Posted on 04/16/2005 9:03:04 AM PDT by NYer
It isn't like they are going to know I am Protestant.
What are they going to do, throw me out?
Well, you could always receive communion while pretending to be a Catholic.
But, if you made a point of making known where you stood on the matter and then got in to communion line anyway, I would expect the priest to simply deny it to you.
What are you going to do then?
If you answer involves anything to the affect of forcing yourself physically or disrupting the mass... you'd be out on your ass before you knew what hit you.
My Missal mentions only four groups allowed to receive Communion: Catholics (of course), The Orthodox, The Polish National Catholic Church, and the Assyrian Church of the East. Now whether they let their members receive our Eucharist, that is another matter.
John 6:53-58, on its face, seems to confirm what the RC's claim about the Real Presence:
53 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves.Taken in its most literal and straightforward interpretation, this seems to suggest that Christ commanded people to literally feed upon himself - and that was clearly the sense in which his hearers took it (and they didn't like it one bit; many left over this). From this passage, as well as 1Co. 11, it is easy to exegete the Real Presence, if one sees fit.
54 “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.
55 “For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. 56 “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.
57 “As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also will live because of Me.
58 “This is the bread which came down out of heaven; not as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live forever.”
-- John 6:53-58 [NASB]
Now, as Presbyterians, you and I both see Communion as a sign of the covenant, so that we are symbolically feeding upon Christ. Christ is symbolically and spiritually present in Communion; not physically. We reject the Catholic line of thinking that communion wafers are in accidence unchanged, but in essence, become the Body of Christ. We're close, in that we believe that they are spiritually His body, but reject the accidence/essence thing as a medieval theological invention.
But Catholics believe in the accidence/essence distinction as a matter of dogma - it's one of the defining characteristics of the Catholic Church. Indeed, you can reject the primacy of the Pope and any of their theological pronouncements since the Great Schism of 1056 A.D., as the Orthodox have, but because the Orthodox affirm transubstantiation as well, they are welcomed to partake of the Eucharist. But for those of us who do not believe in the Real Presence, they believe it is dangerous for us to take of it because we do not "discern the Lord's body," and don't know what we are getting ourselves into.
Because I have too much respect for the Catholic church to violate their beliefs, in the handful of instances I have found myself in a Catholic service, when the time for the Eucharist comes, I remain seated. I must respect their position, even while I disagree with it, because to violate it, to a Catholic, would be in reality, be desecration.
"You that abhor idols, do you desecrate temples?" (Rom. 2:22, my rendering based off of Louw-Nida's semantic domain of ierosuleoo, which has a broader meaning than the traditional rendering of "rob.") I don't care if you think that the Catholics are dead wrong in their belief of transubstantiation. You have no right to desecrate what they believe is sacred.
The Orthodox do. That's why all Catholic missals encourage Orthodox to come forward and take of the Eucharist, whereas I, as a Protestant, am advised I should not.
I see ecumenicalism isn't important to you. It was important to Pope John Paul II.
"The absolute nerve of you..."
Thank you. I am amazed by the Charity of Catholics on this board addressing someone so insensitive as to question the Dogma of a Church that she has no intention of joining or participating in worship.
The question was answered with grace and compassion. The answers should be accepted with the same.
The only way the RC's should give me Holy Communion is if they believe it is okay for me, as a guy who doesn't believe in the Real Presence, to take of it. If they believe it would work to my detriment, they are obligated to withhold it from me. What is not from faith is sin, Romans 14:23.
What is not from faith is sin, Romans 14:23.
I'll leave such judgements to God.
Now that you have read this thread, do you understand why? Also, you can't be denied admission to any college base of religion , race, or creed, that is against the law, surely the scenarios are not one in the same to you.
As Msgr. Augustine said, Catholics believe that "the Eucharist represents the true presence of Jesus Christ" in the Host.
That is not the case with Protestant denominations who believe that the host is merely symbolic. At a Protestant service I have been to, they passed a tray of chopped up Wonder Bread around, up and down the pews, as if they were passing out sandwiches at a picnic.
So, you have a situation where "Communion" is believed to be different things by different Christians.
The reason that Catholics found this incident so shocking is that it would literally represent the Body of Christ being sold on eBay.
To a Protestant without such a belief, it would merely represent a souvenir not much different that a Church program being sold on eBay.
For such reasons, Catholics do not consider Communion open to just anyone just as Protestant Churches would not consider Baptism opened to just anyone who wanted to try out the experience regardless of whether or not they believed in what Baptism means.
Someone with some guts. Good man Msgr. Augustine!!!!
You are correct. The Eucharist IS Christ.
Don't care what others think. We KNOW what it is. That's what is importnat. What we KNOW NOT what others think. It's our religion.
You said ....The difference is we don't believe the bread/wine are physically changed as Catholics do, but that the body and blood of Christ ARE present in, not symbolized by, the bread/wine.
Re-read your words......our Hosts do not turn into a slab of meat and blood, but it IS changed into the Body and Blood of Christ. That is what the Mass IS....that's what it's all about.
OH MY!
I am so sorry. I misread your post and thought YOU were the non-Catholic!
I must have been in shock!
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