Let Us Lift Up Our Hearts
Let Us Give Thanks Unto The Lord
Holy Things Are For The Holy
According to the Canons, though a woman is not in any manner more sinful in her cycle than a man is in the case of involuntary bodily emissions, she, like the man, must avoid Holy Communion at this time
These bodily functions are not sins, but they represent and emphasize the consequences of our fallen states
In approaching Holy Communion, we are lifting our fallen selves in the greatest humility to commune with what we are in Christ: literal participants in the Divine.
We thus approach Christ as clean vesselsto the greatest possible extent for us in our fallen state, that He might come into us and transform us. Being holy, He comes only to those who strive to holiness. He cannot enter into that which is evil without destroying it. The Eucharist, hence, is the fire that cleanses, for those well prepared, and the fire that burns, for those not prepared. As St. John Chrysostomos writes, --This is a great and wonderful thing, so that if you approach it with pureness, you approach for salvation; but if you do so with an evil conscience, it is for punishment and vengeance
In a homily on the Gospel of St. Matthew, St. John Chrysostomos does praise the great faith of the woman who had suffered hemorrhages (an "issue of blood") for some twelve years. He points out that Christ freed her both of her illness and of her guilt, which she had developed because of the Jewish idea that a woman with such an issue was unclean. We would ask readers to review this homily both in English and Greek. We do not think that there is a shred of evidence that St. John Chrysostomos is suggesting that women commune during their periods. We find no evidence that St. John Chrysostomos somehow stand against the advice given by spiritual Fathers and Mothers across the centuries, only now to be uncovered as incorrect and un-Patristic advice
We must in general be careful about those who suddenly proclaim the awesome Mysteries to be a privilege" easy to exercise. We favor frequent Communion because this is the consistent and dominant Patristic teaching. But we also insist on proper fasting and preparation on the days before Communion and the utmost cleanliness of mind and body, which things are equally consistent and dominant in the teachings of the Fathers. I would wonder what woman would actually want to commune during her period, or what man would wish to do the same after a bodily emission. Where is the fear of God? Where is the sobriety? More importantly, where is the humility
In an article to be published this year in The Greek Orthodox Theological Review, Bishop [now Archbishop] Chrysostomos writes some words about preparation for Holy Communion that seem apropos of our discussion here. Let us cite these: "The Eucharist ... is fully understood only as we recognize its function as a weapon in the war against the world and our fallen natures. The Eucharist is the 'medicine of immortality,' as the Patristic texts so frequently call it, by which we cure ourselves of the fallen nature of sin and the instrument of spiritual restoration by which Christ, to quote St. Hesychios, 'will enlighten our mind ever more and cause it to shine like a star.' If Baptism introduces us to the struggle for the death of the flesh and union with God, it is the Eucharist which sustains us in this struggle. It is a direct participation in perfect manhood through the partaking of Christ, the Perfect God and Perfect Man. As St. John Chrysostomos tells us, we become 'His flesh and His bones.' And this oneness with Christ serves the function of moving us continually away from the world and mortal flesh to the 'life in Christ,' as Nicholas Kabasilas describes the sacramental life, and union with God begins here on earth. Knowing this to be the function of the Eucharist, contemporary misunderstandings of fasting and preparation for communion fade away
We come to understand, along with the great Abba Philemon (who, though a priest, dared only serve very infrequently at the Altar), that we should participate in the mystery of Christ only in a 'pure and chaste condition,' approaching the mystery 'free from the flesh' and 'free from all hesitation and doubt,' that we might wholly participate in 'the enlightenment that proceeds from it.' The whole of the spiritual life is one of attaining illumination and perfection, and the divine gift of the Eucharist comes to fulfill efforts toward purity in our daily lives and in our own human will. The Eucharist is a food for those who move toward the holy [glint]'Holy things for the holy'[/glint] as the Divine Liturgy says. It is death for those who fail to recognize its function
Fasting, abstinence from Holy Communion by women in their periods, abstinence by men polluted by nocturnal emissions contemporary objections to these fade when we begin to grasp the true function of the Eucharist and its divine aid in our human efforts toward perfection and our daily spiritual struggle with the world and its evil. The ascent toward perfection is centered in the Eucharist and we appropriately approach it as something which functions in concord with our highest human goals, aims, and efforts
Orthodox Tradition Vol. IV, No. 1
to be continued
