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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: I went to a catholic mass for the first time
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Trisagion
Shipmate
# 5235
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Posted
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?
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
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.
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
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.
At a previous church of mine, most who took non-alcoholic communion wine did so because they were former alcoholics and did not want to tempt themselves with actual wine.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
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.
This is getting tangential, but there are a few people who for various reasons (alcoholism for example) do not drink from the chalice but touch it or kiss it with their lips. Or of course pass on it altogether. It is perfectly permissible (and a true communion) to receive in one kind only and not for us to speculate or pass judgement on why they might do this.
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Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
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?
Well, believe it or not, I am quite a rigorist where sacraments are concerned bit I cannot deny that the Holy Spirit works through all sorts of impediments. I would not attend such a eucharist but would think it 'illicit' rather than 'invalid'. I also administer coeliac wafers regularly because we have three in the congregation who say they need them.
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
In the context I've seen it done, the wine and the juice were offered as alternatives for those who wished to avail themselves of one or the other. Whether nothing was said to protect the identities/sensibilities of recovering alcoholics or whether this was the reason it was done, I don't know.
It just seemed an odd thing to do without any explanation.
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 ...
I know it's a tangent, but the lectionary thing intrigues me too ... if you're not going to bother with the lectionary, why remain Anglican?
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Trisagion
Shipmate
# 5235
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Posted
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?
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ceterum autem censeo tabula delenda esse
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Jahlove
Tied to the mast
# 10290
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Posted
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.
<shrug> Possibly, but that's not what I said.
Lyda*Rose - there's a major difference tho', isn't there, between receiving a blessing and receiving communion.
Of course there are occasions when a dispensation may be in place; of course there are *in extremis* situations; of course there is ignorance regarding the propriety of receiving. That is surely a *Given* which is understandable and easily FORgiven. What I don't find acceptable is the blasé attitude of those who do, in fact, *know the rules* but insist that they should be allowed to have their way because their *feelings* say it's ok- time after time.
I recall being quite shocked when on a retreat at Buckfast Abbey, an occasion when I would have loved to join in but didn't (since it was prior to my Reception), one of my fellow-retreatees partook - I said *I didn't know you were RC* - *oh*, he said, *I'm not but I'm baptized*. Guy knew the rules but, lacking discipline and respect, considered they didn't apply to him because they didn't accord with what he wanted at that moment.
Seems to me that, if the whole shooting-match means anything, it means something far more that an opportunity to indulge in supermarket-style consumerist instant gratification.
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“Sing like no one's listening, love like you've never been hurt, dance like nobody's watching, and live like its heaven on earth.” - Mark Twain
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moonlitdoor
Shipmate
# 11707
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Posted
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 ?
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We've evolved to being strange monkeys, but in the next life he'll help us be something more worthwhile - Gwai
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Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras
Shipmate
# 11274
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Posted
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).
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.
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Forthview
Shipmate
# 12376
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Posted
I really like LSK's last paragraph.Of course God cannot be constrained by what we think and He may give His grace to whomsoever he wishes.
What do those who insist on episcopal ordination say about the sacraments as celebrated by non episcopally ordained ministers.
After all the Church of Scotland,just like the Church of England,claims to be the uniquely Scottish part of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic church.
Communion is taken very seriously in the Church of Scotland and who are we to say that the communicants there are taking part in the celebration of invalid sacraments.
However they are not the same in form and intention as those celebrated in the Anglican communion - or at least in certain parts of the Anglican commnion.
In the same way Catholics in communion with the See of Rome see the sacraments of the Anglican communion as lacking something,namely the certainty which comes from knowing that one is in communion with the apostolic see.In this sense they are not recognised by the Catholic church as 'valid' sacraments,but the days are long gone when the Catholic church would say that other Christians are lacking in the receiving or indeed the passing on of God's grace
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
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).
That would support that taint argument on OoW recently argued as a Dead Horse. If a bishop ordains a group of men and women together, then for a person who doesn't believe in the OoW, not only would the ordination of the women not 'take' (because it can't) but the ordination of the men wouldn't either because the ordination is one sacrament, not two.
Furthermore, if at a Eucharist some coelic hosts were being consecrated on the altar with the ordinary ones, but didn't meet your test as being specially processed wheat flour, then unbeknown to everyone present, the whole Eucharist would be invalid and they would not receive.
You could be right, but I hope you aren't.
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.
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CL
Shipmate
# 16145
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Posted
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).
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"Even if Catholics faithful to Tradition are reduced to a handful, they are the ones who are the true Church of Jesus Christ." - Athanasius of Alexandria
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Gramps49
Shipmate
# 16378
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Posted
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.
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Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras
Shipmate
# 11274
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Posted
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.
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
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 ...
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
Mercifully, some are more balanced ... or perhaps more dissembling ... ![[Ultra confused]](graemlins/confused2.gif)
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
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Posted
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.
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My crazy theology in novel form
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Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras
Shipmate
# 11274
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Posted
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.
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
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.
Exactly. It's Biblical. Christ commanded it, and surely it's a good thing for Christians to remember his sacrifice.
Chesterbelloc: Cheers!
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.
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.
One thing in the OP that hasn't gotten a lot of discussion is this assertion:
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.
I think churches which preach some kind of unmediated relationship with God are fooling themselves that they don't in fact make efforts to guide and direct spiritual seeking in ways that are just as prescriptive and controlling as anything the liturgical and sacramental churches offer. You're told to read the Bible for yourself, but if you come up with an interpretation that varies substantially from what they teach, you're reading it wrong.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
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.
Why would Christ command us to do something that isn't particularly special or different from anything else we do? "Do this, not that it matters or anything. It's totally the same as anything else you do, not one whit more special, and yet I insist you do it." Wouldn't Christ's command be pretty strong prima facie evidence that it IS inherently special or different?
Indeed, isn't the very fact that he commanded it make it different from the things they do that he did not command?
[ 31. December 2012, 02:09: Message edited by: mousethief ]
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras
Shipmate
# 11274
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Posted
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.
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.
But I can only talk about my own theology. I'm not an echo of a Magisterium. For me, matter, form and intent are all far more important than minister. My own ecclesiology is not, for example, predicated on the necessity of the putative apostolic succession of bishops as a prerequisite of a valid Church. Although I am an Episcopalian myself and am happy to see the proliferation of the historic episcopal succession, I recognise other criteria as of the essence of a properly constituted ecclesial community in which a properly ordered ministry exists. I actually don't find words like "valid" too helpful at the end of the day. My position is probably best classified generally as belonging to the magisterial protestant tradition.
I guess my point is, I can only speak as an informal representative of that POV, whilst others will have different POVs, especially those in the pre-Reformation traditions of both East and West.
I don't know that this has been of much help in responding to your question. 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.
[ 31. December 2012, 02:39: Message edited by: Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras ]
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redunderthebed
Apprentice
# 17480
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Trisagion:
Is it considered what I, as a Cathoic, would call "valid matter".
Trisagion I'am a recovering alcoholic and i'm sure there is millions of people like me in your church and in protestant churches.
I'am taught in AA that i cannot pick up the first drink. Whilst its not much it can lead to much greater harm and me wanting to turn that wine into consuming half a carton of beer or whatever crud i can get my hands on.
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:
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]
Yup at my baptist congregation when we recieve communion we have grape juice as the wine its essentially the same thing without the fermentation process and yeast.
I find at my congregation we eat the bread and then once that is done we drink the wine as a collective remembrance of jesus and what he did for us.
I recieved my first ever communion in my local church (i went to a church that didn't believe in it before?!) almost a month ago and it was great.
[ 31. December 2012, 04:51: Message edited by: redunderthebed ]
Posts: 24 | From: Port Lincoln | Registered: Dec 2012
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hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
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Posted
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.
I appreciate your reply.
I used to hate communion when I was young and exposed to various memorialist versions of the Lord's Supper. Later I saw the powerful effect it can have on a community, making unity and sometimes disunity, palpably visible, and I respected it more. Recently I have come to see it in ways I could describe with some of the words you use: the apotheosis of the church, the conjunction of heaven and earth. I'm not keen on the language of sacrifice, but I would see it as repeating here and now the heart of the gospel, that Jesus is God with us.
However, this understanding of communion depends for me on the quality of the life of the community which is gathered, summed up and expressed in communion. If a church strives to serve God and neighbour and witness to the nearness and life of God all around, then what it does with bread and wine can be richly meaningful.
I can't understand why it matters what sort of bread is used. In fact a liturgist friend of mine, thinking of the eucharist in other cultures, suggested that the proper matter for communion is a) whatever is the local carbohydrate staple, and b) whatever the locals use to 'take themselves out of themselves.'
quote:
For me, matter, form and intent are all far more important than minister.
I suppose intent is what chiefly matters for me, the intent of the celebrating congregation, and perhaps that's an overly intellectual approach. Form, it seems to me, is and has been hugely variable and therefore can't matter that much. Matter, for me, ought be appropriate. Sweet potatoes might be more appropriate than bread in some cultures, and I really can't understand why anyone would disagree with this.
You go on to talk about a properly consituted ecclesial community, saying for you it's not about apostolic succession, but that ..
quote:
I recognise other criteria as of the essence of a properly constituted ecclesial community in which a properly ordered ministry exists.
.. and that sounds fine to me. The eucharist must, I agree, be 'owned' and celebrated by a 'church' that takes its life seriously.
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.
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My crazy theology in novel form
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Gamaliel
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That's terrific, redunderthebed ... ![[Biased]](wink.gif) ![[Votive]](graemlins/votive.gif)
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.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Trisagion
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Posted
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.
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ceterum autem censeo tabula delenda esse
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hatless
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Posted
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.
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?
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My crazy theology in novel form
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Trisagion
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Posted
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?
The simple answer to your unfelicitously expressed question is: because that is what Christ said and did and how his Church has understood it.
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.
[ 31. December 2012, 10:30: Message edited by: Trisagion ]
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ceterum autem censeo tabula delenda esse
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Imersge Canfield
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All this talk of Christ said this or commanded that' ignores* (deliberately ?) all that is now known of the Bible, textual and biblical criticism.
*flies in the face wifully and abrasively ?
I did not find hatless abrasive at all- au contraire ! -- but he recieved short shrift / abrasion for his trouble.
How could this thread in its writing and real presence model and be more eucharistic itself ?
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'You must not attribute my yielding, to sinister appetites'
"Preach the gospel and only use jewellry if necessary." (The Midge)
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moonlitdoor
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Posted
It seems to me that if one is unsure what is changeable and what is unchangeable, a good option is to change the historic practice of the church only for a theological reason.
When I visited my friend in the Isle of Man, I saw two baptisms, one an adult baptism in the sea, and one Methodist baptism where the only use of water was that the minister dipped her finger in it to make the sign of the cross on the baby's forehead. The form of the adult baptism made perfect sense to me as it fitted with what that church believes baptism is, whereas the Methodist baptism made no sense to me, as it missed out an element traditionally considered essential, without an obvious reason for doing so.
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We've evolved to being strange monkeys, but in the next life he'll help us be something more worthwhile - Gwai
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Nenuphar
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Posted
I hope I do not transgress too far, but it seems that the early church poured as well as immersed. I agree that immersion conveys more fully the meaning of baptism, but it is/was not always physically possible.
The Didache was written around A.D. 70 and, though not inspired, is a strong witness to the sacramental practice of Christians in the apostolic age. In its seventh chapter, the Didache reads, "Concerning baptism, baptize in this manner: Having said all these things beforehand, baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit in living water [that is, in running water, as in a river]. If there is no living water, baptize in other water; and, if you are not able to use cold water, use warm. If you have neither, pour water three times upon the head in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." These instructions were composed either while some of the apostles and disciples were still alive or during the next generation of Christians, and they represent an already established custom. There are many others references in the writings of the earliest church fathers.
Additionally, consider the references in Acts to baptism of the Holy Spirit. These would seem to me to be more of a "pouring upon" rather than a physical immersion. I think "baptizo" seems to refer to both methods being valid from the earliest times.
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Trisagion
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# 5235
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Posted
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 ?
![[Axe murder]](graemlins/lovedrops.gif) ![[Projectile]](graemlins/puke2.gif)
[ 31. December 2012, 11:24: Message edited by: Trisagion ]
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ceterum autem censeo tabula delenda esse
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Gamaliel
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Posted
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 ...
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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PaulTH*
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# 320
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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.
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Yours in Christ
Paul
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Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras
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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...").
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hatless
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Posted
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?
I was being deliberately ambiguous in tone, so that people reading it could find it abrasive or not as they chose.
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.
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.'
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.) I'm interested in the theology behind 'it has to be wheat' and 'it mustn't be offered to non-Catholics.' 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, 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?
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:
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.
I really don't think it's me that is being aggressive, dismissive or presuming others to be witless.
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My crazy theology in novel form
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moonlitdoor
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Posted
Apologies to Nenuphar if I gave the impression I was comparing the merits of immersion and pouring water. I simply meant that I understand why a Baptist baptism differs from a Catholic baptism, since Baptists mean something different by baptism. I don't understand having a baptism similar in form and intent to a Catholic baptism but not pouring any water over the child. What point was supposed to be made by missing out something which most have considered essential ?
I felt the same way about the eucharist I attended. I don't know whether wine is an unchangeable or not, but if you are not trying to do something theologically different, why miss out something that might be essential ?
[ 31. December 2012, 13:03: Message edited by: moonlitdoor ]
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We've evolved to being strange monkeys, but in the next life he'll help us be something more worthwhile - Gwai
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
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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.
The RCC considers communion under one kind, i.e., in practice bread, to be perfectly valid and sufficient as a sacrament. Indeed, for a very long time the cup was not usually offered to the faithful, but typically reserved to the priest, and if you go to a traditional (Latin, "Tridentine", extraordinary form...) RC mass now then you, like everybody else but the priest, will almost certainly just receive the body of Christ (the consecrated bread).
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.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
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Bostonman
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Posted
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?
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Gamaliel
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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.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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hatless
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Posted
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.
But which words? Matthew, Mark or Luke, or perhaps Paul's little liturgy in 1 Corinthians? And what about basing a celebration of the eucharist on the feeding of the five thousand or the meal at the lakeside?
Perhaps I'm pushing things a bit too far, here. I agree that the link with the table fellowship of Jesus and his instruction to us to do this in continuity with him is the key thing, and one or other version of the Last Supper is the obvious place to go to. I'd have no problem, though, with remembering the story of the Last Supper and using the relevant words from John 6 and 15.
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My crazy theology in novel form
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Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras
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# 11274
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Posted
Well, in respect to the Eucharist, Bostonian, we have the witness of the Biblical accounts that Our Lord Jesus Christ instituted the Sacrament of His Body and Blood with bread and wine, and we are given the words He used in so doing. Those bits are unchangeable.
Given the time, place and circumstances, we may be sure the juice of the fruit of the vine was indeed fermented, and that the bread was wheaten and would have been unleavened, it being the time of the Passover. However, the Church has determined that the issue of leavening doesn't affect validity: leavened bread is normative in the Eastern Church; unleavened in the Western Church. As with yeast getting into wine and causing fermentation, yeast will get into dough on its own and start causing it to rise naturally if the process isn't cut short, as it was at the time of the flight from Egypt, commemorated at Passover.
Cross-posted with hatless.
[ 31. December 2012, 13:21: Message edited by: Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras ]
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hatless
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# 3365
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Posted
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.
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My crazy theology in novel form
Posts: 4531 | From: Stinkers | Registered: Sep 2002
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Raptor Eye
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# 16649
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Posted
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.
As it seems that my experience was blessed but it was the talking about it which caused offence, I'll join you all on my knees too.
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Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10
Posts: 4359 | From: The United Kingdom | Registered: Sep 2011
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Angloid
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# 159
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Posted
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And when these are lacking, then we approach the Lion of Judah with "here, kitty, kitty, kitty, ..." on our lips.
IngoB ![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
Quotes File! (Actually, reminiscent of Aidan Kavanagh too)
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Brian: You're all individuals!
Crowd: We're all individuals!
Lone voice: I'm not!
Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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Bax
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# 16572
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Posted
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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.
Technically, the priest was "incorrect" to have offered to give you Holy Communion. But I do not think that this means that you have automatically received communion unworthily, if, in your youthful innocence, you did not appreciate what you were doing. You don't need to be a theologian to receive Holy Communion!
But, frankly, how many of us do really fully consider what it is that we are doing when we receive the body and blood of the Lord?
Posts: 108 | Registered: Aug 2011
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Sergius-Melli
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# 17462
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Posted
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Originally posted by IngoB:
... to be one in one God.
Sorry to cut everything out, it wasn't needed for me to say I agree IngoB... we seemingly disagree on a lot, but your post was spot on from where I sit (and I imagine I know how you feel about Anglican orders and Eucharists but hey ho, our theology (in all it's forms) on this is remarkably close, veering on the same.)
I would say for the bread and wine thing... apart from being the objects at the institution and prescribed by Canon law... part of tradition...etc.... think about the symbolism in all of this...
Christ took two everyday food stuffs, bland, run of the mill and common. They were not special, treated with any special significance in everyday life, but through that initial Eucharist He transformed these simple things into something beautiful and humbling... He raised up the lowly, turning something mundane into something beautiful for God's work.
In the Eucharist we are, faithfully following Christ's command, in the presence of the Spirit turning our humble gifts into the Beauty and majesty of Christ (however the mystery works - and personally I prefer to leave it as a mystery) so that through the reception of grace by the Eucharist, we, that are lowly and mundane, are lifted high, turned into something beautiful for God's work.
Thinking about the whole purpose of why Christ came, for those that needed a doctor, that needed changing from sin (which whilst not as slight as mundane, but certainly not beautiful) into Heirs of God's Kingdom, I see in the host and chalice week after week that message conveyed by Christ to His faithful Church through the two very insignificant and everyday food stuffs He commanded us to use.
Posts: 722 | From: Sneaking across Welsh hill and dale with a thurible in hand | Registered: Dec 2012
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Imersge Canfield
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# 17431
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Posted
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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.
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How could this thread in its writing and real presence model and be more eucharistic itself ?
I am truly sorry to have added to your sadness.
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'You must not attribute my yielding, to sinister appetites'
"Preach the gospel and only use jewellry if necessary." (The Midge)
Posts: 419 | From: Sun Ship over Grand Fenwick Duchy | Registered: Nov 2012
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Trisagion
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# 5235
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Posted
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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.
So you knew that it was possible it would be perceived as abrassive. Your purpose in doing that was what, exactly?
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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.'
I'd say that an answer that went "Because this is what the Lord taught and the Church has preserved in its written and unwritten Tradition" was a pretty decent reason for a Christian to give and, without having to go over the DH's of what the Church is and what her authority is - with the Catholic position on which you are thoroughly familiar if your participation on previous threads is anything to go by.
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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.)
We Catholics don't see ourselves as having the authority or power to 'reinvent the Church' and we consider Tradition to have genuine theological authority. You know that only too well and if you were genuinely trying to get inside the mind of your interlocutors, as you claim (despite the troll-like aspect of your admitted ambiguity) then you'd enter the discussion taking that as read.
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I'm interested in the theology behind 'it has to be wheat'
The theology is this: according to the written and unwritten Tradition of the Church, Christ used wheaten-bread. Therefore, in doing what he did, so do we and because he, not us, is the suthor of the sacraments/mysteries, we aren't free, that is don't have the authority to alter that.
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...and 'it mustn't be offered to non-Catholics.'
As I expressed above, the receiving of Communion to us is - and has been been since the Church was very young - a sign of our unity with Christ and one another. It's there in Acts 2:42: the Communion of the Church is intimately tied up in those four notes of the Church. It's there throughout the patristic period as an understanding that the Holy things - the Eucharistic elements - are there for those who can say Amen when the Church names the Body and Blood of Christ for what they are and not for those who deny them. In fact, it is there in the entire experience of the Church until our present time. There have been numerous threads on the DH of open v closed communion. You have probably participated in them. What is clear from those threads is that the practice of open communion is a novel practice that hasn't commended itself to any Christian community that doesn't find its origins in the early-modern period. It's clear too that the reasons for open communion seem as unpersuasive to Catholics and Orthodox as the arguments for closed communion seem to many Protestants.
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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
Well, bearing in mind your admittedly ambiguous intent, this statement is not entirely true, is it? Part of your intent was to be abrasive.
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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
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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?
I was being asked to comment, from a Catholic position, on what the consequences of that might be. That much is obvious. Why you should get heated about that is beyond me.
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You accuse me of being dismissive, but write
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What would need to be lacking in the matter for it to be invalid? Blackcurrant juice. Rice crackers?
That's dismissive.
It isn't remotely dismissive. It came as part of a discussion in which a number of Anglican/Episcopalian Shipmates were expressing their views about the effect of varying the matter of the Eucharistic species. One had already expressed the view that the absence of wine would have given him grave doubts and another that the combination of what he and I would call valid and invalid matter would call into question the sacramental status of what was happening. Yet another Anglican/Episcopalian had said that this wasn't a problem. I was simply asking whether the use of blackcurrant juice (as used in the Chapel of my childhood) and rice crackers (as suggested, inter alia, by the Jesuit missionaries in China in the 16th century, would be sufficient.
quote:
I really don't think it's me that is being aggressive, dismissive or presuming others to be witless.
You've already confessed that at least part of your intent was to express yourself in a manner that could be taken that way. What do you call it then? Being disingenuous? Passive, engaging and respectful?
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ceterum autem censeo tabula delenda esse
Posts: 3923 | Registered: Nov 2003
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
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?
I don't know and have never been presented with such 'elements'. But it seems deliberately disobedient where as grape juice and coeliac wafers are an attempt to get as close as is possible for the recipients thereof.
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
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 ?
I would either:
a) leave if there was a nearby church which had a later mass which i could attend so as to fulfil the Sunday obligation or
b)stay but not receive. Make a spiritual communion instead. And would never darken the doors of that church again.
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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