“This Is My Body”: Purity, Borders, and the Sacred Order of the Eucharist

 “This Is My Body”: Purity, Borders, and the Sacred Order of the Eucharist

Source: “Communion Customs.” July 15, 2024. From the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Retrieved April 4, 2025 (https://guadalupeshrine.org/post/communion-customs/).

In this image from the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, several families are kneeling at the communion rail, waiting for their turn to receive Communion. The priest, wearing a richly embroidered gold vestment, says “The Body of Christ” and gently holds the consecrated Host over a young woman’s tongue. A child beside her places his hands on his chest, implying that he wishes to receive a blessing rather than the Host. Everyone kneeling holds their bodies upright, aligned, and still, reflecting the sacredness of the moment. Behind the families stands an older woman, hands folded in prayer, wearing a rosary and bowing her head slightly as she waits for her turn to kneel. Further back, parishioners who have already received Communion kneel at their seats, praying. Overall, the image has a warm palette with deep golds, creams, soft shadows, and dim lighting, illustrating the solemnity and transcendence of the ritual. The kneeling posture, the open mouths, and the gentle placement of the Host all reflect the Communion customs of the Catholic Church: to receive Holy Communion kneeling, on the tongue, and in a visible, fully vulnerable, fully defenseless gesture of submission to the Real Presence of Christ (Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe 2024).

Mary Douglas’ Purity and Danger offers a theoretical framework for interpreting this image not simply as an act of worship, but as a profound moment of symbolic social boundary-making. For Douglas, cleanliness rituals, especially those concerning food and bodily orifices, are not about avoiding disease, but about organizing a sense of meaning and protecting the moral integrity of a community. As Douglas (2002:3) writes, removing and avoiding pollution becomes “a creative movement, an attempt to relate form to function, to make unity of experience.” Symbolic actions such as preparing, ingesting, and regulating food serve as ritualized boundaries, reinforcing who belongs within a community. In highly structured religious settings like the Catholic Church, ritualized acts “impose system on an inherently untidy experience” (Douglas 2002:5) and help maintain the sacred purity of the group. Food, in particular, becomes a site of “collective [predigestion]” (Douglas 2002:156), as the rules surrounding who can prepare, share, or consume it carry implications for inclusion or exclusion within the spiritual body of the community.

Applying Douglas’ analysis to Catholic Holy Communion reveals the profound social and spiritual meaning behind this act of worship. Communion is not merely symbolic food in the form of bread and wine. Catholics truly believe that the consecration, the moment when the priest, acting in the person of Christ, pronounces the words of institution recalling Jesus’ words at the Last Supper, transforms profane bread and wine into the sacred Host, which is literally the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ (Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe 2024). Only baptized Catholics who are in a state of grace and who have fasted for at least one hour before Mass may receive the Host, signifying the importance of bodily and spiritual purity before engaging in the sacred act (Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe 2024).

Furthermore, bodily gestures, such as bowing, kneeling, receiving on the tongue or hand, or crossing one’s arms on the chest for a blessing, all reflect what Douglas (2002:2) describes as “a positive effort to organize the environment.” These gestures mirror Douglas’ observation that “the body is a model which can stand for any bounded system” (Douglas 2002:142). Communion customs, therefore, signify the divide between the profane and the sacred, reinforcing the social and spiritual boundaries of who may receive the Host and be in communion with the Church. As Douglas (2002:150) notes, “all margins are dangerous”; Communion transforms a moment of bodily vulnerability into one of grace, which is made meaningful through strictly performed rituals. The ritual, then, is both social and spiritual, marking who is in communion with the Church and who remains outside its sacred boundaries.  

Although not captured in the image, linguistic rituals during Communion further illustrate the boundary between those inside and outside the sacred order. Before placing the Host on the parishioner’s tongue, the priest says, “The Body of Christ,” and the recipient replies, “Amen.” This “Amen” is not simply an expression of saying thank you; it is an explicit affirmation of belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist (Catholic Times 2023). For this reason, non-Catholic churchgoers are not permitted to receive Communion in the Catholic Church, since they do not truthfully affirm that belief. This divide in belief further reinforces the unity among those who can be in full communion with the Church (Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe 2024).

“Communion Customs.” July 15, 2024. From the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Retrieved April 4, 

2025 (https://guadalupeshrine.org/post/communion-customs/). 

Douglas, Mary. 2002. Purity and Danger. London and New York: London: Routledge Classics. 

Father Paul J. Keller. 2023. “There’s more to say about saying ‘Amen’ at Holy Communion.” Catholic 

Times, September 17. Retrieved April 4, 2025 (https://catholictimescolumbus.org/news/father-paul-keller-op-s-t-d/there-s-more-to-say-about-saying-amen-at-holy-communion).