In the pre-Reformation Church the principal re quirements for a worthy reception of the sacrament were freedom from sin and fasting from the previous midnight. Both of these are strictly re quired in the Roman Catholic Church at the pres ent day. The former is imposed as a matter of ab solute necessity in the case of mortal sin, when confession must invariably precede communion; in practise confession is usually recommended to in frequent communicants, even though they may not be conscious of having committed a mortal sin since their last communion.
The question of the frequency of communion is one which has been much discussed at different times.
It is generally admitted that in the Apostolic Age it was received, if not daily, at Ieast on Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday. As the zeal of the days of persecution diminished, it became ha frequent, and Chrysostom had to rebuke those who com municated only once a year. In Africa as late as Augustine's day once a week was the usual mini mum. The second Synod of Tours (850) required at least three times a year; but by the Lateran Council of 1215 the Church had come to limit the actual requirement to once a year, at Easter. In the sixteenth century the frequency once more in creased, under the influence of Ignatius and Philip Neri, and was spoken of as highly desirable by the Council of Trent. The Janseniat and Quietist movements in France (especially through Arnauld's treatise De la ,frNuente communion) tended to di minish it once more, and the laxity of modern times makes it usual for eYeIl fairly deYoU6 p8(1p~ to communicate at most once a month. In the Anglican communion, after the Reformation, the frequency of administration fell in most places to four times a year, or at most once a month, until the High-church revival of the nineteenth century restored it to normally once a week and in many places daily, with a consequent increase in the fre quency of communion. In the other Protestant churches the quarterly administration is the most usual. The requirement of fasting, for which there is early evidence, was prescribed as a matter of reverence. In modern Roman Catholic practise the exceptions which excuse from it are serious illness and the necessity of protecting the sacred i species from profanation or of completing the mass in the case of a sudden indisposition of the cele brant. Thin rule also is increasingly emphasized in the Anglican Communion under present conditions, but does not occur in the other Reformation churches, which content themselves with requiring
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