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LITURGICAL QUESTIONS ???
How Many Times a Day May I Receive Holy Communion?
Anyone not impeded from receiving Holy Communion may receive Holy Communion two times each day, provided the second time happens while fully participating in a Mass.
All baptized Catholic Christians are invited and encouraged to receive the Sacrament of the Body and the Blood of Christ at each and every Eucharist in which they participate. All that is necessary, is that the communicant:
must be free from all serious sin;
should be fasting from food and drink for at least one hour;
should have the prayerful intention and attitude of receiving Christ Jesus
Himself and of becoming ever more intimately united to Him so as to be
the Body of Christ, the Church, in the world today.
should spend some time after receiving the Lord talking intimately with
Jesus within him/her.
If a Catholic has knowingly committed even "one" serious sin, that person must first present any and all serious sins in the Sacrament of Reconciliation before approaching the altar. Some examples of serious sins are: having missed Sunday Mass, being married outside the Catholic Church or living with someone, getting high on drugs or alcohol, gravely hurting or offended another whether by word or deed, committing fornication or adultery or sodomy, stealing gravely, murdering someone or participating in an abortion, attempting suicide, failing to share with the poor (miserliness). As St. Paul writes in his I Letter to the Corinthians 6:9-10, such persons will never inherit the Kingdom of Heaven without having been forgiven such sins.
It must be remembered that water does not break the fast, nor does any form of medication. E.g., for a diabetic, the need to take orange juice or whatever when taking insulin, would be considered to take a medication.
It must also be remembered that any seriously sick person who is homebound or in the hospital needs to fast from food and drink for only fifteen (15) minutes when Holy Communion is brought to their home. Care-givers too need only fast fifteen minutes.
Finally, even if a Catholic has already received Holy Communion twice on a specific day and then if that person becomes seriously ill unto possible death, that person may receive Jesus in His Eucharistic Presence again as "Viaticum" --- literally translated "Food for the journey" --- during the reception of the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick.
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