Fasting Before Communion

[The Bus Station]

This has been bugging me really really bad for a week now.

Last week (I think it was Tuesday) I went to get a bite to eat about half an hour before Mass started. I made sure to note what time it was (4:29) when I swallowed my last bite. When it came time for me to go up to Communion at Mass, it was 5:32. So I ate 63 minutes before communion, and I thought since I had technically fasted for 60 minutes that I could still receive. So I received. Was I wrong? And should I confess this in confession? I thought about confessing it today but once I got into confession I just had this feeling that it was fine. But does that mean I withheld a potentionally grave sin? AAAAH.

Thanks.

[cappie]

Canon Law sets out the current regulation: "One who is to receive the Most Holy Eucharist is to abstain from any food or drink, with the exception only of water and medicine, for at least the period of one hour before Holy Communion" (Canon 919, par. 1). However, there are exceptions: "Those who are advanced in age or who suffer from any infirmity, as well as those who take care of them, can receive the Most Holy Eucharist even if they have taken something during the previous hour" (par. 3).

There are many meanings and purposes to the practice of fasting before eucharistic reception, among them the need for Catholics to approach the Eucharist in a physically and spiritually concentrated fashion. Fasting also reminds us of the great difference between earthly food, which sustains only perishable life, and the food of the Eucharist, which is the medicine of immortality.

Your intention was not to break the fast but to abide by it. You have no control on the time the Mass takes so there would be no grave sin. Perhaps if in the future you fasted for one hour before the starting time of Mass then you would always be in the clear, but I think God does not use a stopwatch