279. Can forgotten or unconscious sins impede the Eucharist?
279. CAN FORGOTTEN OR UNCONSCIOUS SINS IMPEDED THE EUCHARIST?
How is our reception of grace in the Eucharist affected by sins of our recent or remote past which we have forgotten, but which remain in our unconscious memory and in their harmful influence on our character? Since sin penetrates to all areas of our being, it must penetrate also to our unconscious; so how do these sins affect our reception of the Eucharist? Or was St. Thomas perhaps so naïve and pre-modern that he did not recognize the existence of the unconscious?
Objection. It happens sometimes that the sinner is unconscious of his sin. Yet such a one does not seem to sin by receiving the Body of Christ, for according to this (if unconscious sin prevents reception of the Eucharist) all who receive it would sin, as exposing themselves to danger, since the Apostle says (1 Cor 4:4): I am not conscious to myself of anything (sinful), yet I am not hereby justified. . . .
Reply. The fact of a man being unconscious of his sin can come about in two ways. First of all through his own fault, either because through ignorance of the law (which ignorance does not excuse him) he thinks something not to be sinful which is a sin, as for example if one guilty of fornication were to deem simple fornication not to be a mortal sin; or because he neglects to examine his conscience . . . in this way . . . the sinner who receives Christ’s Body commits sin, although unconscious thereof, because the very ignorance is a sin on his part.
Secondly, it may happen without fault on his part, as for instance when he has sorrowed over his sin but is not sufficiently contrite; and in such a case he does not sin in receiving the Body of Christ, because a man cannot know for certain whether he is truly contrite. It suffices, however, if he find in himself the marks of contrition, for instance if he grieve over past sins and propose to avoid them in the future (Rule of St. Augustine). But if he be ignorant that what he did was a sinful act through ignorance of the fact which excuses, for instance if a man approach a woman whom he believed to be his wife whereas she was not, he is not to be called a sinner on that account. In the same way if he has utterly forgotten his sin, general contrition suffices for blotting it out (III,80,4).
Freud was not the first to discover the unconscious. It is commonsense experience. Plato anticipated many of Freud’s theories about the unconscious in the Republic; and St. Thomas, like all classic spiritual masters, knew its extent and power quite well. So he begins with the assumption that “it happens sometimes that the sinner is unconscious of his sin.”
The question then is: Since it is wrong to receive the Eucharist when we have unrepented sin in our soul, and since it is not possible to be consciously repentant of sins that we are not conscious of, and since most people have sins they are not conscious of most of the time, and therefore not repentant of, why is it not therefore wrong for most people to receive the Eucharist most of the time?
The answer is that unconscious sins do not of themselves prevent us from receiving the Eucharist. General contrition for all sin suffices. What does not suffice is when the reason we are unconscious of these sins is not merely ordinary human forgetfulness, inattention, or ignorance, but either deliberate refusal to examine our conscience or inexcusable ignorance of what is and is not a sin. The first of these two reasons is obviously blame-worthy. A word must be said today about the second.
Many Catholics today in the West actually believe that “simple fornication”, or what used to be called “living in sin” (sex outside marriage), is OK because “everyone’s doing it.” They know the Church and the Bible forbid it (even the secular world knows that!), so they don’t have excusable ignorance. Either they do not believe that the Ten Commandments and the Church’s moral teachings are divine revelation and the will of God (in which case they are not really Catholics), or they don’t care (in which case they are very bad Catholics). In either case they should not receive Communion until they repent and confess. This demands not just adjustment but conversion of heart and mind to the Catholic Faith, i.e., to the mind and will of Christ.