How Many Times Can I Receive Communion in One Day?
It is not uncommon for people to wonder if they can receive communion twice (or even three times) in one day. Some Catholics are committed to two parishes and wonder if they can receive the Eucharist at both churches on the same day. One might also attend a funeral or a wedding on the day of their normal Saturday evening Mass.
Is there guidance on this?
For a long time, Catholics were only to receive communion once each day at a maximum. This was the case as recently as 1973, when the Church’s Congregation for Divine Worship released a document reiterating the once-each-day limit, even as it admitted to some exceptions.1 “Like a provident mother,” the document says, “the Church has established from centuries-old practice and has received into its canon law a norm according to which it is lawful for the faithful to receive communion only once a day.”
The worry here is that some might imagine that, by receiving more Eucharist, they will, in turn, receive more divine grace ― as if the amount of Eucharist one receives is the key. But that’s not how it works. What is key is the devotedness with which one receives the Eucharist, not the quantity of Eucharist one receives. “Any ill-advised desire to repeat communion,” that 1973 document points out, “must be countered by the truth that the more devoutly a person approaches the holy table, the greater the power of that sacrament.”
A similar mistake comes with imagining that receiving a larger Eucharistic host means one has received more grace, as if something of Jesus’s presence might not have been included in a smaller host. Indeed, there are stories from the Middle Ages of knights misguidedly demanding the largest Eucharistic host when receiving communion.
The Christian tradition has conceived of the Eucharist differently. Jesus is fully present even in the smallest of Eucharistic hosts. In the same way, receiving additional hosts at additional Masses would not give one deeper graces or deeper unity with Jesus. The fullest possible grace and the fullest possible unity with Jesus are available when receiving communion just once each day. “There is no more power in several hosts than in one,” Saint Thomas Aquinas insisted in the thirteenth-century.2 To prevent this kind of thinking, then, the Church has traditionally limited reception of the Eucharist to just once per day.
In 1983, though, the Church promulgated a new Code of Canon Law which adjusted the once-per-day limit. In the current Code, we read that “a person who has already received the Most Holy Eucharist can receive it a second time on the same day” (§917). But, the canon continues, this can only be done if that person actually attends a second Mass. This means one should not receive communion a second time if communion is presented to them outside of Mass ― if they’ve had communion brought to their home, for instance.
Of course, even with this new Code of Canon Law, the Church still teaches that, in even just one small host, the fullness of Jesus’s presence is encountered and that communicants do not receive more grace by receiving a second time. Nevertheless, if circumstances arise, Catholics are now permitted to receive communion at a second Mass. Note, however, that the current Code does not permit the reception of the Eucharist for a third time.
The current practice, then, is this: communion will typically be received just once per day. This is a very old tradition and one that protects the Church’s teaching that even just one small host contains the fullness of Jesus’s presence. If, however, one finds themself at a second Mass and would like to receive the Eucharist again, they are welcome to. Even so, repeat communicants should remember that receiving the Eucharist a second time does not mean they have received a fuller or more powerful encounter with Jesus.
Congregation for Divine Worship, Immensae Caritatis, January 29, 1973.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 3a, 79.7 ad3; 8 ad 1.