I was feeling uncharacteristically scrupulous as I struggle to get my wife and kids to Mass with me. Although I consistently attend they come less frequency due to the difficulty of managing small kids (and mainly because regularly attending Church is still new to all of us and the kids are small and difficult). I didn’t get the usual spiritual signals at mass today, but an answer and some comfort was given.
It’s simple but sometimes something you have learned has not yet permeated to all aspects of one’s life. Matrimony is two people become one flesh. St. Paul even goes so far to say that a marriage is holy even if one spouse is not believing. Married persons are one and thus if one is redeemed both are redeemed.
Of course then both persons in a marriage are being fed the life and the love of Christ even if only one spouse has taken the Eucharist. Since there is a form component, the quantity of Christ might be greater when both are receiving. A marital union can potentially have a larger soul capacity than a single. Even so, the real food and real drink are received by sacramental spouses regardless of which mouth.
In this line of thought we might also deduce the importance of intimacy in situations where only one is receiving the host. Physicality is an essential conduit for bestowing and receiving spiritual graces in both Judaism and Catholicism. There are instances when physicality is not possible. In those situations we can still refer to the mercy related to “baptism by desire” (when judgement and graces are given according to intent.)
Shifting to the pragmatism of how Jewish life is ordered, in Judaism a mother’s penultimate mitzvah is caring for her children. She is permitted to postpone other mitzvahs if necessary to they interfere with her primary mitzvah. A man’s primary concern is his wife (even above his children.) A woman is required to support her husband’s learning of Torah. She is permitted to learn Torah but not required to. His consumed Torah becomes her Torah.
As Catholics we understand the Word, the Torah, to be Christ transubstantiated as the host we eat. In this way we can see how families who struggle with perfect Mass can avoid scruples. That is not to use this understanding as an excuse (which is easy to do and I know I’m guilty here—get to Mass!). However, a struggling family with small children can take heart in understanding that if one spouse can at least receive the Eucharist the whole marital flesh is nourished with The Life.
