When a 'no' leads to a 'yes'.

The current kerfuffle involving the German bishops who are pro-communion for non-Catholic spouses is an unfortunate distraction, and a serious one at that.

Yours truly, once upon a time a non-Catholic enamoured of a lovely Catholic woman, did on a couple of occasions receive Holy Communion before being received into full communion with the Catholic Church. Said woman, my girlfriend at the time—who would also become my sponsor... a bad idea, I might add—asked me to stop receiving Communion. There was no argument from yours truly. I was given good reasons not to receive, among them the obvious—I was not (yet) Catholic. Though my baptism (in a protestant community that held to the Apostolic practice and theology of Trinitiarian Baptism) was valid, and I believed in the Real Presence, I had not yet been received into the Catholic Church. I was receiving Communion out of the genuine but poorly timed and incomplete notion that to so do would bring me closer to my then girlfriend. I wanted very much to be of one mind with my girlfriend, and to celebrate the Catholic Faith with her.

When my girlfriend said 'no', that I should not receive Communion, I took her reasons—the Church's reasons—seriously. That 'no' helped me better realize the truth about the Holy Eucharist. For one, that the bread and wine really do become the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ. Furthermore, the Eucharist is the sacrament of unity, unity with Jesus Christ and His Church. Though my desire to be closer to my girlfriend and the Church was sincere, it was meet and right to wait until having been received into the Church, and to have confessed my sins in the Sacrament of Penance, before receiving the Body and Blood of Christ.

I learned from that 'no', and the 'no to a relationship' that was, at any rate, not meant to be, that a greater calling was there in the midst of waiting to be received into the Church. In the wake of the break-up of that relationship, I gradually woke up to God leading me into a deeper relationship with Him and the Church.

If a non-Catholic spouse wants to receive Holy Communion, then he or she should become one with the Church that Jesus founded. The non-Catholic spouse of a very good friend, a cradle Catholic who became devout into the tenth year of his marriage, does not receive Communion even while attending Sunday Mass every Sunday with the Catholic spouse and their children, who were raised as Catholics. The non-Catholic spouse does not seem prepared to convert, and does not feel entitled to receive Holy Communion. I cannot speak to the intricacies of the couple's relationship and why the non-Catholic spouse does not convert, but the fact there is no sense of entitlement to receive the Eucharist is an example of integrity, of doing the right thing.

Doing the right thing is not always the easy thing. Besides, God is not finished with that aforementioned situation just yet. Since the Catholic spouse has returned to the practice of the Faith, the non-Catholic spouse has a much better reason for becoming Catholic, since the Catholic spouse is much better prepared to give reason for the hope that is within (1 Peter 3:15).

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Cardinal Arinze weighs in [Catholic Herald].

Protestants who wish to receive Catholic Communion should become Catholic

Holy Communion is exclusively for Catholics in a state of grace and not something to be shared between friends like beer or cake, said a former senior adviser to two popes.

Nigerian Cardinal Francis Arinze said any moves to give greater access to Communion to divorced and remarried Catholics and to non-Catholic spouses of Catholics represented “serious” challenges to the teaching of the Church on the Eucharist.

In an interview with Catholic News Service, he implicitly objected to interpretations of Pope Francis’s 2016 apostolic exhortation “Amoris Laetitia” that would permit divorced and remarried Catholics who had not received an annulment to receive Communion in certain circumstances.

“If a person is divorced and remarried (without the first marriage being declared null due to a defect of form, contract, will or capacity) then there is a problem,” said Cardinal Arinze, adding that Jesus taught that their arrangements constituted adultery.

“It is not we who made that (teaching),” said the cardinal, 85, who served as Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments under St John Paul II and now-retired Pope Benedict XVI. “It is Christ who said it.”

http://catholicherald.co.uk/news/2018/05/25/cardinal-arinze-we-cannot-share-communion-with-non-catholics-like-beer-or-cake/

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Let's not pretend that it is acceptable to God to not be one with Christ's Church and still receive Holy Communion. If a non-Catholic really wants to receive Holy Communion, then he or she should do the right thing and profess in full the Catholic and Apostolic Faith and live in accord with the commands of Jesus and His Church. Similarly so, if someone wants to enjoy the fruits of marriage, let him or her put a ring on his or her finger and accept the terms of the matrimonial covenant that Jesus taught and the Church faithfully proclaims.

So then, a 'no' can be a 'no, not yet'. 'Yet', as in 'pray for the grace to convert to Jesus Christ and His Church'. Pray for the grace to accept and live fully the Catholic Faith.

If you are a non-Catholic who is receiving the Holy Eucharist, pray for the grace of a deeper understanding, and pray for the grace to move you into full communion with the Catholic Church. And, in the meantime, stop receiving the Eucharist (until you are received into full communion with the Catholic Church).

God showers countless graces upon those who obey his commandments (St. John 14: 15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.").