Annotation CXCV

”Your fathers did eat manna.” — John 6:49

Whether venial sins impede the effect of the Eucharist for those receiving [it].

Augustine, in tract 26 on John, explaining this, says: “SEE, brethren, eat the heavenly bread spiritually, carry innocence to the altar. [As for] sins — even if they be daily, or [even if] they be not deadly — before you approach the altar, take heed [to] what you say: ‘Forgive us our debts.’” St. Thomas, in the third part of the Summa, question 79, article 8, reckons this passage among those by which the scholastics are wont to demonstrate, for the sake of exercise, that venial sins do not impede the salutary power and effect of the Eucharist for those who receive [it]. And he dissolves the objection, saying that by venial faults the effect of the sacrament is not utterly and altogether impeded, but only in some part. For although venial delinquencies by no means take away the acquisition of ampler grace and charity, yet they take away a certain taste of spiritual sweetness, which the exactly-purified experience when the sacrament of the Lord’s body is received.