1 Corinthians 11:29Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

1 Cor 11:27-29 says: “Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will be guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of this bread and drink of this cup. For he who eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’s Body.”

Chapter 1. Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ is necessary for eternal life itself.

Jn 6:53-54 says: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink His Blood, you have no life in you. He who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood has eternal life,” and so forth.

Chapter 3. With what intention should one eat the Body and drink the Blood of the Lord? In remembrance of the Lord’s obedience even unto death, so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.

Lk 22:19-20 says: “And He took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is My Body, which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.’ Likewise He also took the cup after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the New Covenant in My Blood, which is shed for you.’”

1 Cor 11:23-26 says: “The Lord Jesus, on the night in which He was betrayed, took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, ‘Take, eat; this is My Body, broken for you. Do this in remembrance of Me.’ Likewise He also took the cup after supper, and said, ‘This cup is the New Covenant in My Blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.’ For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.”

2 Cor 5:14-15 says: “For the love of Christ constrains us, because we judge thus: if One died for all, then all died. And Christ died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.”

1 Cor 10:16-17 says: “The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the Body of Christ? For we, though many, are one bread and one body, for we all partake of the one bread.”

Therefore commune worthily, keeping such an address to God in your mind: I am unworthy, O Lord, not only to partake of Your Holy Mysteries, but even to look upon Your wondrous and supernatural Table. Yet I approach, not in order to anger You. I dare to approach, trusting in Your ineffable mercy, for I know that You came not for the righteous, but for sinners.

I dare to partake, lest I be deprived of Your Communion and be devoured by the spiritual wolf. I dare also to approach Communion because I trust in Your most merciful words, O Lord. You spoke them with Your most pure lips, saying: “This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living Bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this Bread, he will live forever” (Jn 6:50-51).

And again: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink His Blood, you have no life in you. He who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day” (Jn 6:53-54).

Hoping and firmly trusting in these words of Yours, O Lord, I partake. I am convinced that You spoke them not for saints and the righteous, but for sinners. The chapter of the Gospel that speaks of Communion is not read thus: “The Lord said to His disciples,” who were holy and righteous. It is read thus: “The Lord said to the Jews who came to Him,” who were sinners like me.

Since You spoke this for sinners, I too, a sinner, listen to it diligently. Relying on Your exceedingly great mercy, I eat Your Body and drink Your Blood.

It also brings eternal torment on that day when the Lord will render to each according to his works (Rom 2:6). The Master of all Himself explained this when He said, "Then you will begin to say: We ate and drank before Thee, and Thou didst teach in our streets.

"And He will say, I tell you, I do not know where you are from. Depart from Me, all you workers of unrighteousness" (Lk 13:26-27).

Since such and so great a punishment lies before those who partake unworthily of the dread Mysteries of Christ, the God-speaking Paul handed down to us this commandment: "Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup" (1 Cor 11:28).

Do you hear? Wisdom and understanding appoint you judge over yourself. Why? For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man that is in him (1 Cor 2:11)?

What other man knows the secrets of your heart better than your own spirit and your own conscience?

Therefore, before you approach the Mysteries, examine yourself. Search your deeds. If you find in them transgression of God’s commandments and your will remains uncorrected, then refrain.

For if you partake, you will be guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord (1 Cor 11:27).

Attend to your words. If you learn that your mouth has multiplied malice and your tongue has woven deceits, and that sitting against your brother you slandered him and set a stumbling block against your mother’s son (Ps 49:19-20), then refrain.

If deceit, false witness, betrayal, and impenitence remain in you, refrain. For you will eat and drink unworthily and will be guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord.

Examine your thoughts. If you notice pride in your mind, envy in your soul, enmity in your heart, and no repentance, then refrain. For if you partake, you eat and drink judgment to yourself.

This Mystery is most holy, and therefore those who approach it must be holy. For this reason, when the time of divine communion draws near, the priest proclaims, "The Holy Things are for the holy."

But who is holy? Who will be clean from defilement? No one, even if his life on earth lasts but one day (Jn 14:4-5).

What then remains to be done? Is it better not to approach the Mystery, so as not to fall under accusation and judgment? May this not be.

Communion in the divine Eucharist is necessary for the strengthening of faith, for the practice of virtue, and for the perfection of life. Without communion in the Body and Blood of the Lord, it is impossible to inherit eternal life.

"Amen, amen, I say to you: unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink His Blood, you have no life in yourselves" (Jn 6:53).

But you say, "I see myself constrained on both sides. If I partake unworthily, I sin. If I do not partake at all, I will be guilty of torment. Therefore I do not know what to do."

Do a third thing, brother: partake worthily. But how, since you are a sinner? In the way God prescribed to you through the Prophet Moses and through the Apostle Paul.

Paul commands you first to examine yourself. That is, look into all your sins. Seeing the multitude of your transgressions, and also considering for your salvation the need for communion, do not doze or sleep.

Do not remain lying in the mire of your sins. "Awake, you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light" (Eph 5:14).

Do what God commanded you through Moses: cleanse yourself. This means: repent like Manasseh, abandon iniquity like Zacchaeus, and resolve to live pleasingly to God like Matthew.

Cleanse yourself. That is, come to the judgment seat of your spiritual father. With humility like the sinful woman, and with contrition like the thief, confess all your sins.

Repentance, conversion, complete abstinence from sin, and confession will blot out your transgressions and cleanse you from all your sins.

"I acknowledged my iniquity, and I did not hide my sin. I said, I will confess my iniquity against myself to the Lord; and Thou forgavest the ungodliness of my heart" (Ps 31:5).

Like Peter, wash not your garments, but the defilement of your soul, mind, and heart with your bitter tears.

At least for three days prepare yourself by prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and every other work pleasing to God.

Then approach with faith and reverence, with fear and trembling, beating your breast like the publican and crying out with the centurion, "Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldest come under my roof" (Mt 8:8).

And so partake of the heavenly Mysteries of Christ. In this way communion will become for you sanctification of soul and body, and perfect union with God.

Then you will become unconquerable by the passions, terrible to demons, a friend of the angels, a son of God, and an heir of His heavenly Kingdom. Amen.

“He who eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’s Body” (1 Cor 11:29). He does not give It Its due worth. He has not prepared his vessel to receive the greatest and most holy treasure. This most saving treasure is also the most fearful treasure, because of Its ineffable holiness.

The judgment of God would not punish us if we led an attentive life according to Christ’s commandments. We would carefully fulfill them and carefully heal our failures in their fulfillment by repentance. “For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged” (1 Cor 11:31).

Unworthy communion of the Holy Mysteries has another meaning when it occurs during a willfully and intentionally sinful life. This is so when one has fallen into mortal sins, unbelief, or false belief. Those who commune in such a state commit a crime that brings punishments which no longer correct. They bring decisive punishments upon themselves, and eternal torment.

This crime is equal to the crime committed by the murderers of the God-man. They covered Him with mockery, struck His cheeks, spat upon His face, and tore His body by cruel beating, nails, and crucifixion.

“Whoever eats this bread,” said the great Paul, “or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will be guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord” (1 Cor 11:27). “A certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. Anyone who rejected Moses’ law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?” (Heb 10:27-29).

“Let a man examine himself” (1 Cor 11:28). Let him consider himself before he approaches the Holy Mysteries. If he is sunk in sinful defilement, let him withdraw from fearful communion. Otherwise he will complete and seal his sins with the gravest sin: mockery of the Holy Mysteries of Christ, and mockery of Christ Himself.

Before daring to enter the wedding feast of the Son of God, let him take care for the garment of his soul. It is washed and cleansed from sinful stains, whatever those stains may be, by the ineffable mercy of the Lord when we repent.

Sin: daring to approach the Holy Mysteries when the spiritual father has forbidden it.

The following faults are contained here: distrust of the decision of the spiritual father, the God-appointed judge of consciences; open disobedience before the spiritual father; and sometimes, at the same time, secrecy in the matter. This happens if one recognized as unworthy to approach does so behind the spiritual father’s back, in another church.

Above all, it is a failure to guard oneself from great responsibility before God for unworthy communion. The sin of such daring is excused neither by the effort to avoid shame before people, nor by the strictness of the spiritual father, nor by a supposedly heartfelt desire to commune.

If the spiritual father has judged thoroughly and impartially that one should not approach, then every impulse to approach is audacity and harm.

“After eating something pleasant at dinner, you take care not to spoil what came before by bad food. Yet after receiving the Spirit, we give ourselves over to pleasures. We must be temperate both before communion and after it. The chief good is to approach the Mysteries with a pure conscience.

“Not content with what he has said before, he adds: ‘Let a man examine himself,’ as he also says in the second epistle: ‘Examine yourselves’ (2 Cor 13:5). If we do not approach a bodily table when suffering from fever and an overflow of harmful humors, lest we incur death, much more must we not touch this table with corrupt desires, which are worse than fever.”

These words beautifully explain how those who taste the Mysteries without understanding their power bring judgment of death upon themselves. Of course, this judgment does not overtake all with equal speed. Yet in every case unworthy communion cannot remain without recompense. In Corinth this was accomplished with manifest clarity in the sicknesses of many and the death of some.

But so that Christians would not draw any wholly perverse conclusions from this, the Apostle points to the means of avoiding judgment. This is the awareness of one’s nothingness before God, and the fear of angering Him by anything that can make us unworthy of His sacred and mystical supper.

Finally, if punishments do overtake us, we must not despair. These punishments are corrections by which God wishes to draw us away from deeds that lead to condemnation in eternal torment, together with the world that has not known the Lord.

The Corinthian Christians had been carried away by the passions of that world. This was true both of those who went to eat things sacrificed to idols and of those who greedily ate their own offerings at the agape meal.

By a word He calmed the sea and changed water into wine. He raised the dead and restored health to the hopelessly sick. O, His power is boundless, like the power of the Creator of the universe (Jn 1:3).

The Son of God, having loved His own, loved them to the end. Leaving them on earth, amid the troubles and disturbances of the world, He left a wonder-working sign of His strength and power. It confirms the divine character of His teaching and deeds.

He left such a supper that, until the end of the world, the faithful will commune with the life-giving power of heavenly love. Therefore they will find rest for a conscience wounded by sin, strength in their infirmities, consolation in sorrows, and defense from enemies.

O, how fitting this is to the boundless love of the Son of God! Praise and glory to You, boundless Love. Amen.

If you fully understood Who lies before you, and to whom He offers Himself, you would need no exhortation. This alone would be enough to awaken complete reverence in you, unless you had fallen too deeply" (Chrysostom).

"He eats judgment" presupposes the sentence of God's judgment at the very moment of eating, and not only this, but also the assignment of punishment. The sentence of judgment was indicated just before: guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord. Here the assignment of punishment is meant.

"Having received the Gift unlawfully, you will not only fail to obtain salvation from it, but will also bear punishment for profanation" (Theodoret).

What punishment? As the fault is one but its degrees are different, so also are the punishments. Some are carried out in this life, sometimes immediately, while others are left for the future life.

All occurs as God's justice and mercy toward us judge, even in the punishment itself. That punishments were sent in this life upon those who partook unworthily was shown among the Corinthians themselves, as the Apostle says immediately afterward.