quote:

---

Originally posted by redunderthebed:
1) How you can get blessing from the father of the church i thought god was the only one that can bless you.

---

quote:

---

3)I think that they put too much emphasis on what in my opinion is merely an human institution the catholic church Nothing that is human and worldy imo is holy that only comes from god.Instead they should use the time that they spend blowing their own trumpet praising god etc

---

quote:

---

4) Is it necessary to get on your knees to pray?. I know they mentioned in the old testament that you should. However when jesus died on the cross a new covenant was formed between god and his children therefor rendering the rituals etc of the old testament unnecessary i thought.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mary LA:
This reminds me vaguely of Mark Twain's 'Connecticut Yankee at the Court of King Arthur'.

There's Frequently Asked Questions about the Catholic Church that might be a good place to get some of your questions in context.

Frequently Asked Questions About the Catholic Church

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

---

[qb]3)I think that they put too much emphasis on what in my opinion is merely an human institution the catholic church Nothing that is human and worldy imo is holy that only comes from god.Instead they should use the time that they spend blowing their own trumpet praising god etc

---

Why should they operate according to your beliefs, rather than according to their own?
]

---

Didn't say they had to i was merely giving my opinion.

[ 26. December 2012, 05:12: Message edited by: redunderthebed ]
 

---

Posted by Evangeline (# 7002) on :
 
A Baptist goes to a Roman Catholic Mass and then shares their opinion of how flawed the RC church is and h[I would say more but that might be hellish]. In other news the Pope remains a Catholic.

 

---

Posted by Trisagion (# 5235) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by redunderthebed:
On christmas eve it was very interesting waaay too ritualised for my liking however the church itself was beautiful and i enjoyed the service.

---

quote:

---

A few discussion points/questions......

1) How you can get blessing from the father of the church i thought god was the only one that can bless you.

---

quote:

---

2) How you can only recieve communion if you are confirmed in the church that doesn't sit well with me. I think that should be a thing that all who attend should partake in it.

---

quote:

---

[3)I think that they put too much emphasis on what in my opinion is merely an human institution the catholic church Nothing that is human and worldy imo is holy that only comes from god.Instead they should use the time that they spend blowing their own trumpet praising god etc

---

quote:

---

[4) Is it necessary to get on your knees to pray?. I know they mentioned in the old testament that you should. However when jesus died on the cross a new covenant was formed between god and his children therefor rendering the rituals etc of the old testament unnecessary i thought.

---

quote:

---

Personally i think they put way too many barriers to experience god and having a personal relationship with god. I'am always suspicious of organisations that claim in any way to be conduits of god or his representative there was only one man who could truly claim either.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evangeline:
A Baptist goes to a Roman Catholic Mass and then shares their opinion of how flawed the RC church is and h[I would say more but that might be hellish]. In other news the Pope remains a Catholic.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

---

Originally posted by redunderthebed:

4) Is it necessary to get on your knees to pray?. I know they mentioned in the old testament that you should.

---

It's not necessary. That doesn't mean it isn't good or isn't proper or isn't worth doing.

---

1. True, they should be more transparent about the fact they are merely acting as a messenger communicating to you about God's blessing which is true regardless of whether they communicated it or not. It's exactly the same as the reason that evangelism is important - it's the truth so it needs to be told otherwise people won't hear it.
   
   ------------------------
2. I also prefer "open table" to a closed communion, closed communion does not sit well with my understanding of the Kingdom of God being an active invitation to all, even those who don't have it all together. Many pastors in the Uniting Church in Australia will include a statement along the lines of "sharing in communion is not limited to those who are members of this church or denomination, all who are loved by God, love Jesus and want to love Him more are welcome" when introducing the sharing of communion. I consider this to be a very powerful statement about the Kingdom they serve, and one that requires a fair whack of courage as well because you don't know who you're going to get.
   
   ------------------------
3. As with the first point, this is something that effective communication should make clearer and that a well-trained priest should be able to help you understand what's going on. This is something I like about the Uniting Church, the central body does not dictate exactly how things are to be said during worship, there is freedom for the local leader to communicate to their local people as is necessary.
   
   ------------------------
4. When it comes to kneeling within a shared time of worship, I would put that down to a matter of style, perhaps being dictated by instructions from HQ. At the Uniting Church community I'm part of in southern Adelaide we prefer not to place any emphasis on kneeling as a ritual procedure, primarily because we have a congregation of all ages including those who are less able to kneel or stand.
   
   At the same time (in agreement with Mousethief and Hairy Biker) we do also acknowledge that many people choose to kneel because it is a powerful sign of coming before God in a spirit of humility, and that it is helpful for them. Therefore it's not something that should ever be obstructed if that's what helps people in their faith, in this day and age the last thing we need to be doing is pouring cold water on those people who are passionate about their worship.
   
   I'll never forget the time at an Easter Camp where this teenage girl who was in a wheelchair tapped out with her little typewriter thing that she wanted to kneel during a time of prayer and ministry at the end of one of the sessions. Two of her friends then got her out of her wheelchair and supported her as she kneeled on the floor with many others, as a youth leader it was so moving to see that we had young people who would gladly put their own needs aside for the sake of encouraging one of their friends in her faith.
   
   ------------------------

quote:

---

Originally posted by venbede:
Kneeling -

Surely the point is not whether you as an individual find it helpful - you are taking part in a communual action and the congregation needs do things together.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by the giant cheeseburger:
Sounds like a nice idea, but I don't think it will work in the real world.

---

quote:

---

Most congregations will have people who are unable to kneel (or stand at other times) without enduring a great deal of discomfort, so having instructions to sit-stand-sit-kneel-sit-stand etc would actually lead to less unity.

---

quote:

---

I prefer the approach of acknowledging that people are both individuals and part of the community, and the expression of this through recognising the aspect of 'individual' worship while united in community. Community does not come from conformity, but from recognising the beauty of many different people being united in their faith, and validating that different expressions of that faith all still build the community.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doublethink:
This is sounding uncomfortably like the family argument at Christmas dinner, could we all chill and dial back on the sectarianism ?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by redunderthebed:
1) How you can get blessing from the father of the church i thought god was the only one that can bless you.

---

quote:

---

2) How you can only recieve communion if you are confirmed in the church that doesn't sit well with me. I think that should be a thing that all who attend should partake in it.

---

quote:

---

3)I think that they put too much emphasis on what in my opinion is merely an human institution the catholic church Nothing that is human and worldy imo is holy that only comes from god.Instead they should use the time that they spend blowing their own trumpet praising god etc

---

quote:

---

4) Is it necessary to get on your knees to pray?.

---

quote:

---

Personally i think they put way too many barriers to experience god and having a personal relationship with god.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doublethink:
This is sounding uncomfortably like the family argument at Christmas dinner, could we all chill and dial back on the sectarianism ?

---

The entire OP is one huge sectarian smear.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by venbede:
The ancient stance in liturgical prayer is standing, as it still is for the Orthodox. And I'd rather stand.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trisagion:

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
The entire OP is one huge sectarian smear.

---

I didn't read it that wayMT. I thought rutb was actually interested in the answers.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by redunderthebed:
i was merely giving my opinion.

---

quote:

---

1) How you can get blessing from the father of the church i thought god was the only one that can bless you.

---

quote:

---

2) How you can only recieve communion if you are confirmed in the church that doesn't sit well with me. I think that should be a thing that all who attend should partake in it.

---

quote:

---

3)I think that they put too much emphasis on what in my opinion is merely an human institution the catholic church Nothing that is human and worldy imo is holy that only comes from god.Instead they should use the time that they spend blowing their own trumpet praising god etc

---

quote:

---

4) Is it necessary to get on your knees to pray?. I know they mentioned in the old testament that you should. However when jesus died on the cross a new covenant was formed between god and his children therefor rendering the rituals etc of the old testament unnecessary i thought.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by redunderthebed:
How you can get blessing from the father of the church i thought god was the only one that can bless you.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:

quote:

---

Originally posted by redunderthebed:
How you can get blessing from the father of the church i thought god was the only one that can bless you.

---

The priest says, "May Almighty God bless you . . . " and so is asking God to bless. The priest is not blessing on his own.

---

Quite true. I'm surprised that redunderthebed didn't notice that when he was making his check list.

For me, it's "I love lots of RCs and liturgy and saints; it's the institutional Church I can't stand". So I haven't joined the RCC. But I believe the Mass and the liturgical year does a fine job of touching bases each time with the essentials of Christian worship- praise, reading (and singing) of scripture, teaching, reflection, penitence, and finally joining anew the True Body of Christ in Communion. And I always feel welcome as a visitor, especially since priests around here are happy to bless you even if you don't receive. I don't see how any of those attributes are less "holy" or are more human in a bad way than a service of praise songs, preaching, and extemporaneous prayer.

(And Miss Amanda, I'm happy to see you and hope that you are having a wonderful Christmas season. )
 

---

Posted by Jon in the Nati (# 15849) on :
 
I don't really understand all of this concern about kneeling. If you don't want to kneel, don't kneel. If you can't kneel, by all means don't. Lots of people can't kneel, whether because of age or infirmity, and no one I know cares. No one is walking around forcing you.

To make this into something about 'forcing' someone really is just muddying the waters.
 

---

Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :
 
Quite.

If you can't kneel, sit. Nobody will notice except the people next to you, and they should jolly well be concentrating on far more important things (the worship of God, penitence for their sins, charity to the neighbour and so forth) to take any notice.

But kneel if you can and that's what everyone else is supposed to do.
 

---

Posted by Gramps49 (# 16378) on :
 
No, it is not necessary to get on your knees to pray. I used to get on my knees, but cannot do it as readily as in the past. Therefore, I either stand or sit during prayers.

I find it ironic you are using the term "catholic" which means universal, to describe the Roman Catholic church. Even Roman Catholics recognize there are separated brothers and sisters. The catholic church comes into being through the action of the Holy Spirit; however, since it is made up of saints and sinners, it is flawed. The church recognizes this and continues to pray for purification and renewal.

In my persuasion the Table is the Lord's Table. It is the Lord that makes the invitation to come to his table. We therefore commune anyone who comes to partake. This Christmas eve I assisted in communing. There was only one boy that came up for a blessing--his mother is staunch Roman Catholic who feels her son should not commune until the fifth grade, which he will be this year. But I also noticed other, much younger children, communing for the first time--they were being given quick instructions on what to do by the adults beside them.

The pastor/priest/father is the representative of God in giving the blessing. It is God that is doing the blessing. But the blessing does take on a human form (incarnate) through the words of the priest. People have always had problems when the Word becomes flesh. Look beyond the man standing in front, to the Word the man is sharing.
 

---

Posted by Metapelagius (# 9453) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

---

Originally posted by venbede:
The ancient stance in liturgical prayer is standing, as it still is for the Orthodox. And I'd rather stand.

---

I don't know that there is any Scriptural support for sitting while praying (if you're the sort that requires Scriptural support for that sort of thing). Standing and prone seem to be the supported modes of prayer in the Good Book. Sitting? Not so much so.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trisagion:

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
The entire OP is one huge sectarian smear.

---

I didn't read it that wayMT. I thought rutb was actually interested in the answers.

---

Doesn't seem so:

quote:

---

Originally posted by redunderthebed:
i was merely giving my opinion.

---

This of course is contrary to his description of his numbered list as "discussion points/questions", leaving me to wonder what this thread is really supposed to be.

---

quote:

---

To you, O Lord, I bend the knees of my heart.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
But it's good to keep an open mind. God is God, whether people are worshipping him in an RC High Mass or in a tin-tabernacle with Redemption Hymnal, a wheezy organ and a set of tambourines.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
In the Roman Catholic Church, communion symbolizes unity. That unity is expressed through baptism and shared belief in the actual transformation of bread and wine substantively into the body and blood of Jesus Christ (this doctrine is known as transubstantiation). A Roman Catholic would say that someone who is not baptized and/or rejects the Real Presence is not in union with the Church and so communion is meaningless.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jon in the Nati:
I don't really understand all of this concern about kneeling. If you don't want to kneel, don't kneel. If you can't kneel, by all means don't. Lots of people can't kneel, whether because of age or infirmity, and no one I know cares. No one is walking around forcing you.

To make this into something about 'forcing' someone really is just muddying the waters.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Emendator Liturgia:
As an Anglican I have been invited by the local priest to participate in Catholic Masses (even to help leading parts) on the grounds that I was baptized, and held to the doctrine of the Real Presence as defined above. There was no mention of anything that resembeled requirement to hold to trans- or consubstantiation.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by redunderthebed:
How you can only recieve communion if you are confirmed in the church that doesn't sit well with me. I think that should be a thing that all who attend should partake in it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doublethink:
Please be aware of the Dead Horse boundaries, e.g. the closed vs. open communion table debate belongs on the Dead Horses board.

Thankyou,

Doublethink
Purgatory

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Emendator Liturgia:
Actually, AB, us humble Anglicans hold to an understanding whereby the terms transubstantiation and Real Presence are not the one and the same, though linked. Transubstantiation is the teaching that during the Mass,the elements of the Eucharist, bread and wine, are transformed into the actual body and blood of Jesus and that they are no longer bread and wine, but only retain their appearance of bread and wine. Real Presence, on the other hand, is the teaching that at the time of consecration the bread and wine, while maintaing their original form, now contain the reality of Christ's mystical presence.

---

Best I can tell, you just said the same thing twice, merely in slightly different words. I'm serious, I do not see the difference that you apparently tried to indicate there.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Olaf:
We have a very common understanding of Holy Baptism, and in many cases a Protestant baptism would be recognized by Roman Catholic authority.

---

quote:

---

[I} would be fascinated to attend an orthodox service but i think the language barrier would be a problem.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by redunderthebed:
Its good to discover other christian traditions i would be fascinated to attend an orthodox service but i think the language barrier would be a problem.

---

I first attended an Orthodox divine liturgy (in English, though with bits of Greek) during a year when I attended most of the confessions in Chester. For me they and the Quakers stood out, in fact, I had a similar feeling in both. Both were worship-focussed, whether in the words or liturgy with icons, candles and incense. In both I could sense an inner peace, an inner communion with God.

I ended up arguing with the Priest about various differences of belief and ecclesiology (I was young and arrogant then, well, more arrogant than now)

I now attend a Russian Orthodox church where I understand very little. For me the worship is not about understanding all the words but the simply trust that God is there, is being worshiped, and I join in via standing, via crossing myself, via bowing, via prostrating myself, lighting candles and kissing icons. It's not so much an intellectual exercise.

[ 27. December 2012, 09:31: Message edited by: Rosa Winkel ]
 

---

Posted by Spike (# 36) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by venbede:
Of course an act of worship isn't just words, it is actions (ritual if you prefer) and silence.

And the same goes for prayer.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I think it does help to do one's homework whenever one is visiting a church outside of one's immediate tradition or experience ... otherwise it's easy to get the wrong end of the stick.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by IngoB:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Emendator Liturgia:
Actually, AB, us humble Anglicans hold to an understanding whereby the terms transubstantiation and Real Presence are not the one and the same, though linked. Transubstantiation is the teaching that during the Mass,the elements of the Eucharist, bread and wine, are transformed into the actual body and blood of Jesus and that they are no longer bread and wine, but only retain their appearance of bread and wine. Real Presence, on the other hand, is the teaching that at the time of consecration the bread and wine, while maintaing their original form, now contain the reality of Christ's mystical presence.

---

Best I can tell, you just said the same thing twice, merely in slightly different words. I'm serious, I do not see the difference that you apparently tried to indicate there.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Corvo:
But i am not sure this is an Anglican distinction.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trisagion:
Then the priest was lying to you, was acting outside hos authority or was ignorant. I hope it made you feel better and I hope the priest was just poorly educated but don't kid yourself that the act was a travesty and a scandal.

---

I feel sorry for you, Trisagion, and sad for any whom you might persuade with your Council of Trent like pronouncements, encapsulating such a medieval, closed-off view of the church.

For your information, one of the parish priests I mentioned as at the time the Administrator of the Cathedral in country NSW; and another was a diocesan bishop - neither of whom could be classed as uninformed, uneducated, or an idiot! Add to that a number of experiences at both Jesuit and Benedictine monasteries/convents over the past 25 years where we were all invited to participate in God's sacrament of grace and share in eucharist as friends and brothers/sisters.

These honourable and dedicated servants of Godsimply care more for pastoral sensitivities than dogmatic intransigence. The bishop I mentioned held 1-2 heads of church's gatherings each year at which, after a panel disccussion or guest lecturer, we all gathered and celebrated the Eucharist together, at which all were accorded courtesy at the open altar. The bishop was the chief celebrant at each - after all, it was his cathedral!
 

---

Posted by Clemency (# 16173) on :
 
I think ones attitudes towards the differing traditions change as one goes along; if you look at things from the point of view of how much we agree on rather than disagree, things change. In our neck of the woods there are local Anglican, Methodist and RC churches and we do a lot together; the words of the Communion service are virtually the same... I no longer think it is useful to raise the problems unless there might be a useful practical outcome' lets celebrate our commonalities, and also enjoy our differences in style. Sure from where I stand at the moment I would disagree with the Pope on a few things, and next time he rings me up to ask my opinion, I will give it, in a friendly manner. Until then....
 

---

Posted by Corvo (# 15220) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trisagion:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Corvo:
But i am not sure this is an Anglican distinction.

---

Well it certainly isn't a Catholic distinction.

---

quote:

---

To avoid any misunderstanding of this type of presence, which goes beyond the laws of nature and constitutes the greatest miracle of its kind, we have to listen with docility to the voice of the teaching and praying Church. Her voice, which constantly echoes the voice of Christ, assures us that the way in which Christ becomes present in this Sacrament is through the conversion of the whole substance of the bread into His body and of the whole substance of the wine into His blood, a unique and truly wonderful conversion that the Catholic Church fittingly and properly calls transubstantiation. As a result of transubstantiation, the species of bread and wine undoubtedly take on a new signification and a new finality, for they are no longer ordinary bread and wine but instead a sign of something sacred and a sign of spiritual food; but they take on this new signification, this new finality, precisely because they contain a new "reality" which we can rightly call ontological. For what now lies beneath the aforementioned species is not what was there before, but something completely different; and not just in the estimation of Church belief but in reality, since once the substance or nature of the bread and wine has been changed into the body and blood of Christ, nothing remains of the bread and the wine except for the species—beneath which Christ is present whole and entire in His physical "reality," corporeally present, although not in the manner in which bodies are in a place.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trisagion:
Corvo, I see what you are getting at. Paul VI picked this up in 1965 when a number of Catholic theologians were trying to make the distinction between the Real Presence and the way it comes about.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trisagion:
Corvo, I see what you are getting at. Paul VI picked this up in 1965 when a number of Catholic theologians were trying to make the distinction between the Real Presence and the way it comes about. He wrote an encyclical Mysterium Fidei in which he sought to explain that Transubstantiation wasn't a process, so much as a description of the mode of presence. He wrote, in paragraph 46:

quote:

---

To avoid any misunderstanding of this type of presence, which goes beyond the laws of nature and constitutes the greatest miracle of its kind, we have to listen with docility to the voice of the teaching and praying Church. Her voice, which constantly echoes the voice of Christ, assures us that the way in which Christ becomes present in this Sacrament is through the conversion of the whole substance of the bread into His body and of the whole substance of the wine into His blood, a unique and truly wonderful conversion that the Catholic Church fittingly and properly calls transubstantiation. As a result of transubstantiation, the species of bread and wine undoubtedly take on a new signification and a new finality, for they are no longer ordinary bread and wine but instead a sign of something sacred and a sign of spiritual food; but they take on this new signification, this new finality, precisely because they contain a new "reality" which we can rightly call ontological. For what now lies beneath the aforementioned species is not what was there before, but something completely different; and not just in the estimation of Church belief but in reality, since once the substance or nature of the bread and wine has been changed into the body and blood of Christ, nothing remains of the bread and the wine except for the species—beneath which Christ is present whole and entire in His physical "reality," corporeally present, although not in the manner in which bodies are in a place.

---

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trisagion:
The point that Paul VI was making was that "transubstantiation" refers to the "what" of the Real Presence, not the "how". That is to say that it is the "substantia" that has changed, not what is signified or or its purpose: in that sense it is properly ontological.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Emendator Liturgia:
I feel sorry for you, Trisagion, and sad for any whom you might persuade with your Council of Trent like pronouncements, encapsulating such a medieval, closed-off view of the church.

---

This seems a whole lot more personal than the subject requires. I remind you, in Purgatory we engage the argument, not the person.

--Tom Clune, Purgatory Host
 

---

Posted by Trisagion (# 5235) on :
 
The Latin text of Mysterium Fidei, of the Catechism and the Tridentine decree make clear that the "what" is the change of substance and the "how" is the miracle by which that is accomplished. The process is "miracle": what has happened is "transubstantiation".
 

---

Posted by Angloid (# 159) on :
 
Trisagion: what I would be interested to know is if, for a Catholic, it is essential to accept Thomist/Platonist (?) philosophical categories in order to believe truly in the Real Presence. I think many of us would say that way of expressing it isn't necessarily relevant or maybe even appropriate, but that Christ is truly present in the Blessed Sacrament nevertheless. It's the classic Queen Elizabeth I view: don't ask me how, I just know he is.

I've heard transubstantiation described in a way that makes perfect sense, so no way do I dismiss it, and if I was asked to sign up to it as a matter of faith I would and could do. I just don't see that it matters as long as one believes in the Real Presence.
 

---

Posted by Trisagion (# 5235) on :
 
The key, Angloid, is the words used by Paul VI to describe the doctrine is that it is called convenientur et proprie, which might be translated as "fittingly and properly", Transubstantiation. Trent used the same language. This suggests to me that it is not a term that can't be improved upon as a fitting and proper name for the change that takes place.

BTW, it's really St Thomas's reworking of Aristotle rather than Plato from which the expression comes, although it isn't entirely wedded to those philosophical categories.

[ 27. December 2012, 16:01: Message edited by: Trisagion ]
 

---

Posted by Angloid (# 159) on :
 
Thanks, O Thrice Holy One.
 

---

Posted by Corvo (# 15220) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trisagion:
The Latin text of Mysterium Fidei, of the Catechism and the Tridentine decree make clear that the "what" is the change of substance and the "how" is the miracle by which that is accomplished. The process is "miracle": what has happened is "transubstantiation".

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Corvo:
But it does suggest there was once a time when transubstantiation was understood as explaining the change.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Corvo:
So, a final question (or three).

'Transubstantiation' is an affirmation that the bread and wine have become the body and blood of Christ, rather than that the latter are merely 'present' in the former?

---

quote:

---

The term 'Real Presence' is therefore dangerously ambiguous to Catholic ears?

---

quote:

---

Transubstantiation does not necessarily mean a change in substance (though not in accidents) in an Aristotelian sense?

---

quote:

---

...what now lies beneath the aforementioned species [of bread and wine] is not what was there before, but something completely different; and not just in the estimation of Church belief but in reality, since once the substance or nature of the bread and wine has been changed into the body and blood of Christ, nothing remains of the bread and the wine except for the species—beneath which Christ is present whole and entire in His physical "reality," corporeally present, although not in the manner in which bodies are in a place.

---

quote:

---

4. If you must get personal, take it to Hell

If you get into a personality conflict with other shipmates, you have two simple choices: end the argument or take it to Hell.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Spike:

quote:

---

Originally posted by venbede:
Of course an act of worship isn't just words, it is actions (ritual if you prefer) and silence.

And the same goes for prayer.

---

Ritual can be very helpful. We have an Italian lady come to our church when she's over here visiting her daughter. She doesn't speak a word of English, but knows exactly what's happening during the service due to the familiar ritual.

---

I trust you've made it quite clear to her that yours is an Anglican church and not a Catholic one. You wouldn't want to live down to a negative stereotype.
 

---

Posted by Garasu (# 17152) on :
 
Is it only CL's avatar that makes him(?) seem so negative?
 

---

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
'Ulster says, NO!'

It looks like CL is living up to a negative stereotype ...


 

---

Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
I don't feel that added much to the debate.
 

---

Posted by Garasu (# 17152) on :
 
Apologies.
 

---

Posted by Trisagion (# 5235) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by CL:
I trust you've made it quite clear to her that yours is an Anglican church and not a Catholic one. You wouldn't want to live down to a negative stereotype.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by redunderthebed:
Cheers guys your posts have being very informative. Its good to discover other christian traditions i would be fascinated to attend an orthodox service but i think the language barrier would be a problem.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by IngoB:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Olaf:
We have a very common understanding of Holy Baptism, and in many cases a Protestant baptism would be recognized by Roman Catholic authority.

---

Uhh, what? That the baptism of heretics is valid if performed in the right manner and with right intention was famously defended by Pope St Stephen I against St Cyprian of Carthage in 256 AD in the Novatian rebaptism controversy; and the pope then stated "If any one, therefore, come to you from any heresy whatever, let nothing be innovated (or done) which has not been handed down, to wit, that hands be imposed on him for repentance; since the heretics themselves, in their own proper character, do not baptize such as come to them from one another, but only admit them to communion.". Thus the pope defended the validity of the baptism of heretics, and even their baptismal practice, against one of the most influential figures of the Church back then, St Cyprian (who was sometimes called the "African pope"). The latest date one can set for the universal acceptance of this Roman judgement is the Collation of 411 AD, where St Augustine defeated the remaining Donatists in a public debate over the issue. Ever since there has been no doubt about the general validity of heretic baptisms in the RCC, in the slightest. The Council of Trent, hardly known for pulling any punches concerning Protestants, declared: "CANON IV. - If any one saith, that the baptism which is even given by heretics in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, with the intention of doing what the Church doth, is not true baptism; let him be anathema." Those who doubt the validity of the "normal" Protestant baptism (i.e., what you find among most Lutherans, Calvinists, Anglicans, ...) are literally cast out from the RCC there. This has been the consistent teaching of the RCC for at least 1,500 years, and has been infallibly set into stone as Catholic dogma for almost 500 years. I think we can consider this as a long settled issue...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by CL:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Spike:

quote:

---

Originally posted by venbede:
Of course an act of worship isn't just words, it is actions (ritual if you prefer) and silence.

And the same goes for prayer.

---

Ritual can be very helpful. We have an Italian lady come to our church when she's over here visiting her daughter. She doesn't speak a word of English, but knows exactly what's happening during the service due to the familiar ritual.

---

I trust you've made it quite clear to her that yours is an Anglican church and not a Catholic one. You wouldn't want to live down to a negative stereotype.

---

Until recently we had a female priest so she probably worked that one out for herself!
 

---

Posted by Sergius-Melli (# 17462) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by venbede:
I was sure there is somewhere when St Paul mentions kneeling for prayer, but I've tried to find it in the Unbound Bible website, and it's not there. There are only four uses of the word "kneel" all in the OT, and one a reference to the camels of Abraham's servant.

A friend who was in the Salvation Army many years ago told me that the prayer session before a public ministry was called "knee drill", confirming that that least sacramental (though highly ritualized) Christian body thought kneeling highly appropriate.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by venbede:
Hello Sergius. Sorry don't get the reference to St James. There are only four uses of the word "knee" in the RSV according the web site I used, and one is to the knees of camels.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
As I consider myself to be a Christian in communion with all Christian churches

---

quote:

---

God blessed me through it

---

quote:

---

in the same way as God has blessed me through communion in other churches.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by venbede:
The best people to judge if they are insulted would be the Roman Catholics who encouraged or at least allowed Raptor Eye to communicate.

---

quote:

---

It is indeed not for me or Raptor Eye to say which churches consider me or him in communion with them. I imagine I would be excluded from communion with the Wee Frees, and I would respect them taking the sacrament so seriously.

---

quote:

---

He was indeed receiving the body and blood of Christ under forms of bread and wine, the same as anyone else.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Corvo:
Surely transubstantiation is a doctrine about how the bread and wine becomes the body and blood of Christ, rather than that it does.

The doctrine of the real presence is precisely that - Christ is truly present in the elements - rather than a particular explanation of how.

But i am not sure this is an Anglican distinction.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Angloid:
That's not how I see it, Trisagion (not that you would be surprised). I firmly believe that God, in Jesus Christ, makes himself present in the elements of the Eucharist. I don't think this depends on the particular beliefs of the community celebrating. It's God's eucharist, not (except by extension) the Church's. So if I were to accept the hospitality of a church that claimed to believe it was just a memorial, I would receive (if invited) and believe that God was nevertheless present in the bread and wine. I'm sure that when I celebrate the eucharist many of those who receive have all sorts of beliefs, but it doesn't depend on what people believe.

I would respect the discipline of churches, like the RCC, that normally would not invite me to receive. But in practice, you must know, Trisagion, many Catholics interpret the rules quite freely and I have received at Catholic masses many times (and felt it would be rude to refuse, having been personally invited). Even on the strictest interpretation of canon law, Anglicans and others unable to attend their own church (because of distance, for example) are welcome to communicate in Catholic churches. There is a joint statement of Catholic and Anglican bishops in France to this effect.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Angloid:
That's not how I see it, Trisagion (not that you would be surprised). I firmly believe that God, in Jesus Christ, makes himself present in the elements of the Eucharist. I don't think this depends on the particular beliefs of the community celebrating. It's God's eucharist, not (except by extension) the Church's. So if I were to accept the hospitality of a church that claimed to believe it was just a memorial, I would receive (if invited) and believe that God was nevertheless present in the bread and wine. I'm sure that when I celebrate the eucharist many of those who receive have all sorts of beliefs, but it doesn't depend on what people believe.

---

quote:

---

I would respect the discipline of churches, like the RCC, that normally would not invite me to receive. But in practice, you must know, Trisagion, many Catholics interpret the rules quite freely and I have received at Catholic masses many times (and felt it would be rude to refuse, having been personally invited). Even on the strictest interpretation of canon law, Anglicans and others unable to attend their own church (because of distance, for example) are welcome to communicate in Catholic churches. There is a joint statement of Catholic and Anglican bishops in France to this effect.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trisagion:
So what makes it the Eucharist?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Angloid:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trisagion:
So what makes it the Eucharist?

---

God?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Angloid:
Even on the strictest interpretation of canon law, Anglicans and others unable to attend their own church (because of distance, for example) are welcome to communicate in Catholic churches.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Angloid:
There is a joint statement of Catholic and Anglican bishops in France to this effect.

---

quote:

---

Can. 844 §1. Catholic ministers administer the sacraments licitly to Catholic members of the Christian faithful alone, who likewise receive them licitly from Catholic ministers alone, without prejudice to the prescripts of §§2, 3, and 4 of this canon, and ⇒ can. 861, §2.
§2. Whenever necessity requires it or true spiritual advantage suggests it, and provided that danger of error or of indifferentism is avoided, the Christian faithful for whom it is physically or morally impossible to approach a Catholic minister are permitted to receive the sacraments of penance, Eucharist, and anointing of the sick from non-Catholic ministers in whose Churches these sacraments are valid.
§3. Catholic ministers administer the sacraments of penance, Eucharist, and anointing of the sick licitly to members of Eastern Churches which do not have full communion with the Catholic Church if they seek such on their own accord and are properly disposed. This is also valid for members of other Churches which in the judgment of the Apostolic See are in the same condition in regard to the sacraments as these Eastern Churches.
§4. If the danger of death is present or if, in the judgment of the diocesan bishop or conference of bishops, some other grave necessity urges it, Catholic ministers administer these same sacraments licitly also to other Christians not having full communion with the Catholic Church, who cannot approach a minister of their own community and who seek such on their own accord, provided that they manifest Catholic faith in respect to these sacraments and are properly disposed.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trisagion:
In what does that communion consist? What do you mean when you say you consider yourself to be "in communion"?

---

quote:

---

"God blessed me through it" How do you know this?

---

quote:

---

Have you any idea how insulting and hurtful this statement is to a Catholic? What a disgraceful way to respond to the warmth of the welcome you received. You go to a Church where the locals believe themselves to be receiving the very body and blood, soul and divinity of the Son of God and so being intimately united to him both bodily and spiritually, you take communion and you then claim that you were blessed "in the same way" as when you have gone to other churches who don't believe that they're receiving anything of the sort.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trisagion:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Angloid:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trisagion:
So what makes it the Eucharist?

---

God?

---

Really. And how does that help us to identify what constitutes the Eucharist. Does there have to be bread and wine or can some other elements be used? Does there need to be an intention that what is going on is the Eucharist, either in those celebrating it or in those leading the worship? Can anybody do it? Come on Angloid, you're better than smart arse answers like that. Help me: what are the essentials?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Angloid:
My guideline would be, 'are the people doing this intending to do what Jesus told us to do?' (or, 'what the church does' which amounts to the same thing.' I personally (and the rules of my church) would regard it as essential within our tradition to use bread and wine, and for the presiding minister to have been ordained a priest in the Church of God. If a lay person shared bread and grape juice it would not be a Eucharist as the Church of England understands it.

But outwith that tradition some details could vary. For example, a Methodist would probably use unfermented 'wine', and the minister's orders would not be recognised by the C of E (indeed, in exceptional circumstance s/he might be a layperson). But I would never doubt that a Methodist Eucharist was a true Eucharist and that Christ was present just as he would be present at an Anglican or Catholic altar. Other traditions might be much further removed from ancient tradition, and they might have very different beliefs and practices. But at the heart of it would almost certainly be the words 'This is my Body', and 'This is my Blood'. I could not believe that Christ would not be present in this encounter.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by RuthW:
Is Christ present in their ritual? They'd say Christ is present in the ways Christ is always present in our lives -- but there's nothing inherently special or different about this rite.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

---

Originally posted by RuthW:
Is Christ present in their ritual? They'd say Christ is present in the ways Christ is always present in our lives -- but there's nothing inherently special or different about this rite.

---

I know you can't answer for them, but I would ask: "Then why bother?"

---

quote:

---

provided that they manifest Catholic faith in respect to these sacraments and are properly disposed.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I'm with Ruth and Doublethink, though, on the receiving of communion in settings where the 'table' is closed - as it were. I would never 'receive' in an Orthodox or RC setting I don't think ... for the reasons Ruth has outlined.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by IngoB:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Angloid:
Even on the strictest interpretation of canon law, Anglicans and others unable to attend their own church (because of distance, for example) are welcome to communicate in Catholic churches.

---

This is untrue, certainly stated in such general terms. See the canon quoted below.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Angloid:
There is a joint statement of Catholic and Anglican bishops in France to this effect.

---

If this were true, it would only be a regulation relevant to France - and I would appreciate a link to that supposed statement.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Angloid:
But AFAIK it doesn't appear to have changed the situation on the ground. It is not unknown for an Anglican priest to be invited to concelebrate, and common (insofar as Anglican priests in France are common) for them to assist with the distribution of Communion.

To some of us sympathetic observers of the RCC from outside, the official policy looks like another example of the Canute tendency in Vatican pronouncements. Contraception is another significant example: official teaching can say one thing until it's blue in the face, but if it's being ignored by a majority of Catholics it suggests either a failure of communication or a need for a rethink of the policy. Most of the other Dead Horses are similar.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Angloid:
I would be the first to admit that Anglican theology about the Eucharist (as much else) is confused and often seems contradictory. But the Catholic position as described by you, Trisagion, seems to lead to the dangerous belief that the tight definitions represent the whole truth of God's mystery. I'm not trying to be flippant when I say that it is God that defines the meaning of the sacrament. We approach the Eucharist, all of us, knowing that it is a mystery beyond definition. 'Let all mortal flesh keep silence...' which means ultimately that it is God's gift.

---

quote:

---

Of course we, especially those of us ordained as 'ministers and stewards' of the sacraments, have the responsibility for administering them reverently and guarding them from profanation. I just don't believe that if someone approaches the altar in a spirit of reverence they should be subject (literally or implicitly) to a theological examination.

---

quote:

---

If I attended mass in your church I would not treat you, your priest or your community, with disrespect by attempting to receive the Blessed Sacrament. However, if another Catholic priest offered me an explicit invitation to receive, I would not give him the disrespect of refusing.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trisagion:
And it is he, rather than you, who would be judged for it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by AberVicar:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trisagion:
And it is he, rather than you, who would be judged for it.

---

By whom?

---

Well, Trisagion for starters.
 

---

Posted by Qoheleth. (# 9265) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Angloid:
If I attended mass in your church I would not treat you, your priest or your community, with disrespect by attempting to receive the Blessed Sacrament. However, if another Catholic priest offered me an explicit invitation to receive, I would not give him the disrespect of refusing.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:

quote:

---

Originally posted by AberVicar:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trisagion:
And it is he, rather than you, who would be judged for it.

---

By whom?

---

Well, Trisagion for starters.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Qoheleth.:
...when the CofE Parish Priest stood at his own altar...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mdijon:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Qoheleth.:
...when the CofE Parish Priest stood at his own altar...

---

Since we seem to be doing smartarse on this thread, not exactly his own altar is it? But to be serious, thanks for the story.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Angloid:
...If I attended mass in your church I would not treat you, your priest or your community, with disrespect by attempting to receive the Blessed Sacrament. However, if another Catholic priest offered me an explicit invitation to receive, I would not give him the disrespect of refusing.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mdijon:
Personally if I found myself in a situation where I was being invited to partake, and those present seemed to want me to, then I don't think I have any role in upholding official catholic teaching on behalf of those not there. But on the other hand I understand why it gives offence to many in the RCC and I'd be a bit circumspect about shouting about it from the rooftops.

---

quote:

---

... can the Eucharist be changed in any way to remove all the sacrificial stuff, or is it time to ditch it altogether, and introduce new forms of service that are more in keeping with Jesus's teaching?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by moonlitdoor:
I am a bit puzzled by Holy Smoke's post. How could a Catholic mass not be a eucharist in Anglican terms ? If what happens in Catholic churches isn't a eucharist, then there's no eucharist at all, as far as I can see.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trisagion:
... The truth is, as your own posts here and elsewhere give ample evidence, you do not "manifest Catholic faith" - at least in the sense intended in canon 844.

I have no idea why the statement on the Diocese of Gibraltar in Europe website has disappeared. It is much less likely to be as a result of someone in Rome asking the French Bishops to review their statement than a result of the French Bishops realising that they had been misled into believing that most Anglicans did "manifest Catholic faith" with regard to the Mass, whereas the reality is that a vanishingly small number actually do - witness the debate hereabouts over the last few days about transubstantiation. Similar debates could undoubtedly be had about the propitiatory nature of the sacrifice of the Mass, its concrete ecclesial consequences and what constitutes manifest, grave, public sin. The truth is - and this hurts, really hurts in the circumstances of my own life, married to an Anglican, with my closest friend an Anglican cleric and in a family of various kinds of Methodists - the Catholic faith concerning the Eucharist is not widely shared by non-Catholics. It is possible to get substantial agreement with the Orthodox, but even that requires a great deal of patience and a desire to see beyond the different language we've come to use.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Holy Smoke:

quote:

---

Originally posted by moonlitdoor:
I am a bit puzzled by Holy Smoke's post. How could a Catholic mass not be a eucharist in Anglican terms ? If what happens in Catholic churches isn't a eucharist, then there's no eucharist at all, as far as I can see.

---

Because there are a number of significant differences in intention, theology, and practice, and because there is a sufficiently large discontinuity between Roman Catholic and Protestant churches, such that I would have doubts whether it is exactly the same ceremony in the two churches. Or at the very least, I would not take it for granted that a Roman Catholic mass and an Anglican communion, for example, were precisely the same service.

You seem to be taking the Roman Catholic mass as somehow normative, which is very much a Roman Catholic position.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Angloid:
So what are those Anglicans (like myself and a fair number on this Ship) supposed to do, who believe that the Mass that we celebrate is, if not 'identical' to that of the RCC, is the Eucharist that Christ instituted...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Enoch:
Many years ago, a Baptist friend who had been living in Spain as part of doing a degree in Spanish, told me how surprised he was, talking to Spanish churchgoing friends, how once one got beyond the formal descriptions of what he and they respectively had been taught they were supposed to believe, to find that his own and their beliefs and feelings about the sacraments were far more similar and compatible than he had expected.

---

quote:

---

Doesn't your test mean that unless like Ezekiel and his scroll, one has eaten Ludwig Witt and found him sweet to the taste, one can't receive, however much one might otherwise be shriven and in good standing? That would even exclude those who say 'Whatever the church believes, I accept, even if I don't fully understand it', a sort of Catholic equivalent of the words of Queen Elizabeth I that I cited earlier in the thread.

---

quote:

---

Or is it that good Catholics don't have to comply with Canon 844 in the way you interpret it, but only outsiders who hope to have eucharistic hospitality extended to them?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trisagion:

quote:

---

Doesn't your test mean that unless like Ezekiel and his scroll, one has eaten Ludwig Witt and found him sweet to the taste, one can't receive, however much one might otherwise be shriven and in good standing? That would even exclude those who say 'Whatever the church believes, I accept, even if I don't fully understand it', a sort of Catholic equivalent of the words of Queen Elizabeth I that I cited earlier in the thread.

---

"Whatever the Church believes, I accept, even if I don't fully understand it" is precisely the Catholic equivalent and the test.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by IngoB:

quote:

---

Originally posted by mdijon:
Personally if I found myself in a situation where I was being invited to partake, and those present seemed to want me to, then I don't think I have any role in upholding official catholic teaching on behalf of those not there. But on the other hand I understand why it gives offence to many in the RCC and I'd be a bit circumspect about shouting about it from the rooftops.

---

I for one entirely agree. It is not up to non-Catholics to uphold Catholic doctrine and discipline. I would rather direct my ire at those who played fast and loose with their own Catholic religion; and while I cannot speak for God, I would expect that any millstones being rolled in on this occasion would be intended for Catholic necks. However, while I would not blame a non-Catholic playing along in such circumstances, at all, I would consider it as an actual grace from God if a non-Catholic would resist the invitation against peer pressure. I would cheer a non-Catholic teaching Catholics Catholicism by their own lived example, and such informed respect for the religion of others is to me the truest form of ecumenism...

---

“The road to Hell is paved with the bones of priests and monks, and the skulls of bishops are the lamp posts that light the path.” - St. John Chrysostom
 

---

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Bad Queen Bess or Bad Queen Mary ... you pays your money ...


 

---

Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trisagion:
I think Bad Queen Bess's little rhyme is an excellent rule, although one capable of a number of mutually exclusive understandings, dependent upon what Christ's words did make it....but that was rather her point.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Bad Queen Bess or Bad Queen Mary ... you pays your money ...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I'm not laying claim to any greater insight or propriety than Raptor Eye, but I think if I had been in his position I would have made it known to a sidesman, the priest or someone else that I was a Protestant and then left it up to them whether to invite me to receive or not. Even then I would have been reluctant to receive had they invited me to do so - not because I have any objection to the Mass or to the RC Church but because I'm aware of the official line and think it's only right and proper to respect that.

As IngoB says, it's a matter of respecting the views of the people at the place where you're at ... literally in this case a situation of 'when in Rome ...'

I've related an experience I've had of transcendence etc at an otherwise rather memorialist communion service in a Baptist chapel in South Wales ... but I wouldn't lay claim to this being exactly the same as what RCs believe and experience. It would be presumptious of me to do so. I might suggest that it went someway towards what I understand them to mean ... but it would be churlish to suggest that it was the self-same and identical thing just as it would be to suggest that it was the same as what the Orthodox experience - or High Anglicans, come to that.

I'd love to be able to take communion with both the RCs and the Orthodox - but at the moment that's not possible. Until such time as it is I'm more than happy to fellowship with them in a non-eucharistic sense. That doesn't mean that I'm indifferent to the separation, but it does mean that I accord them the respect that is due to their views whether I concur with them or not.

I know this is a difficult position, but it's the one where we find ourselves.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
I don't see myself as a Protestant, simply as a Christian. Why should I take on the mantle of Protestant if others want to give it to me?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Garasu:
So "Protestant" means "not me"?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Garasu:
What then?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mdijon:
One could be not catholic and not protestant by being Orthodox, by not being a Christian or by being Christian but completely unchurched.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trisagion:
I think Bad Queen Bess's little rhyme is an excellent rule, although one capable of a number of mutually exclusive understandings, dependent upon what Christ's words did make it....but that was rather her point.

---

Interesting take on the rhyme, Trisagion. I had always surmised that it was clear that what the Word made the bread and wine were what the Word said of them:"This is My Body; This is My Blood". It's just that the rhyme also makes it implicitly clear - in my mind anyway - that there is no attempt being made to define exactly how this is the case, just that it truly is the case.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
So to the RC perpetual pundits amongst us here on the Ship, I pose the question: is this, insofar as I have explained my belief, congruent with the (Roman)Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist or not?

---

FWIW, looks OK to me. A bit too erudite perhaps... It's more a visceral thing. A doing, not a thinking. But fair enough on the theological analysis.
 

---

Posted by Jahlove (# 10290) on :
 
I am slightly astonished that, on a website explicitly concerned with Christian practice (inter alia ), there are so many non-RCs posting that they find it acceptable to receive at RC masses. Surely they are educated enough in these matters to know that this is not acceptable? Or just don't care. Or think their *feelings* are enough to grant them licence? As for the RCs who think it's OK to receive in non-RC communions, all I can say is either you have been poorly catechized or you need to go to Confession.

When I joined the RC, the most weighing sin I had to confess (one which my internet priestly advisor and my catechist and my RL priest took EXTREMELY seriously) was that I once took communion at a Midnight Mass in the local RC church.

But hey! Let's all imagine all religious expression and tradition is exactly equal.

<goes off to sacrifice 6 small bunnies to the face on the wallpaper! Blessings Abound>
 

---

Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by IngoB:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
So to the RC perpetual pundits amongst us here on the Ship, I pose the question: is this, insofar as I have explained my belief, congruent with the (Roman)Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist or not?

---

FWIW, looks OK to me. A bit too erudite perhaps... It's more a visceral thing. A doing, not a thinking. But fair enough on the theological analysis.

---

quote:

---

I am slightly astonished that, on a website explicitly concerned with Christian practice (inter alia ), there are so many non-RCs posting that they find it acceptable to receive at RC masses. Surely they are educated enough in these matters to know that this is not acceptable?

---

Well, twenty years ago I received at a close friend's wedding. I vaguely knew it wasn't the usual thing, but being part of the wedding party, I thought I was supposed to. (The mother of the bride, I learned later, wasn't too pleased. But she didn't hold my ignorance against me in the long run.) I wouldn't do it today. But despite the caveats of certain RCs on the Ship about the practice, I do feel happy to receive a blessing at the altar at a Mass. I figure such things are between the priest and his bishop. I'd be rather disappointed if US priests had to become hard-nosed and refuse blessing us benighted heretics. To me, it's like the "little blessing" of the Orthodox antidoron- a loving act.
 

---

Posted by Trisagion (# 5235) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:

quote:

---

Originally posted by IngoB:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
So to the RC perpetual pundits amongst us here on the Ship, I pose the question: is this, insofar as I have explained my belief, congruent with the (Roman)Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist or not?

---

FWIW, looks OK to me. A bit too erudite perhaps... It's more a visceral thing. A doing, not a thinking. But fair enough on the theological analysis.

---

Thanks very much for your feedback, Ingo. I'm rather shocked that you of all people find my theology of the Eucharist too thoughty! However, when I'm actually assisting at Mass, I am indeed involved in the doing of it, rather than theologising to myself. There's a time for making Eucharist, after all, and a time for reflecting upon what it is that we are doing and what is happening in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jahlove:
When I joined the RC, the most weighing sin I had to confess (one which my internet priestly advisor and my catechist and my RL priest took EXTREMELY seriously) was that I once took communion at a Midnight Mass in the local RC church.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jahlove:
I am slightly astonished that, on a website explicitly concerned with Christian practice (inter alia ), there are so many non-RCs posting that they find it acceptable to receive at RC masses. Surely they are educated enough in these matters to know that this is not acceptable?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
...To God? I have little doubt about that.

---

quote:

---

To the Pope? I fail to see how that should be my concern.

---

quote:

---

The rules imply a position that I don't share - that the Eucharist celebrated by a Roman Catholic Priest is different from that celebrated by an Anglican Priest, and that the sacraments I have received at the hands of Anglican Priests are somehow invalid and/or distinct.

---

quote:

---

but I see no reason why I should take responsibility for following those rules if the RC Priests themselves choose to break them.

---

quote:

---

It should be your concern out of respect for the other with whom you are engaging.

---

quote:

---

I have some sympathy with your attitude here but if working towards the unity for which Christ prayed means anything to you, respecting the discipline of the other communion rather than seeking to undermine it must be part of your responsibility too.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trisagion:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
...To God? I have little doubt about that.

---

What an astonishingly arrogant thing to say.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trisagion:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
...To God? I have little doubt about that.

---

What an astonishingly arrogant thing to say.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Spike:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trisagion:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
...To God? I have little doubt about that.

---

What an astonishingly arrogant thing to say.

---

No more arrogant that assuming that God is only present within the sacraments of your own denomination.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:

I'm not RC but I can see their point of view on this one. There's almost a note of (adopts playground sing-song voice) 'Na-nah-na-nah-na ... I'm an Anglican and I've received communion in an RC chu-ur-ch and you can't stop me ...' about it.

When in Rome.

---

quote:

---

originally posted by Enoch

... the idea that those who know canons are being broken/stretched should not be complicit in this.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by moonlitdoor:

quote:

---

originally posted by Enoch

... the idea that those who know canons are being broken/stretched should not be complicit in this.

---

I have a question about this. I attended the midnight eucharist on Christmas eve at a local Anglican church. I don't normally go there, but I used to and it has recently reopened under new management so to speak, and it is a few minutes walk from my house so I decided to. The priest announced that the wine was in fact grape juice. I have been at a service where they had grape juice as an alternative but I just made sure to have the wine. This was the first time I ever saw an Anglican church have only grape juice. What is the best thing to do in this circumstance ? Was I complicit in breaking the rules by receiving this eucharist ? Should I trust the priest to know which canons were not so bad to break as Enoch alluded to ? I wondered about having only the bread but wasn't sure if that part was still valid or in theory the whole thing invalidated. I decided to have the juice thinking that Christ would make it valid for the congregation's sake.

---

Since you have no control over the fact that the priest has broken canon law - and I would definitely put this one on the naughty step - I don't see that you are complicit. It is his or her responsibility, not yours. And from the swine 'flu instructions, as you say, communion under one kind is valid and the bread had been consecrated.

All the same, it's blatant and fairly odd. Perhaps the incumbent is a recovering alcoholic . It's difficult to think of any other explanation or excuse.
 

---

Posted by 3rdFooter (# 9751) on :
 
Trisagion, (and others)
In all frankness, what would you have me do? I serve a very ethnically diverse population. Roman Catholics* come to my church frequently. I make it clear that it they are in an Anglican church. I lay out the anglican three point policy as mentioned above. Generally they nod and accept what I am saying. Mostly, they choose to continue to receive communion with us.

How far would you have me stress the position that visitors and newcomers are putting themselves in with respect to their own ecclesial community?

While personally, and after due reflection, I believe I am acting in good faith, I am interested in your perspective.

3F

*And some Orthodoxon, mostly Greek.
 

---

Posted by Trisagion (# 5235) on :
 
I would have you do what you describe as your current practice. You are following the discipline of your communion.
 

---

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
I can't see why Trisagion should be shocked or surprised either ...

Oh, and yes, what Angloid said.



Now I'm confused on the canonicity thing. I've seen Anglican churches offer both wine and grape juice but never just grape juice ... I don't know why they offered a choice.

I'd like to know more about the Anglican canons and which ones are more binding than others. As someone who has returned to the Anglican fold, as it were, after years in 'new church' or Free Church settings it seems to me that the CofE plays fast and loose with its own canons - particularly at the more Catholic and the more evangelical wings.

I attended an ecumenical service at the Methodist church today and was delighted to find them using the set lectionary readings. Our vicar won't touch the lectionary at all and gets very narked whenever I mention it. I have to say, it felt good to have the same readings in church as I'd read in my own devotions this morning.

Is following the lectionary a canonical requirement?
 

---

Posted by Trisagion (# 5235) on :
 
Are Anglicans permitted to use grape juice (as in unfermented grape juice) in Eucharistic liturgies? Is it considered what I, as a Cathoic, would call "valid matter".
 

---

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trisagion:
Are Anglicans permitted to use grape juice (as in unfermented grape juice) in Eucharistic liturgies? Is it considered what I, as a Cathoic, would call "valid matter".

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by leo:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trisagion:
Are Anglicans permitted to use grape juice (as in unfermented grape juice) in Eucharistic liturgies? Is it considered what I, as a Cathoic, would call "valid matter".

---

No, absolutely not. But it happens....

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trisagion:
Are Anglicans permitted to use grape juice (as in unfermented grape juice) in Eucharistic liturgies? Is it considered what I, as a Catholic, would call "valid matter".

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Enoch:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trisagion:
Are Anglicans permitted to use grape juice (as in unfermented grape juice) in Eucharistic liturgies? Is it considered what I, as a Catholic, would call "valid matter".

---

I'm not speaking as an expert. So you might need to take this with a pinch of salt.

The wine must be good, wholesome, made of grapes and fermented. So the Canons are completely clear that the answer is no.

However, the Canons also do not allow for non-wheaten bread, such that coeliacs can eat. Traditionally, until at least the late C19, the bread was always leavened, but the Canons now allow the bread to be leavened or unleavened, and individual parishes often have quite a strong preference for one or the other.

So one could perhaps say that if churches offer special coeliac wafers (which many do), as the Canons do not provide for this, they could also offer grape juice for people who actually cannot safely drink wine. But that would have to be a provision for those for whom this is really necessary. I don't think it would be permissible or an acceptable offering to use only coeliac bread and only grape juice as a sort of gesture of identity with those who cannot consume the real thing. I'd also be uneasy whether a person can eschew communion wine for any other reason than its being medically essential for them not to drink it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Enoch:
I'd also be uneasy whether a person can eschew communion wine for any other reason than its being medically essential for them not to drink it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trisagion:

quote:

---

Originally posted by leo:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trisagion:
Are Anglicans permitted to use grape juice (as in unfermented grape juice) in Eucharistic liturgies? Is it considered what I, as a Cathoic, would call "valid matter".

---

No, absolutely not. But it happens....

---

So is this a Eucharist or something else...having regard to Angloid's remarks up thread?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Enoch:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jahlove:
When I joined the RC, the most weighing sin I had to confess (one which my internet priestly advisor and my catechist and my RL priest took EXTREMELY seriously) was that I once took communion at a Midnight Mass in the local RC church.

---

You must have lived a much better life than many of the rest of us.

---

quote:

---

originally posted by leo

I would not attend such a eucharist

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
I think I would not receive and I might well leave. The problem for me is this: the matter of the elements of the Eucharist is well-established. It consists of: (1)pure wheaten bread, (2)the fermented juice of the fruit of the vine. I am even doubtful about the whole propositin of "mustum" (slightly but insignificantly fermented grape juice), which the RCC allows in certain instances. A coeliac host must be specially processed wheat flour to, in my mind, still be valid matter for the Eucharist. Further, I don't see that the problem with validity is obviated by proper bread but unfermented grape juice. The Eucharist is one Sacrament, not two. Our Lord instituted the Sacrament using bread and wine. If part of the matter is invalid, the entire sacrament has to be considered invalid (from my perspective).

---

quote:

---

Will Christ make Himself present to rightly disposed communicants in such a celebration? I'm sure that He does. However, it is not - in my view - the Eucharist celebrated by the historic Church Universal. It's a bit analogous to a completely memorialist Lord's Supper where the congregation only supposes they are commemorating the Last Supper. No doubt grace is still available through this rite, and perhaps in some sense there isn't even a defect of intention if such a congregation understands itself to be doing what the Church does and what Christ commanded to be done. However, it still isn't the Eucharist of the Church Catholic in its fullness. I realise, BTW, that the same argument can be, and is, made in regard to the gender of the presiding minister of the Eucharist, so this makes me realise I need to be charitable in my assessment of what I consider deviations from validity, but at the same time there are some places I just can't go.

---

This raises a curious puzzle. It seems to me that if the minister and congregation believes they are doing what the Lord has commanded (as per Queen Elizabeth I, they believe what he intended by it, rather than what they think), but, after your lights are incorrectly instructed or have drawn the wrong conclusions, then it is a true Eucharist. But if the minister and congregation consciously believe that irrespective of what the Lord meant, they are following Zwingli, their church's statement of faith or whoever, then it is not.

I acknowledge that's a somewhat pedantic distinction, but at the root is this. Does one think that the Lord is generous towards those who seek to celebrate his supper? Or does one think he has constructed a series of hoops they have got to jump through? Otherwise he will not be present in the bread and the wine.
 

---

Posted by CL (# 16145) on :
 
A parish priest is absolutely not entitled to exercise discretion with regards to sacramental "hospitality" except truly in extremis. He is the bishop's vicar, i.e. what sacramental authority he exercises, he exercise vicariously on behalf of the bishop. A curate has even less discretion. It's not the PP's call, it's his bishop's in the first instance. Additionally the bishop does not have a free hand either; he may only legitimately act in accordance with Canon Law.

The exception with regards to the Orthodox is a canard as it is dependent on the layperson concerned having the permission of his or her own bishop. Such permission is never forthcoming (bar possibly, again, in extremis).
 

---

Posted by Gramps49 (# 16378) on :
 
If you are having problems with the priest using only grape juice, I would assume there is a way of remediation. First, talk to the priest. If not satisfied ask someone to go with you to negotiate the problem. If still not satisfied take it to his supervisor--the bishop.
 

---

Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :
 
Enoch, I rather think this gets us to the aphorism "we know where the Church is; we so not know where the Church iš not" that I understand to be a bit of Orthodox ecclesiological wisdom. I don't know what happens in a Eucharist using the right form and matter but that specifically disavows anything other than the most unequivocal memorialism. I don't think God is constrained by the defect of intention, but I could not share in such a Eucharist because I would understand the celebrationto be contravening a right discernment of the Body of Christ in the Sacrament.
 

---

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
You scratch some of the Orthoes hard enough and they'll suggest that the 'we don't where the Church is not' thing is a bit of a political fudge and that they really do know where the Church is and isn't ... and it ain't with the rest of us ...



Mercifully, some are more balanced ... or perhaps more dissembling ...
 

---

Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :
 
If the eucharist is celebrated incorrectly or illicitly or invalidly or however you might describe it, what is the cost of this? What loss or damage is there? If it was persistently celebrated wrongly by a particular priest or perhaps across a whole province for a generation, what would be the downside?

I'm really struggling as a Baptist to get inside the thought patterns in this thread, and I think that some answers to this question might help me.

So far all I'm seeing is a discussion about what is right and wrong, and I'm not really getting why things are right or wrong.
 

---

Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :
 
Hatless, that is a very good and valid question I think there are many answers to that and they differ according to one's own ecclesiology and sacramental theology. I shall to give you my answer once I am at home on a proper computer rather than an iPhone.
 

---

Posted by RuthW (# 13) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gracious rebel:

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

---

Originally posted by RuthW:
Is Christ present in their [Baptist, memorialist] ritual? They'd say Christ is present in the ways Christ is always present in our lives -- but there's nothing inherently special or different about this rite.

---

I know you can't answer for them, but I would ask: "Then why bother?"

---

Because Christ specifically commanded it? Seems a pretty strong reason for why those in the memorialist position do have communion services.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trisagion:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Enoch:
Many years ago, a Baptist friend who had been living in Spain as part of doing a degree in Spanish, told me how surprised he was, talking to Spanish churchgoing friends, how once one got beyond the formal descriptions of what he and they respectively had been taught they were supposed to believe, to find that his own and their beliefs and feelings about the sacraments were far more similar and compatible than he had expected.

---

An odd Baptist to have believed in seven sacraments, or the necessity of priesthood for the celebration of the Eucharist, or the sacrifice of the Mass, or the necessity of auricular confession, or....Perhaps the Spaniards were about as well informed about the faith of he Church as most Catholics.

---

quote:

---

Personally i think they put way too many barriers to experience god and having a personal relationship with god. I'am always suspicious of organisations that claim in any way to be conduits of god or his representative there was only one man who could truly claim either.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gracious rebel:

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

---

Originally posted by RuthW:
Is Christ present in their [Baptist, memorialist] ritual? They'd say Christ is present in the ways Christ is always present in our lives -- but there's nothing inherently special or different about this rite.

---

I know you can't answer for them, but I would ask: "Then why bother?"

---

Because Christ specifically commanded it? Seems a pretty strong reason for why those in the memorialist position do have communion services.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by hatless:
If the eucharist is celebrated incorrectly or illicitly or invalidly or however you might describe it, what is the cost of this? What loss or damage is there? If it was persistently celebrated wrongly by a particular priest or perhaps across a whole province for a generation, what would be the downside?

I'm really struggling as a Baptist to get inside the thought patterns in this thread, and I think that some answers to this question might help me.

So far all I'm seeing is a discussion about what is right and wrong, and I'm not really getting why things are right or wrong.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trisagion:
Is it considered what I, as a Cathoic, would call "valid matter".

---

quote:

---

I've seen grape juice used in non-conformist circles - Baptists and new churches and so on - but there's no requirement to the contrary there. I just wondered what was going on - and also exploring moonlitdoor's point a bit further ...

[/QB]

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
OK, hatless, I can't pretend to get inside another person's spirituality and their own experience of God. Thus, in fact, I really can't say what they would be missing in terms of grace. They would be, of course, missing what I believe is a fuller understanding of what happens in the Eucharist, which I view as the profoundest act and Mystery of the Church, the very conjunction of heaven and earth, the making manifest of the one, true, eternal Sacrifice of Christ, the constituting act of the gathered Church and its apotheosis. The Mass is above all and beyond all the profoundest thing we do as Church (even if not the first thing, which of course is Baptism -- but that is more the conjunction of individual with corporate life and divine grace, rather than the One Great Prayer of the Whole Church here in earth in union with her Lord). So it is at least this fullness of understanding that a memorialist (or whatever) misses out on.

---

quote:

---

For me, matter, form and intent are all far more important than minister.

---

quote:

---

I recognise other criteria as of the essence of a properly constituted ecclesial community in which a properly ordered ministry exists.

---

quote:

---

I guess my own minimum bottom line is that all Christians should recognise the Real Presence under the forms of bread and wine, and that a failure to confess this Real Presence is in some sense a failure to discern the most sacred truth of the Eucharist, hence also estranging one from a crucial consensus of the Church Catholic. Other aspects of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass are important but less crucial, because more given to different weight of emphasis and nuance, and less profound.

---

I would want to say that the Real Presence that matters is the real presence of God in Christ today and in this place, and that the eucharist is an example of this, witnesses to this, focuses our response to this and draws us into relationship, together, with the God we meet in Christ.

Doing it 'wrong' risks, for me, a loss of meaning, and that's about all. We will have a less satisfactory experience if we do it casually, if we do it heedlessly, if we aren't reminded of the gospel and the places and people around us where God may speak to us and call us to be. Lots of people taking part who don't appreciate what we are about could weaken what we're doing, but it has to be lots and often. I don't see how a concern for rightness should ever trump putting a guest at ease.
 

---

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
That's terrific, redunderthebed ...

Actually, I think what you've said helps answer Mousethief's response to Gracious Rebel about more 'memorialist' groups not taking communion seriously - or as seriously as more sacramental types.

I think it's as daft to assert that memorialists aren't 'getting anything out of' communion, as it were, or not taking it seriously as it would be that people who don't take a sacramental view of marriage are somehow not enjoying or appreciating the benefits of marriage ... or that people who don't believe in marriage at all are somehow not deriving any benefit or support from their non-married relationships.

I don't think that Gracious Rebel is saying, 'I'm doing this simply because the Lord commanded it but really, deep down I think it's a waste of time and we may as well not bother ...'

I think that would be as much a travesty of the memorialist position as it would be to say - as I might have done at one time in my more full-on Hot Prot' days - that RCs and other sacramentalists are idolators because (coughs, adopts Ian Paisley Ulsterman voice) 'they bend the knee before the exalted wafer! It ...is ..an..ABOMINATION!'

Redunderthebed thought it was great receiving communion for the first time in his church. Fantastic. I thought it was great when I used to receive communion when I was in a Baptist church ... and when I was in one of the 'new churches' - or when I visited an Anglican parish or a Pentecostal church ...

Now, I'm not saying that this all adds up to what some of the RCs and High Episcopalians are saying on this thread - nor am I particularly prepared to discuss what might be valid or invalid - that's not my call.

But all I'm saying is that it is wrong to impugn the motives of people who take a different approach to oneself.

I know Mousethief isn't saying this, but an example from a Baptist context might help. I'm sure that Hatless and redunderthebed wouldn't suggest that this is the case either, but I have come across some forms of strict Baptist who would claim that all Anglicans are 'insincere' because they don't pray extemporaneously but 'out of a book.' As though extemporary prayers, in and of themselves, are somehow going to be more sincere.

By the same token, someone could look at an Orthodox Christian at a Divine Liturgy and say, 'Look at him ... it's all empty ritual ... he's simply going through the motions, crossing himself at the required points, bowing his head ... heck, he doesn't even join in with the chants ... What's the point of him even being there?'

If any of us suggested that - and I'm not, just using it by way of illustration - then Mousethief would be the first to upbraid us - and rightly so.

Yet he feels it's ok to suggest that people with a memorialist view don't take communion seriously and only do it because there's an explicit command in scripture. I've moved beyond a memorialist position to a 'higher' and more 'realised' one but I always took communion seriously and so did most people I knew ... other than those who were former RCs and reacting in the opposite direction.
 

---

Posted by Trisagion (# 5235) on :
 
hatless, in the first instance I would want to echo the first paragraph of LSvK's post in response to you. To it I would want to add that for Catholics, the Church is the continuing presence of Christ in the world and the normal way in which we come into encounter with Christ. That encounter comes about in all kinds of ways but in a concrete form, it comes about through the Sacraments, or the Mysteries as our Eastern brethren call them. These Sacraments are instituted by Christ and have both changeable and unchangeable elements. The absence of those that are unchangeable - such as the use of bread and wine at the Eucharist - mean that what is happening simply isn't the sacrament. Does that mean that God's grace can't be received or experienced in that setting? Not at all, but we believe that God in Christ Jesus wants us to encounter him in the particular forms of the sacraments because it is in that way that his grace will be more fruitful in our fallen human condition.

RUTB, you are very brave to self-disclose like that. May God reward you for your courage and protect you.

For Catholics the issue does not arise. It is our belief that Christ if fully present, body and blood, soul and divinity, under both the appearance of bread and of wine. This belief - the doctrine of concommitance - lies behind why most Catholics receive only the Sacred Host, even when the Precious Blood is offered. The sign value of receiving both is obviously greater but that is primarily a liturgical matter not a sacramental one. The only person who has to receive Holy Communion under both forms is the priest who celebrates the Mass. For recovering alcoholic priests the use of Mustum is permitted. Mustum is fermented grape juice where the fermentation is stopped before the alcohol content gets to the level found in table wines. Typically, the Mustum available for ecclesiastical use has an alcohol content of less than 1% by volume. In the same way, coeliacs may receive only the Precious Blood, although they may be able to tolerate the use of low-gluten hosts, where the gluten content is typically no more than 0.01%.

You will have seen, from the posts above, how different the understanding of what happens at Mass is between the tradition within which you currently worship and the Catholic Church. You will see, I am sure, how distinct the notion of Communion in a Catholic sense is from the notion of fellowship which you attach to the word - that is to detract nothing from that understanding. When I receive Holy Communion at Mass, I do not believe that I am remembering Jesus, I am eating and drinking his body and blood, really and truly present under the appearance of bread and wine. The remembering - which is more than a calling to mind, it is a remembering that makes mystically/sacramentally present his presence, his redeeming sacrifice etc. (the kind of remembering is called by it's Greek name 'anamnesis': it is derived, in Christian understanding from the Hebrew notion referred to above in connection with the Passover, where the line is "This is the night..." rather than "This was the night..."). It is because of this very distinct nature of our understanding of what is happening at Mass that the Catholic Church has these "barriers". When I hold in my hands the Body of Christ I am simply revolted by the prospect of it being eaten by someone who thinks it is anything else. You might suggest that I get over myself, that my attitude is precious or Pharisaical. It is neither, I assure you. It is a manifestation of my intense love for the Lord, who made thee recognition and reception of his body and blood into a very special and intimate way of sharing in his life. That is how the Catholic Church understands the discourse in John 6: this is how I understand it.
 

---

Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :
 
Trisagion, you said

quote:

---

These Sacraments are instituted by Christ and have both changeable and unchangeable elements. The absence of those that are unchangeable - such as the use of bread and wine at the Eucharist - mean that what is happening simply isn't the sacrament.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by hatless:
This gives yet another example of talk about what is right or wrong without any indication of the reasons. Are you able to go beyond assertion?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Imersge Canfield:
I did not find hatless abrasive at all

---

quote:

---

How could this thread in its writing and real presence model and be more eucharistic itself ?

---

[ 31. December 2012, 11:24: Message edited by: Trisagion ]
 

---

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
It's all to do with perspective and where one stands, of course. I've never read any post by Hatless that I've considered abrasive or aggressive. He can be quite robust at times but then I can be quite snarky at times ... I sometimes find your posts abrasive and aggressive Trisagion, to be quite frank ... not when directed at me but when directed at others.

It seems to happen more frequently where issues around the eucharist or intercommunion come up - and I suspect that this is purely and simply because these things are very precious to you and I can understand and respect that ... if that doesn't sound too patronising, I don't mean it to be.

I am in a cleft-stick of course, cursed with the ability to see both sides. On the one hand I am struck by awe - and a little jealousy if I'm honest - at your attitude towards the sacraments or Mysteries - but on the other hand I find hatless's questions to be completely understandable and unobjectionable and I find it hard to see how you can take offence at them ...

But we're all different ...
 

---

Posted by PaulTH* (# 320) on :
 
In 1974, at the age of 20, I spent eight months in a small Italian mountain village where nobody spoke English. Being young, and almost cut off from my own language, I quickly picked up both Italian and the local dialect variant. I frequently attended Mass with the family which had "adopted" me, and after a few weeks, the village priest invited me to receive communion. I told him that I hadn't been brought up Catholic, but he only seemed concerened if I had received a Christian baptism, which I had in the Church of England. So I receivec communion several times that summer. This was even worse, as I didn't, at the time, belong to any church. My Baptist father, and his church, had brought me up to believe that the Catholic Mass was akin to devil worship, but I had already vehemently rejected that background sufficiently to receive with awe and reverence for the solemnity of the moment. At that age, I knew little about transubstantiation.

If I'd known then what I know now, I would have had more respect for the Church than to receive in those circumstances, but I was young, and surely the priest was in error. He seemed quite poorly educated compared to what one might expect from a priest, and flouted other, more serious issues. He lived with a woman for 10 or more years. She was officially his housekeeper, but it was well known in the village that they shared a bed. So perhaps, even he, didn't realise that we were doing wrong. Mindful of St Paul's warning about receiving communion unworthily, I have long since sought God's forgiveness for this rashness of youth(one incident among many!, but I think I began to appreciate sacramental worship for the first time in my live, and it sowed the first seeds of my eventual reception into the Catholic Church.
 

---

Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :
 
Just a couple of points. To hatless, RE: Form in the celebration of the Eucharist, the officially adopted Anglican position, expressed in the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral on Christian unity is that Our Lord's words of institution must invariably be used. That is the essential and unvarying form. We may put a great deal more into the eucharistic prayer, but the essential form of the thing is the use of Our Lord's recorded words. Although there was at least one early eucharistic prayer that did not use the dominical words, the subsequent determination of the Church throughout the ages is that these words are requisite.

Regarding the issue of the Methodist baptism that was related, this unfortunately would not be recognised as a valid baptism by Anglicans or any of the pre-Reformation Churches, nor possibly by any other Reformation paedo-baptisers. The ancient standard is that the water must run. Anglicans have never recognised Methodist sprinkling or merely signing a cross with water. In America I believe Methodists have generally taken to pouring water (effusion) and so the issue of validity does not arise (any United Methodists in America are welcome to correct me on this). I am not sure why historically Methodists of all people have been so "squeamish"/abstemious about the use of water in infant baptism. The requisite matter in baptism is, of course, water, whilst the requisite form is that the recipient of the sacrament be immersed or have water poured upon them and that the baptism be done "in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit". For Anglicans, the solution to a "baptism" not having met these criteria would generally be to administer baptism sub conditione ("If thou art not already baptised, I baptise thee...").
 

---

Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trisagion:

quote:

---

Originally posted by hatless:
This gives yet another example of talk about what is right or wrong without any indication of the reasons. Are you able to go beyond assertion?

---

Are you being deliberately abrasive?

---

quote:

---

The simple answer to your unfelicitously expressed question is: because that is what Christ said and did and how his Church has understood it.

---

quote:

---

The absence of those that are unchangeable - such as the use of bread and wine at the Eucharist - mean that what is happening simply isn't the sacrament.

---

quote:

---

What would need to be lacking in the matter for it to be invalid? Blackcurrant juice. Rice crackers?

---

quote:

---

You claimed up thread to be finding it difficult to enter into the mind of those who think like this. I am not sure that you will ever do this if you approach every question in such an aggressively dismissive way. Questioning is one thing: doing so in a manner that presumes that your interlocutor is as witless and you are hatless is quite another.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by RuthW:
What I know about Catholic theology has mostly come from reading on my own and discussion here, but it was going to Catholic services in Spain that made me feel how very different Catholicism is from the communion of which I am a part. When I walked part of the Camino de Santiago, I went to church every chance I got, and it was a truly bizarre experience of familiarity and alienation. Partly it was the language, of course, and partly it was the aesthetics (though seeing the Spanish originals helped me understand the aesthetics of the Spanish missions here in California a lot better), but a lot of it was just realizing that this very ancient thing is something I am not entirely connected to.

---

Well, after Chesterbelloc doing so above, it is now my turn to express my considerable appreciation of RuthW's most recent post. Perhaps she is starting early with her New Year's resolution of making RCs happy?

But this is exactly what I was trying to get at in my comment to LSV above. If one want to do justice to describing the Eucharist, one has to be historian, anthropologist, psychologist and poet as much as theologian. Something deep and ancient is happening there, something that is not really safe either - or rather, that's what should be happening there. If you for example believe that it is appropriate, nay, sweet and beautiful to have children standing around the altar during the Holy Sacrifice, then you are not really getting "it". So clean theology about the Eucharist is important, but there are other aspects that are at least as important. And when these are lacking, then we approach the Lion of Judah with "here, kitty, kitty, kitty, ..." on our lips.

(I'm not suggesting that RuthW agrees with me, but kudos to her for picking up the "vibes" in Spain.)

quote:

---

Originally posted by redunderthebed:
I do not think it is fair to people like me to not be able to recieve communion i want to remember him with my community of faith.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by hatless:
I can't understand why it matters what sort of bread is used.

---

A RC mass does not see itself as "this church gathers". It sees itself as "this part of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church gathers". It is a global perspective. It is also an eternal perspective, or perhaps better a "semi-eternal" perspective (from Christ to the end of time). All billions of Catholics, the dead, the living, the ones to be born, from the catacombs in ancient Rome to a spaceship circling alpha Centauri (if we ever get there) kneel together under one sign that realizes itself. Imagine a tree that unfolds and grows through spacetime, with every leaf being a priest that offers Holy Sacrifice, and at its root, the Cross. Now, you may say that you can do all this purely mentally, that you can project this continuity by force of will on a Mars bar as much as on a piece of bread. But the RCC doesn't believe this, certainly not as a universal rule (and she must be universal). The RCC view of people has always been about the body as much as about the mind, about the senses as much as about concepts, about things as much as about thoughts. RC practice is psychosomatic, or actually, somatopsychic. It is philosophically realist, not idealist. First you experience the bread and wine, then you get to conceptualize about it. The continuity across time and space is not from a common analysis, but a common doing. Lex orendi, lex credendi. (As we pray so we believe.) Not vice versa. Orthodoxy derives from orthopraxis.

And if all this is to fancy for you, then you can look at it as simply shrewd habit-inducing psychology. You do not want a thought "this represents the Lord" to arise, you want the thought "my Lord and my God" and a sinking to the knees. To get that, you must precisely break through the analytical level, you must avoid triggering the discursive mind. And so you repeat the same thing, until conceptual analysis finds nothing to hold onto anymore and throws the towel in boredom. And you make sure that this is a certain and secure and regulated matter, indeed a specific ritual, because if there is ever any wobble in that, then the mind immediately fires up again and starts analyzing the difference: last week it was a Mars bar, now it is a donut - does it matter? says who? how do we know that we unite in this? is this faith? or just nuts? does God care? do I care? do we get the spirit right? is it the spirit of past Christians? future ones? ... and so on. It is crucial for religion that this be shut up.

Not that these are not perfectly valid questions, which one can of course consider, and for example discuss on an internet forum. But if you cannot shut up the endless chatter of your mind, then you cannot hear the still voice in your heart. If your mind blares on about unity, you cannot unite. Your mind must be in your knees as you sink on them, in your eyes as you raise them to the Lord lifted before you. Time must stop. For you. For those around you. For those everywhere doing this. For those that did this before and will do this in future. The machinery in your head must grind to a halt, at least briefly. One unit of eternity, one eternal unity. Then you can let it snap back into action and write hymns or doctrines about all that, as you fancy. That's real religion, and Mars bars don't cut it (unless you eat them evermore in remembrance). Wrong tool for the job. At least so if your job is to lead all of mankind to be one in one God.
 

---

Posted by Bostonman (# 17108) on :
 
Surely, the basic thrust of hatless's question was: how do we know which parts are divinely instituted and which parts are subject to change? Maybe the answer is "because the Church teaches which is which," but that passes the buck: how do the Pope et al. decide which is which? I'm genuinely curious, not being passive-aggressive or something.

Anyone have an answer?
 

---

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
I think RuthW makes us all happy, IngoB.



Nice post, by the way. 'The intersection of the timeless moment' and all that.

I think one of the issues with 'semper reformanda' types is that their/(our?) minds can't slow down to the same extent as those who have a 'this is how it's always been and always will be' types - there are dangers with both, of course.

We need to keep talking. But there is also the 'let all mortal flesh keep silent' thing too.
 

---

Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :
 
Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras said

quote:

---

Form in the celebration of the Eucharist, the officially adopted Anglican position, expressed in the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral on Christian unity is that Our Lord's words of institution must invariably be used. That is the essential and unvarying form. We may put a great deal more into the eucharistic prayer, but the essential form of the thing is the use of Our Lord's recorded words.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by hatless:
Hey! An IngoB post that made me happy! Thank you.

I like what you say about suspending (or exhausting) the analytical mind and its obsessive decoding of symbols.

In fact I like it so much that I'll skip the comments I wanted to make about the cardboard coins that pass for bread in some churches, and I'll join you on your knees. If eucharist is about incarnation, then we should do it, not talk about it.

---

quote:

---

And when these are lacking, then we approach the Lion of Judah with "here, kitty, kitty, kitty, ..." on our lips.

---

IngoB
Quotes File! (Actually, reminiscent of Aidan Kavanagh too)
 

---

Posted by Bax (# 16572) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by PaulTH*:
In 1974, at the age of 20, I spent eight months in a small Italian mountain village where nobody spoke English. Being young, and almost cut off from my own language, I quickly picked up both Italian and the local dialect variant. I frequently attended Mass with the family which had "adopted" me, and after a few weeks, the village priest invited me to receive communion. I told him that I hadn't been brought up Catholic, but he only seemed concerened if I had received a Christian baptism, which I had in the Church of England. So I receivec communion several times that summer. This was even worse, as I didn't, at the time, belong to any church. My Baptist father, and his church, had brought me up to believe that the Catholic Mass was akin to devil worship, but I had already vehemently rejected that background sufficiently to receive with awe and reverence for the solemnity of the moment. At that age, I knew little about transubstantiation.

If I'd known then what I know now, I would have had more respect for the Church than to receive in those circumstances, but I was young, and surely the priest was in error. He seemed quite poorly educated compared to what one might expect from a priest, and flouted other, more serious issues. He lived with a woman for 10 or more years. She was officially his housekeeper, but it was well known in the village that they shared a bed. So perhaps, even he, didn't realise that we were doing wrong. Mindful of St Paul's warning about receiving communion unworthily, I have long since sought God's forgiveness for this rashness of youth(one incident among many!, but I think I began to appreciate sacramental worship for the first time in my live, and it sowed the first seeds of my eventual reception into the Catholic Church.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by IngoB:
... to be one in one God.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trisagion:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Imersge Canfield:
I did not find hatless abrasive at all

---

It wasn't directed at you, though, was it? One of the lessons that I have been repeatedly taught on this board is that it is the target of remarks who gets to decide whether the remarks are offensive. It's why I wouldn't use scare quotes or terms like 'ecclesial communities' or 'priestess'. It is found offensive by those on the receiving end, whilst it may be accurate in conveying what I mean. I found - and, btw, have often previously found - hatless's remark both abrasive and dismissive. That's why I mentioned it.

quote:

---

How could this thread in its writing and real presence model and be more eucharistic itself ?

---

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by hatless:
I was being deliberately ambiguous in tone, so that people reading it could find it abrasive or not as they chose.

---

quote:

---

In that case perhaps I'm not after a simple answer, because this seems to me to amount to 'because it just is,' or perhaps 'because we say it is.'

---

quote:

---

I'm a Baptist. We are constantly reinventing the church, that's our way. We discuss and argue about why we should or shouldn't do this or that. We trade reasons, we engage in theology. (Though we also have our fair share of 'we've always done it this way' folk, of course.)

---

quote:

---

I'm interested in the theology behind 'it has to be wheat'

---

quote:

---

...and 'it mustn't be offered to non-Catholics.'

---

quote:

---

I'm not trying to disagree or pick your position to pieces, I am interested partly because I want to understand my own experience of the eucharist more deeply

---

quote:

---

and partly because I want to repair the damage to my sense of unity with sisters and brothers in Christ when I read things like

quote:

---

The absence of those that are unchangeable - such as the use of bread and wine at the Eucharist - mean that what is happening simply isn't the sacrament.

---

I want to protest at that. Yes, it is the sacrament, in my opinion and according to my faith. Who are you to tell me what I can and cannot consider a sacrament?

---

quote:

---

You accuse me of being dismissive, but write

quote:

---

What would need to be lacking in the matter for it to be invalid? Blackcurrant juice. Rice crackers?

---

That's dismissive.

---

quote:

---

I really don't think it's me that is being aggressive, dismissive or presuming others to be witless.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trisagion:
Where the Holy Spirit moves is not the question. So it's illicit is it? What would need to be lacking in the matter for it to be invalid? Blackcurrant juice. Rice crackers?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by moonlitdoor:

quote:

---

originally posted by leo

I would not attend such a eucharist

---

Can I ask leo and others what they would do if they already were attending, ie the arrangements were a surprise to them ?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Galloping Granny:
What is valid in desperate situations? Would it constitute a eucharist, or be a deeply felt faith experience to unite and give courage and hope to the participants?

GG

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Galloping Granny:
Bread is an unknown or unfamiliar staple of diet in some cultures, without even an equivalent word for bible translators to use. So I have heard of local food and beverage items being used in Communion. Has this been done and accepted by the Catholic church?

---

quote:

---

Some may have read some years ago of a priest (or maybe a lay person – which would make a difference) in a South American prison during a period of political oppression, leading a ‘communion of empty hands’, when no bread was available and only water to drink, when the words of the rite were spoken, and the passing and eating of the bread was mimed. What is valid in desperate situations? Would it constitute a eucharist, or be a deeply felt faith experience to unite and give courage and hope to the participants?

GG

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trisagion:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Galloping Granny:
Bread is an unknown or unfamiliar staple of diet in some cultures, without even an equivalent word for bible translators to use. So I have heard of local food and beverage items being used in Communion. Has this been done and accepted by the Catholic church?

---

I'm sure it's been done. It is not accepted by the Catholic Church. It isn't about wheat being a staple food but it being the ritual staple used by Christ.

quote:

---

Some may have read some years ago of a priest (or maybe a lay person – which would make a difference) in a South American prison during a period of political oppression, leading a ‘communion of empty hands’, when no bread was available and only water to drink, when the words of the rite were spoken, and the passing and eating of the bread was mimed. What is valid in desperate situations? Would it constitute a eucharist, or be a deeply felt faith experience to unite and give courage and hope to the participants?

GG

---

I have no doubt that it would have been a profoundly eucharistic experience but in Catholic terms, it would not be the Sacrament of the Eucharist.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trisagion:
I have no doubt that it would have been a profoundly eucharistic experience but in Catholic terms, it would not be the Sacrament of the Eucharist.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Metapelagius:
Christ took the ready staples of his day in the institution of the Eucharist?

---

quote:

---

Why? No, properly speaking, we shouldn't speculate, but I would hazard a guess that it was their very everydayness.

---

quote:

---

So what should folk in parts of the world where wheat bread and grape wine are not the usual fare do? Get hold of things that are to them exotic because that is what is the norm in Europe and the near east, and because nothing else will fit those norms?

---

quote:

---

Fine, if those are the rules by which you feel you must abide, but it plays havoc with what it looks reasonable to suppose Christ intended.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Angloid:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trisagion:
I have no doubt that it would have been a profoundly eucharistic experience but in Catholic terms, it would not be the Sacrament of the Eucharist.

---

But of course (as I'm sure you will agree) the nearest thing to that available in the circumstances. I believe there was an Anglican bishop imprisoned during WW2 who did something similar.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mdijon:
... I think the idea of emphasising the familiarity of the elements of communion is a worthy one. But let's not kid ourselves that we are getting back to what was originally intended if we explore that avenue.

---

At Baptist summer camp one year a small group leader decided we'd have communion ... using peanuts and Squirt as the elements, as that's what he had on hand at the moment. It was too freakin' weird to be anything remotely resembling communion.

In regards to assorted comments upthread about my posts having pleased a couple of Catholics and Gamaliel as well: via media, at your service!
 

---

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by mdijon:
But let's not kid ourselves that we are getting back to what was originally intended if we explore that avenue.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
[QUOTE]The Orthodox and Catholics do not "get back to" anything. That's for you Protestants. We stick with what was handed down to us, as commanded by St. Paul.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mdijon:
I imagine that for the early church in Northern Europe wine wouldn't have been all that familiar. I can't imagine Lindisfarne being all that replete with regular wine in the 6th Century, for instance. Yet there seems little evidence that Aidan adopted beer as a communion element as he moved among the pagans.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
The Orthodox and Catholics do not "get back to" anything. That's for you Protestants. We stick with what was handed down to us, as commanded by St. Paul.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mdijon:
But let's not kid ourselves that we are getting back to what was originally intended if we explore that avenue.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by RuthW:
In regards to assorted comments upthread about my posts having pleased a couple of Catholics and Gamaliel as well: via media, at your service!

---

Well done indeed. Via media usually means pleasing no-one. Given your recent run you could perhaps have a go at chairing general synod later this year.
 

---

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
I'd vote for RuthW as a bishop ...



On the wine thing, archaeologists have found shards of amphorae from the Eastern Mediterranean on several 'Dark Age' sites in the UK from the post-Roman period. It seems that wealthy individuals were continuing to import wine and possibly olive oil even though the monetary economy had collapsed.

I've been a Baptist in the past and also a 'restorationist' new-church type person and I think we'd have found Squirt (what is that?) or soft sugary drinks like Coke or something and peanut butter and crackers or whatever it was, pretty wierd. We didn't find grape juice and 'normal' bread wierd, of course.
 

---

Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :
 
Is bread made from a modern wheat variety the same as they ate in ancient Palestine? Are two loaves the same if they are made from the same grain, or are they more similar if they are both home made, whatever the grain? How similar is modern wine at 13% alcohol and with sulphites in it, to the stuff Jesus might have used? Is it more like it than ale is?

You can't do things the same. Everything changes, and the significance of everything changes. Some churches use loaves of wheat bread, some use discs of unleavened bread, some have buns with seeds on top. Some churches use red wine, some white, some unfermented wine so full of sulphites it makes the congregation cough.
 

---

Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :
 
The seeds on those buns do not turn into Jesus.
 

---

Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
The seeds on those buns do not turn into Jesus.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
The seeds on those buns do not turn into Jesus.

---

Thanks for that marvellous comment!
 

---

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 


I'm confused, Triple Tiara. I found the comment amusing, but not 'marvellous'.

It's a great quip but it still begs some questions.

Is it me who is being overly literal here?



 

---

Posted by Triple Tiara (# 9556) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I'm quite happy to subscribe to some kind of mysterious 'real presence' position but I'm not sure I want to get into speculations as to which parts of a wafer, a piece of bread or whatever else 'turns into' or doesn't 'turn into' Jesus.

....

I mean, how far do you take it?

---

You take me back to my university days when a baptist friend challenged me similarly. I trotted out the whole "Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity" stuff and he said: "So, are you saying that every bag of flour has the potential to turn into God?" That rather flummoxed me, but reductio ad absurdum, I said "Yes". He grinned and delivered his best one-liner ever: "And at Easter do you use self-raising flour?".

Still makes me laugh 30 years on!
 

---

Posted by Triple Tiara (# 9556) on :
 
Sorry Gamaliel - I was amused by the comment and am sure LsK was merely being flippant. I was engaging with the flippancy rather than any theological assertion which (might) have been there.
 

---

Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :
 
Fr TT, I'm glad you enjoyed my half-serious witticism. I guess if pressed I'd say that sesame or poppy seeds on the outer crust of the bun are extraneous matter that aren't an integral part of the bread and hence cannot undergo trasubstantiation or any other sacramental transformation. It's supposed to be pure wheaten bread according to the tradition, but I guess if some innovator decides to put a teaspoon of honey into the bread mix I will just have to accept that this makes an especially Sweet Jesus.
 

---

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Sorry TT, I was amused by it too ... and I'm very amused by your Baptist friend's 'self-raising flour' story. You must excuse me ... I'm a former memorialist who is on his way further up the candle, as it were ... but when I read posts like those posted by our Literal Lit' ( ) with the Martin Luther King avatar, I start to slide back down again ...

Sorry, Litto ... I can't spell your name.


 

---

Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :
 
Gamaliel, it strikes me that the theory of presence you are talking about is along the lines of receptionism and spiritual presence. This seems to have been Cranmer's ultimate position, though it's difficult to know what such an impressionable mind as Cranmer's was thinking at any particular point in time. It likewise seems closer to the Calvinist position, as contrasted with the Lutheran or orthodox Catholic positions. I'm not drawing any implications from that, just categorising what I think it is you are getting at.
 

---

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Thanks Lietuvos ... I'm not entirely sure what I'm getting at, to be honest ... I've been fairly Calvinistic in the past (but by no means a TULIP) so I'm not surprised that there are elements of receptionism and so forth in how I'm struggling to articulate where I seem to be.

I am drawn towards a more sacramental approach but I do find full-on transubstantiation very hard to deal with ... hence my reticence. It wouldn't be at all uncommon with people from my particular background.

You'll appreciate why I'm struggling with the way you're articulating this. I'm not saying you're right or wrong but I feel myself getting very hot under the collar when people refer to a piece of bread as 'Jesus' or put it into a monstrance for Exposition and Benediction and so on. I've seen the Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament on two occasions and whilst I can understand the idea of it it somehow seems a bit 'beyond' to me ... I felt very uncomfortable on both occasions. That said, I don't find so much discomfort in Orthodox settings or when I visit a church and see the light on beside the aumbry where the sacrament is reserved ... or to show that Jesus is 'home' as it were ...

I'm struggling to articulate this. Perhaps I'm too Protestant still.
 

---

Posted by Bostonman (# 17108) on :
 
Gamaliel, your "mysteriously makes Christ present to us" sounds more like Calvinist "spiritual presence," while your fully-bread/fully-Body idea sounds like Lutheran "sacramental union." In case you wanted to look either up for more detail!
 

---

Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :
 
As I've stated earlier I normally prefer not to use the term "trasubstantiation" because its conceptual terms are archaic and obscure. Certainly the molecular structure of the bread and wine do not change; electron microscopy will not reveal any change, nor will any other physical test to which the accidents can be subjected. But we believe the reality of the consecrated elements has so fundamentally changed that their identity as bread and wine has become only apparent and superficial. What the Word makes them in ultimate meaning and reality is the true Body and Blood of the Risen and Glorified Jesus Christ, true God and true man. I actually don't see that Lutheran sacramental union particularly violates the spirit of this understanding: the physical attributes of bread and wine are still there but aren't the important thing, the important part of the identity of the consecrated elements, with, in and under which The Body and Blood of Christ are received (in the Lutheran formulation). This may involve s slightly different metaphysical take on the Sacrament from Catholic trasubstantiation, but the functional implications are ISTM the same: Christ is truly present and received under the forms of bread and wine. So to me there is quite a bit of intellectual wiggle room that still keeps the essential faith in the Real Presence intact. Personally I find Calvinist-Cranmerian spiritual presence more problematic, especially in terms of the historical praxis of the majority of Christians through the centuries.
 

---

Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :
 
As I've stated earlier I normally prefer not to use the term "trasubstantiation" because its conceptual terms are archaic and obscure. Certainly the molecular structure of the bread and wine do not change; electron microscopy will not reveal any change, nor will any other physical test to which the accidents can be subjected. But we believe the reality of the consecrated elements has so fundamentally changed that their identity as bread and wine has become only apparent and superficial. What the Word makes them in ultimate meaning and reality is the true Body and Blood of the Risen and Glorified Jesus Christ, true God and true man. I actually don't see that Lutheran sacramental union particularly violates the spirit of this understanding: the physical attributes of bread and wine are still there but aren't the important thing, the important part of the identity of the consecrated elements, with, in and under which The Body and Blood of Christ are received (in the Lutheran formulation). This may involve s slightly different metaphysical take on the Sacrament from Catholic trasubstantiation, but the functional implications are ISTM the same: Christ is truly present and received under the forms of bread and wine. So to me there is quite a bit of intellectual wiggle room that still keeps the essential faith in the Real Presence intact. Personally I find Calvinist-Cranmerian spiritual presence more problematic, especially in terms of the historical praxis of the majority of Christians through the centuries.
 

---

Posted by Trisagion (# 5235) on :
 
Gamaliel, if what you are suggesting is genuinely Chalcedonian, are you suggesting the hypostatic union of the bread (or wine) and the person of Christ? Looks a bit like a new incarnation (or two) to me. So perhaps we have a divine person who is true God, true Man, true Bread and true Wine. I just don't buy it.
 

---

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
I'm not asking you to buy it, Trisagion. I can quite understand your objection. I'm just struggling to articulate something and failing miserably.

I was using the Chalcedonian thing as an analogy, not as a description of an ontological reality. Otherwise I might have been suggesting that the connection between Christ as the Living Word and the Bible as 'God's word written' means that the Bible is God ...

Some Protestants are accused, perhaps justly, of Bibliolatry. Could some sacramentalists be accused of sacramentalotry? ... there is a word I think for 'pan-olatry' or bread-olatry - but I can't remember what it is. And don't worry, I'm accusing you of that.

I like what Liet' and yourself are saying but it seems a bit over-egged ... to use an expression I've been told off for using on the various charismatic threads I tend to sound off on ...

So, no, I'm not asking you to 'buy' anything, I'm just trying to articulate what is probably inarticulable as it were ...

I have no idea whether I'm a 'spiritual presence' buff or what I am ... I've just floated further up the candle from memorialism and am bobbing about in the ether somewhere. Sooner or later I'm going to have to find somewhere to land.
 

---

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Agh!

Note to self: Preview your posts ...

Sorry, what I meant to type was 'I'm not accusing you of that.



Whoops ...

While we're at it ... on the literal thing. What would Liet' and your good self make of the suggestion that the seeds and whatever on the surface of the buns, baps, rolls or whatever else you want to call them in hatless's example didn't actually become the body of Christ but his sandals or his robe or some other accoutrements?

Of course, that'd be silly. But it's that level of detail and definition that I'm struggling with here. Trisagion might consider it to be an incipient and inherent anti-RC thing on my part - given my evangelical and Protestant memorialist background - and perhaps he'd be right (I don't know) but the transubstantiation thing seems, to me, to head in this kind of direction.

I can see what Liet' is saying and why he'd eschew the archaic technicalities of transubstantiation, but unless I'm missing something I can't see how it's a million miles from whatever the Cramnerian position was/is ...

I'm struggling here.
 

---

Posted by Trisagion (# 5235) on :
 
I don't think you're being anti anything. I did not understand what you were getting at - I am now much clearer.

You might want to call it sacramentalist fundamentalism, or whatever, but I do genuinely believe that the whole Christ, body, blood, soul and divinity, is really, truly and substantially present in the Eucharist under the appearance of bread and wine. Where once was bread and wine is now the Divine Son, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. When I encounter it, I want to worship and adore it.

How do I avoid this declining into a reductio ad absurdum? By thinking with, submitting myself to the judgement of the Church, which possesses the divine guarantee of infallible authority of the keys. Rich food, indeed, and maybe too strong for you but it is the faith of the Catholic Church.
 

---

Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on :
 

quote:

---

Could some sacramentalists be accused of sacramentalotry? ... there is a word I think for 'pan-olatry' or bread-olatry - but I can't remember what it is.

---

It's artolatry, Gamaliel.
 

---

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Ok ... forgive me, Trisagion, I understand the theology and the motivation ... that's not the issue.

I dunno, it just makes me feel squeamish when I hear statements like this:

'When I encounter it, I want to worship and adore it.'

Now, it could be a question of semantics or it could be I'm still a curmugeonly and unreconstructed Protestant, but I wouldn't blanch if you'd said, 'I want to worship and adore Him' but it's the use of 'it'.

I know that's horribly reductionist but it's a kind of knee-jerk reaction. It's probably hot-wired into my spiritual DNA and difficult to reconnect the circuits.

I've attended RC Masses and been very moved, I've attended the Stations of the Cross, I've attended probably about a dozen Orthodox services - both Vespers and Liturgies. Something 'clicks' and 'connects' with me everytime in both settings.

But I dunno ... perhaps it is too 'strong' or high -octane for me ...
 

---

Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :
 
Just watch out Gamaliel, maybe it's less too high-octane or you and more too not-what you're used to. In other words, beware or what happened to me might happen to you: It might stop being weird and start being what you crave
I started out a church so low that Bullfrog described it as "so far down the candle it's under the table" after a visit and now I attend a church that is the oratory of an Order and if it were TEC would definitely be called anglo-catholic. The change was somewhat gradual, but I jumped from low candle to that church, because it was so very not my thing, but it clicked so much that I kept coming curiously.
 

---

Posted by Trisagion (# 5235) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Ok ... forgive me, Trisagion, I understand the theology and the motivation ... that's not the issue.

I dunno, it just makes me feel squeamish when I hear statements like this:

'When I encounter it, I want to worship and adore it.'

Now, it could be a question of semantics or it could be I'm still a curmugeonly and unreconstructed Protestant, but I wouldn't blanch if you'd said, 'I want to worship and adore Him' but it's the use of 'it'.

---

quote:

---

I know that's horribly reductionist but it's a kind of knee-jerk reaction. It's probably hot-wired into my spiritual DNA and difficult to reconnect the circuits.

---

quote:

---

But I dunno ... perhaps it is too 'strong' or high -octane for me ...

---

I bet.
 

---

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
I s'pose it's a case of holding two things in one's mind at one and the same time - which is where my Chalcedonian analogy came in ... albeit clumsily.

The 'it' of the consecrated wafer and the 'him' of Christ are both 'it' and 'him' at one and the same time?

Oh - yes, and I know I do have to watch it. It's quite heady the further up the candle you go ...

A chap could get giddy if he wasn't careful ...


 

---

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
It's quite heady the further up the candle you go ...

A chap could get giddy if he wasn't careful

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trisagion:
Coming from my own religious background, it took me a very long time after I became intellectually convinced of he truth of the Catholic Church's Eucharistic faith before I became affectively and emotionally comfortable with it. It really was a case of "Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief.

---

Interesting. It's the other way round for me. Maybe that's why I'm an Anglican!
 

---

Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Angloid:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trisagion:
Coming from my own religious background, it took me a very long time after I became intellectually convinced of he truth of the Catholic Church's Eucharistic faith before I became affectively and emotionally comfortable with it. It really was a case of "Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief.

---

Interesting. It's the other way round for me. Maybe that's why I'm an Anglican!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
Regarding the nature of what we receive in the Holy Communion, we receive the Risen, Ascended and Glorified Christ. That isn't the same thing as cannibalising the body of a first century CE itinerant Jewish rabbi.

---

quote:

---

(this is very hard to express succinctly without skirting close to some errors regarding both the Trinity and the Incarnation)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by redunderthebed:

1) How you can get blessing from the father of the church i thought god was the only one that can bless you.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
...I can see what Liet' is saying and why he'd eschew the archaic technicalities of transubstantiation, but unless I'm missing something I can't see how it's a million miles from whatever the Cramnerian position was/is ...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
@Holy Smoke - yes I think that is the default Anglican position but it's still a bit more 'realised' than the memorialist one ... it's rather like a 'receptionist' one as I understand it.

---

quote:

---

I'm not sure it should debar you from receiving at an Anglo-Catholic church, though, Holy Smoke ...

---

quote:

---

Intriguingly, whilst I've attended RC and Orthodox services I've never attended a full-on, nose-bleed high Anglo-Catholic one. The liberal-catholic Anglican parish here uses incense and so on but it's very laid-back ... catholic-lite.

I must go to a full-on Anglo-Catholic service one of these days.

---

Well I'm not sure if I have - not a really, really high service, where I really would feel uncomfortable... Quite honestly, they feel just as laid-back and Anglican as any other service; they just have a few extra Catholic bits, and generally speaking, excellent music and (sometimes) traditional language. Nothing really objectionable.


 

---

Posted by moonlitdoor (# 11707) on :
 
What keeps me from a Catholic understanding of the eucharist is not that Christ's body and blood are there, but that bread and wine are no longer there. That doesn't make much sense to me whether I start from intellectual understanding or experience. Christ's risen body is not part of our normal material world I suppose so it's not surprising that one does not detect it the way we sense material things. But the absence of bread and wine should be detectable all right, and if one doesn't believe in the idea of essences and accidents, I don't get how something can have every conceivable appearance of being something and yet not be it.

I was interested in what Gwai said about seeking an explanation for experience, but am I the only one who still does experience the bread and wine as well as Christ ? I mean like noticing whether I like the taste of it. Do you Gwai or others look for the explanation to cover that part of the experience as well ?
 

---

Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :
 
I can answer for myself, but I suspect my understanding is not properly Catholic either, so I'm not sure its what you are asking about. Regardless, I'd say that the bread and wine are present, but not relevantly so. They were the relevant bits up until the blessing, and after that are not.
 

---

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gwai:
I can answer for myself, but I suspect my understanding is not properly Catholic either, so I'm not sure its what you are asking about. Regardless, I'd say that the bread and wine are present, but not relevantly so. They were the relevant bits up until the blessing, and after that are not.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trisagion:
Well, bearing in mind this is a bit Thomist and so western and so a bit suspect for MT, since it the physical properties (accidents) of bread (or some of hem) to which the coeliac's body reacts and since they remain unchanged, then it would remain problematic.

---

While I don't accept the substance/accidence distinction, it does have an admirable internal consistency, which shows quite clearly on this particular point.
 

---

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Which leads us back to the more 'via media' position, surely?




 

---

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
@OP ... and all I got was this load of old Thomism. Talking of cats:

[deleted potential copyright infringement]

[ 04. January 2013, 02:39: Message edited by: RooK ]
 

---

Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by the giant cheeseburger:
Well done for being courageous enough to work out your own faith rather than just swallowing one institution's version of things.

As for answering some of your questions (but from a non-denom point of view)...

[list=1]
[*]True, they should be more transparent about the fact they are merely acting as a messenger communicating to you about God's blessing which is true regardless of whether they communicated it or not. It's exactly the same as the reason that evangelism is important - it's the truth so it needs to be told otherwise people won't hear it.

---

quote:

---

We affirm that Christ in the eucharist makes himself present sacramentally and truly when under the species of bread and wine these earthy realities are changed into the reality of his body and blood. In English the terms substance, substantial, and substantially have such physical and material overtones that we, adhering to The Final Report, have substituted the word truly for the word substantially in the clarification request by the Vatican Response. However, we affirm the reality of the change by consecration as being independent of the subjective disposition of the worshipers.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
While I don't accept the substance/accidence distinction, it does have an admirable internal consistency, which shows quite clearly on this particular point.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Craigmaddie:

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
While I don't accept the substance/accidence distinction, it does have an admirable internal consistency, which shows quite clearly on this particular point.

---

I think that without the substance-accident distinction it is very difficult to maintain the continued existence of the same thing from moment to moment in light of the constant changes at the molecular level.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Bostonman:
Cara,

There seems to be (have been?) some agreement, at least among American bishops (RC & Episcopalian), that the positions are not substantively that different. See the "Five Affirmations on the Eucharist." I know nothing about this document or its history, and would be interested in more info.

---

quote:

---

...records its conclusions that the eucharist as sacrifice is not an issue that divides our two Churches.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
You've completely lost me, I fear. Are you referring to the changes that occur during transubstantiation? Modern science manages to get along just fine without the substance/accident distinction.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trisagion:

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
You've completely lost me, I fear. Are you referring to the changes that occur during transubstantiation? Modern science manages to get along just fine without the substance/accident distinction.

---

Modern science gets along entirely without any metaphysics at all but we might not want to do so.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trisagion:

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
You've completely lost me, I fear. Are you referring to the changes that occur during transubstantiation? Modern science manages to get along just fine without the substance/accident distinction.

---

Modern science gets along entirely without any metaphysics at all but we might not want to do so.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Craigmaddie:
The fact of constant Heraclitean change in all material objects, taken by itself, can only lead to a rejection of identity insofar as there is no-thing that survives each subsequent change. If we are to assert any kind of perduring identity then there would have to be a part of a thing that is affected and a part that is unaffected by these changes*. Thus, the substance-accident distinction does not seem unreasonable.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
The substance/accidence distinction is not a metaphysical distinction.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
The substance/accidence distinction is not a metaphysical distinction.

---

Actually, that is precisely what it is. It is exactly an ontological distinction between the physical matter (and some other attributes) of objects and their perduring (broadly non-physical) identity as existing entities.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sergius-Melli:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Bostonman:
Cara,

There seems to be (have been?) some agreement, at least among American bishops (RC & Episcopalian), that the positions are not substantively that different. See the "Five Affirmations on the Eucharist." I know nothing about this document or its history, and would be interested in more info.

---

A very interesting sentence at the end of all that which is worth holding in mind and considering in-line with other issues:

quote:

---

...records its conclusions that the eucharist as sacrifice is not an issue that divides our two Churches.

---

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
The substance/accidence distinction is not a metaphysical distinction.

---

Actually, that is precisely what it is. It is exactly an ontological distinction between the physical matter (and some other attributes) of objects and their perduring (broadly non-physical) identity as existing entities.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
The substance/accidence distinction is not a metaphysical distinction.

---

Actually, that is precisely what it is. It is exactly an ontological distinction between the physical matter (and some other attributes) of objects and their perduring (broadly non-physical) identity as existing entities.

---

No, it is not. It is a distinction between what physical matter is at heart, and how it looks/feels/tastes/etc. Ever read any Aristotle?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trisagion:

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
The substance/accidence distinction is not a metaphysical distinction.

---

Actually, that is precisely what it is. It is exactly an ontological distinction between the physical matter (and some other attributes) of objects and their perduring (broadly non-physical) identity as existing entities.

---

No, it is not. It is a distinction between what physical matter is at heart, and how it looks/feels/tastes/etc. Ever read any Aristotle?

---

Ever read any St Thomas?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
The substance/accidence distinction is not a metaphysical distinction.

---

Actually, that is precisely what it is. It is exactly an ontological distinction between the physical matter (and some other attributes) of objects and their perduring (broadly non-physical) identity as existing entities.

---

No, it is not. It is a distinction between what physical matter is at heart, and how it looks/feels/tastes/etc. Ever read any Aristotle?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
It's a matter of ontology - including what physical matter is "at heart", the distiction between appearance and reality, etc. - and therefore it's by definition a metaphysical question. It's textbook metaphysical.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
I'm not Chesterbelloc or Craigmaddie, but while we await their response, Enoch, you may find this article (which covers perdurantism in context) to be helpful.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
It's a matter of ontology - including what physical matter is "at heart", the distiction between appearance and reality, etc. - and therefore it's by definition a metaphysical question. It's textbook metaphysical.

---

You've just said all of physics is metaphysical.

---

quote:

---

Prior to the modern history of science, scientific questions were addressed as a part of metaphysics known as natural philosophy. Originally, the term "science" (Latin scientia) simply meant "knowledge". The scientific method, however, transformed natural philosophy into an empirical activity deriving from experiment unlike the rest of philosophy. By the end of the 18th century, it had begun to be called "science" to distinguish it from philosophy. Thereafter, metaphysics denoted philosophical enquiry of a non-empirical character into the nature of existence.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Enoch:
Could Chesterbelloc or Craigmaddie please explain what they are getting at for me, in simple terms that an ordinary person could understand.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by IngoB:
[

quote:

---

Originally posted by Angloid:
There is a joint statement of Catholic and Anglican bishops in France to this effect.

---

If this were true, it would only be a regulation relevant to France - and I would appreciate a link to that supposed statement. Furthermore, I am doubtful that the French bishops have the power to declare a blanket permission. The relevant canon law that binds them is

quote:

---

Can. 844 §1. Catholic ministers administer the sacraments licitly to Catholic members of the Christian faithful alone, who likewise receive them licitly from Catholic ministers alone, without prejudice to the prescripts of §§2, 3, and 4 of this canon, and ⇒ can. 861, §2.
§2. Whenever necessity requires it or true spiritual advantage suggests it, and provided that danger of error or of indifferentism is avoided, the Christian faithful for whom it is physically or morally impossible to approach a Catholic minister are permitted to receive the sacraments of penance, Eucharist, and anointing of the sick from non-Catholic ministers in whose Churches these sacraments are valid.
§3. Catholic ministers administer the sacraments of penance, Eucharist, and anointing of the sick licitly to members of Eastern Churches which do not have full communion with the Catholic Church if they seek such on their own accord and are properly disposed. This is also valid for members of other Churches which in the judgment of the Apostolic See are in the same condition in regard to the sacraments as these Eastern Churches.
§4. If the danger of death is present or if, in the judgment of the diocesan bishop or conference of bishops, some other grave necessity urges it, Catholic ministers administer these same sacraments licitly also to other Christians not having full communion with the Catholic Church, who cannot approach a minister of their own community and who seek such on their own accord, provided that they manifest Catholic faith in respect to these sacraments and are properly disposed.

---

See the bits that I have put in italics. I consider it unlikely that the French bishops can claim grave necessity for say an English tourist who happens to find himself in France on a Sunday with no Anglican church in the vicinity. I bet that this is limited to French residents who have serious, long-term problems with accessing an Anglican church close to where they live. Furthermore, unless French Anglicans are all Anglo-Catholics to the bone, I do not see how an individual check on the beliefs and dispositions can be avoided. Anyway, let's have the actual document, so we can see what they really said.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
It's a matter of ontology - including what physical matter is "at heart", the distiction between appearance and reality, etc. - and therefore it's by definition a metaphysical question. It's textbook metaphysical.

---

You've just said all of physics is metaphysical.

---

Nope. See this distinction for starters.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
what was bread and wine and appeared as such is no longer, though still appearing as such.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
What I mean is that, to take the case of the Blessed Sacrament, all the physically discernable qualities of the elements - how they looks, taste, feel, what the microscope would show, how they would affect the human digestive system, how they would come out in a mass spectrometer, etc. - remain precisely the same. Those are what I'm calling the accidents. I think we can all agree that the accidents do not change. Those "survive" (we can say perdure, but it might be misleading) through the process of consecration.
And yet after consecration we say that there is no longer bread or wine on the altar but only the actual "underlying" reality of Christ's Body and Blood - despite the appearance, there really is flesh and blood, and Christ in his full divine identity, present. ...

The idea of a "substance" which underlies the physical properties of a thing could almost have been invented just to explain this very phenomenon - if it hadn't existed it would have been necessary to invent it, you could say. But, as it happens, it wasn't - Aristotle already came up with it centuries before. And this is why the accident/substance distinction is a meta-physical one.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by IngoB:
Actually, this is somewhat misleading.

---

quote:

---

Your definition or description or whatever it is says nothing about METHOD, so your link is irrelevant.

---

quote:

---

The scientific method, however, transformed natural philosophy into an empirical activity deriving from experiment unlike the rest of philosophy. [...] Thereafter, metaphysics denoted philosophical enquiry of a non-empirical character into the nature of existence.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
...It's not just, to answer Holy Smoke, that the meaning of the symbols changes for us - it's not mere "transignification" which is essentially an inter-subjective phenomenon - it's that the actual flesh and blood, body, soul and divinity of the second Person of the Trinity becomes truly present without disturbing the accidents of bread and wine.

---

quote:

---

...it is not permissible to extol the so-called "community" Mass in such a way as to detract from Masses that are celebrated privately; or to concentrate on the notion of sacramental sign as if the symbolism—which no one will deny is certainly present in the Most Blessed Eucharist—fully expressed and exhausted the manner of Christ's presence in this Sacrament; or to discuss the mystery of transubstantiation without mentioning what the Council of Trent had to say about the marvelous conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the Body and the whole substance of the wine into the Blood of Christ, as if they involve nothing more than "transignification,"...

Para 11

---

quote:

---

But this is not the realm of regular physics or even what regularly occurs metaphysically - it's a genuine miracle. ...

---

quote:

---

The idea of a "substance" which underlies the physical properties of a thing could almost have been invented just to explain this very phenomenon - if it hadn't existed it would have been necessary to invent it, you could say. But, as it happens, it wasn't - Aristotle already came up with it centuries before.

And this is why the accident/substance distinction is a meta-physical one.

---

quote:

---

It's a matter of ontology - including what physical matter is "at heart", the distiction between appearance and reality, etc. - and therefore it's by definition a metaphysical question. It's textbook metaphysical.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by IngoB:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
What I mean is that, to take the case of the Blessed Sacrament, all the physically discernable qualities of the elements - how they looks, taste, feel, what the microscope would show, how they would affect the human digestive system, how they would come out in a mass spectrometer, etc. - remain precisely the same. Those are what I'm calling the accidents. I think we can all agree that the accidents do not change. Those "survive" (we can say perdure, but it might be misleading) through the process of consecration.
And yet after consecration we say that there is no longer bread or wine on the altar but only the actual "underlying" reality of Christ's Body and Blood - despite the appearance, there really is flesh and blood, and Christ in his full divine identity, present. ....

---

The usual complaints against Aristotelian metaphysics are just nonsense. If you believe in something like the first paragraph Chesterbelloc wrote, then you believe in transubstantiation. That's then just one peculiar (but traditional) way of expressing what you believe. It does not force any philosophy down your throat that you do not already hold. Really. It's just a particularly convenient and time-honored way of saying this.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Bostonman:
I can't speak to the presence or absence of the negative half in Tradition prior to St. Thomas...where does it come from?

---

quote:

---

9. These things having learnt, and being fully persuaded that what seems bread is not bread, though bread by taste, but the Body of Christ; and that what seems wine is not wine, though the taste will have it so, but the Blood of Christ;

---

quote:

---

We have been instructed in these matters and filled with an unshakable faith, that that which seems to be bread, is not bread, though it tastes like it, but the Body of Christ, and that which seems to be wine, is not wine, though it too tastes as such, but the Blood of Christ.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by RuthW:
What I don't get is why this level of parsing what happens in the mass is necessary or important. Jesus simply said, "This is my body ... this is my blood." Why do we need to know these things? (Or to think we know, since I'm not convinced any of this is actual knowledge and not just folks making stuff up.)

---

quote:

---

And if someone somehow misunderstands these things and gets the wrong idea, does it affect their reception of the sacrament in any way?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by RuthW:
What I don't get is why this level of parsing what happens in the mass is necessary or important. Jesus simply said, "This is my body ... this is my blood." Why do we need to know these things? (Or to think we know, since I'm not convinced any of this is actual knowledge and not just folks making stuff up.) And if someone somehow misunderstands these things and gets the wrong idea, does it affect their reception of the sacrament in any way?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Holy Smoke:
...which I see you are now trying to get round by proposing a special Humpty-Dumpty category of miraculous metaphysics, which your church has specially invented to account for transubstantiation. Or at least, that's what I am seeing. But then I don't have to believe it...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Bostonman:
Transubstantiation has a negative half (bread and wine are not present) and a positive half (the Body and Blood of Christ are present). Lutherans, Anglicans, Catholics, and Orthodox all agree on the positive half. But I'm still wondering how the negative half is necessary.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by RuthW:
Jesus simply said, "This is my body ... this is my blood." Why do we need to know these things?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by RuthW:
And if someone somehow misunderstands these things and gets the wrong idea, does it affect their reception of the sacrament in any way?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Sorry, Mousethief - I think I misunderstood you just there. When you were talking about my definition, I though you were talking about the content of the link I gave (which I described as a "distinction").

In fact it seems to me now you were talking about this:

quote:

---

It's a matter of ontology - including what physical matter is "at heart", the distiction between appearance and reality, etc. - and therefore it's by definition a metaphysical question. It's textbook metaphysical. [call this "Paragraph A" so I can talk about it later.--MT]

---

---

quote:

---

If so, my point still stands.

---

quote:

---

Of course some of modern physics is concerned with the nature of matter - b ut only insofar as this is ultimately an empirical matter.

---

quote:

---

There is no purely empirical enquiry/method relevant to most of its considerations. That includes the accidence/substance distinction as worked out in the transubstantiation case, for reasons I've already given.

Sorry. Hope that's clearer.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by IngoB:
.... One way in which the negative part is important is the Incarnation. Two material objects cannot occupy the same space. There cannot be both the body of the bread and the body of Jesus in the same place. In saying that, you are abandoning a principle that you hold true for all real bodies, and if you say that there really is the body of the bread, then you at least implicitly make the body of Jesus "virtual". ....

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Sorry, Mousethief - I think I misunderstood you just there. When you were talking about my definition, I though you were talking about the content of the link I gave (which I described as a "distinction").

In fact it seems to me now you were talking about this:

quote:

---

It's a matter of ontology - including what physical matter is "at heart", the distiction between appearance and reality, etc. - and therefore it's by definition a metaphysical question. It's textbook metaphysical. [call this "Paragraph A" so I can talk about it later.--MT]

---

---

That is correct.

quote:

---

If so, my point still stands.

---

But you immediately walk it back:

quote:

---

Of course some of modern physics is concerned with the nature of matter - b ut only insofar as this is ultimately an empirical matter.

---

Again, there is nothing in Paragraph A about empiricism. You drag that distinction in after the fact to keep your case from crumbling. Are you saying you didn't say what you meant, and you SHOULD have said that doing all that Paragraph A stuff without express reference to or inference from empirical evidence is metaphysics? If so that's merely a tautology.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
if you're backing off the claim that explaining differences between reality and appearance is always and everywhere metaphysics, then I accept your apology.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
So is the difference between appearance and reality metaphysics or not? You say it's classic metaphysics without qualification, then less than 100 words later you say that sometimes it's physics.

So is it classic metaphysics, or is it sometimes classic metaphysics and sometimes physics? I can't tell which you believe from what you've said because you have said both, and the two are incompatible.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
you seem to be playing some kind of game here.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
The question is, is the distinction between reality and appearance metaphysics or physics?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
When you say "it's classic metaphysics" I think most people would conclude you are coming down firmly on one side of the question.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
As I said above, you said this without qualification, and to prove a point about reality/appearance, or rather to disprove a point of mine.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
You really seem to want to have your cake and eat it here. I'm wrong because it's metaphysics, except when it isn't.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Enoch:
IngoB, I'm not sure how to put this politely, but unless I've completely misunderstood what you're saying here, that statement is nonsense. It is quite possible for one object, whether solid or liquid, or for a person for that matter, to be simultaneously more than one thing at the same time. It happens all over the place and in all manner of different contexts.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by IngoB:
our intellect cannot rest until it finds the Logos. What level of sophistication is required depends on the person, of course. But there is almost as much danger in starving your intellect of God as in starving your heart.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by IngoB:
So it becomes a "spiritual" event that just happens to talk about a "body". Transubstantiation basically says that no, it is the body of the bread which becomes "virtual", whereas there really is the body of Jesus present.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by GreyFace:
Did I always have it wrong?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by IngoB:
But if you say that the bread is really there, and the body of Christ is really there, then they cannot be the same thing, they cannot be in the same place at the same time

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by IngoB:
But if you say that the bread is really there, and the body of Christ is really there, then they cannot be the same thing, they cannot be in the same place at the same time

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Russ:
Your theorem that two different things cannot occupy the same space at the same time is derived from empirical observation. If you believed that there is only one reality - the everyday world of matter and information - you could reasonably apply this theorem to any pair of material objects.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Russ:
But you are putting forward - in line with traditional RC thinking - a metaphysics with two levels - the observable "accidents" and the underlying unobservable "real substance". What possible evidence could you have for the assumption that any theorem that holds at the level of "accidents" also applies to this underlying level which can be apprehended only by faith?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Russ:
Seems to me that if philosophy is a discipline where progress is possible, then the formulations adopted by Christians of the past may need to be re-worked to reflect improved philosophical understanding.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Russ:
Nobody wants the Church to become a club for enthusiasts of medieval philosophy.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by IngoB:
But God's miracles are not nonsensical. A man walking on water may defy the laws of physics, but certainly not the realms of logic and imagination. God creating a square circle would destroy those, but God never does anything like it, and arguably cannot.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doublethink:
The problem is that from that position one could argue that the bread is merely bread, and the wine merely wine - on the grounds that for them to look, taste, smell & feel like these things (presumably down to a molecular level) whilst actually being flesh and blood defies logic.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by IngoB:
If you buy my explanation that in consecration the bread becomes a "bread-like" part of Christ's body

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Bostonman:
The more and more I think about it, this is actually one of the most effective ways of explaining it that I've heard.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Bostonman:
But isn't the fat cell, in that case, still substantially a fat cell? Or has my substance now replaced the substance of the fat cell?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Bostonman:
Because if the fat cell remains (in accident and in substance) a fat cell while still becoming (in substance) me, shouldn't the bread do the same? In other words, how are we to know that the substance of the bread has gone?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
Do Roman Catholics believe in ubiquity? That both the humanity AND the divinity of Christ are found in the consecrated elements? I ask, because it's apparently a bone of disagreement between the Lutherans and Calvinists.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by IngoB:
The substance of Russ, a rational animal embodied and alive somewhere in this world right now, is there for all to observe and discern.

---

quote:

---

To put two material objects in the same space at the same time is like creating a square circle. God will not do it, and arguably God cannot do it.

---

quote:

---

Progress is not linear at historical scales..

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cara:

"People say that the doctrine of transubstantiation is difficult to believe; I did not believe the doctrine till I was a Catholic. I had no difficulty in believing it, as soon as I believed that the Catholic Roman Church was the oracle of God, and that she had declared this doctrine to be part of the original revelation."

A bit later he says..."I cannot indeed prove it, I cannot tell how it is; but I say, "Why should it not be? What's to hinder it? What do I know of substance and matter? just as much as the great philosophers, and that is nothing at all."

So, in a sense, he too stood silent before the mystery.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by IngoB:
[QUOTE]
If we look precisely at this "cannibalism", then we see a bit how all this works. If we eat the bread, then we incorporate it into our bodies. Obviously it gets destroyed in the process, decomposed by various biochemical reactions and transformed into cells which we - somehow - regard as being ourselves. Still, in a sense we have made at least part of that bread become a part of our body. Now, what if Christ can do this without destroying the bread, what if He can somehow incorporate the bread into Himself and animate it as part of His body without biochemically transforming it? Then Christ has a "bread part" of His body, which on one hand is remarkably like bread in all its properties but on the other hand is part of His body.

---

© Ship of Fools 2016


UBB.classic^TM 6.5.0