it, right. You weren't responsible, culpable for that sin. But here's the thing. Now you know. Now, now we all know that receiving Holy Communion in a state of mortal sin is itself another sin. I don't care what anyone says, like, well, you know, just receive it anyways. Because the Eucharist is not a reward for being righteous, but it's. It's medicine for sinner. Yes, it is medicine for sinners. It is medicine for the sick. It's not medicine for the dead. What mortal sin is, it makes us in some ways spiritually dead. And so if someone says, no, no, no, just come forward. Anyway, even if you're aware of mortal sin, that's incorrect. I would not ever recommend that because it seems to be very clearly prohibited by God's word and by God's Church. So keep that in mind. Now, at the same time, what if you don't know? Say you're going to Mass and all of a sudden you're like, wait a second, I don't know if I've committed a mortal sin. Maybe I did, Maybe that. Was that a mortal sin? Was that a mortal sin? And you get it all in your head about this. Now, here's what I heard as counseled to me, and I will counsel it to you. And maybe until the day I die, it's this. When in doubt, if you're coming to Mass and you're. You don't know if you've committed mortal sin. You don't know if you're in a state of grace or not. When in doubt, always receive and receive that peace. The three requirements for mortal sin are grave matter. You know it's a sin, you freely chose to do it anyways. If you don't know, then we're missing some of those requirements for a sin to be moral. Not only that, but if you were the evil one, right? If you were the devil, if you're the one who wanted to keep everyone away from the heart of the Lord, what would you do? What you do is probably in that moment of communion, in that moment where people are drawn near to the Lord in intimacy, he would distract you by putting this thought in your head of like, wait, wait, do I know? Did I state of grace? Not a state of grace to distract you from that moment of intimacy where you're wondering the whole time, should I even be here? When in doubt, receive. When in doubt, receive. Because that voice that says you shouldn't even be here is wrong again. That man I knew in college was a greater witness to the true presence of Jesus in the Eucharist and and a greater witness to the fact that God wants all of us to come close to him than maybe anyone else I've ever met in my life. Because he knew those two things. He knew, God wants me here, I need to be here. It's Sunday, I have to be at Mass. But he also knew, based on what I know about my soul, what I know about my relationship with Jesus, right now, I can't receive him yet. That declaration, I need to be here, but I can't receive right now, man, that single, single witness has inspired me to love Jesus more maybe than. Maybe more than any book I've ever read on the Eucharist. And it's the witness of someone who felt like a failure. But he wasn't totally failing. He was witnessing to God's power, God's truth to God's reality in the Eucharist, even by not receiving Holy Communion. Anyways, that's what I got from all this here at such a presents. My name is Father Mike. God bless.