Free Republic

From the First Apology of St. Justin Martyr: We call this food Eucharist; and no one else is permitted to partake of it, except one who believes our teaching to be true and who has been washed in the washing which is for the remission of sins and for regeneration, and is thereby living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught,...

Corpus ChristiFrom the Real Presence of Saint Peter Julian Eymard Haec est dies quam fecit Dominus.This is the day which the Lord has made.Psalm 107:24Every day comes from God.  They unfailingly succeed one another through his loving kindness.  God allows man six days of the week for his labor and his needs, but the seventh he reserves for himself.  Sunday is therefore more particularly the day of the Lord.  But of all the days there is one which is, in a more excellent manner, the day of God and is called the day of God, fête-Dieu, as the French put it,...

May 29, 2005The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ Psalm: Sunday 25 Reading IDt 8:2-3, 14b-16a Moses said to the people:"Remember how for forty years now the LORD, your God,has directed all your journeying in the desert,so as to test you by afflictionand find out whether or not it was your intentionto keep his commandments. He therefore let you be afflicted with hunger,and then fed you with manna,a food unknown to you and your fathers,in order to show you that not by bread alone does one live,but by every word that comes forth from the mouth...

Is one obligated to take Communion from the cup in addition to the host? My husband and I have a disagreement about this. He thinks you must take it if it is offered, but I've been taught that you do not have to take it. I'm a post-Vatican II Catholic, so I'm not quite sure how things used to be in the Church, although my mother has told me that they never used to receive Communion from the cup--that the priest would consecrate and drink it and that it was not shared with the community. Quite frankly (and I'm sure...

June 22, 2003The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ Psalm: Sunday Week 28 Reading I Responsorial Psalm Reading II Gospel Reading IEx 24:3-8 When Moses came to the peopleand related all the words and ordinances of the LORD,they all answered with one voice,"We will do everything that the LORD has told us."Moses then wrote down all the words of the LORD and,rising early the next day,he erected at the foot of the mountain an altarand twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel.Then, having sent certain young men of the Israelitesto offer holocausts and sacrifice young...