This is a silly question I thought of in mass the other day. Say after receiving the host, the recipient chokes to death on it. Seeing as the pieces of bread are pretty small, an alternate scenario could be choking resulting in a coughing fit that dislodges a blood clot that causes a brain aneurysm leading to nigh-instant death.
I don’t think such a death would be a free pass to the pearly gates. While one is supposed to be in a state free of mortal sin when having the Eucharist, the Eucharist itself doesn’t have any reconciliatory properties that I’m aware of. Still, it seems like dying soon after receiving what is in this context the body and blood of Christ that it must have some sort of effect on one’s salvation.
So, the three options I see are 1) no effect on salvation, 2) a mild to major positive effect or 3)Go directly to Heaven. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.
Does the Catholic Church believe in magic? (Apart from the magic of the real presence of Christ’s flesh in the eucharist, that is). I doubt it: you would only get the benefit of being at mass and having taken part in the general confesssion.
(And if you were choking to death on the floor of the church, I’m sure the priest would try to get to your side to give you the last rites, without worrying about the posible magic effects of the eucharist).
So… I shouldn’t jack off the husband just prior to lining up for the sacrament? What about puppy stomping? My Sundays are going to be far less entertaining now.
Seriously, though, I had no idea that one was supposed to be free of mortal sin before receiving the Eucharist. I kinda thought that attending mass and getting the weekly sacrament was just one of many things a good Christian was expected to do to add more to the good side of their moral scales. If said Christian spent the other 6 days a week slowly torturing children, he could choke on a fist full of Eucharist without it doing him any good.
Right – it depends on what you mean by magic. I’m not a Catholic, though I am married to one, so don’t give my answer the same weight as you’d give to an ex cathedra pronouncement from Benedict XVI, but …
Of course, the Church believes in some things that look like magic to non-believers, including the transsubstatiation of the eucharist. However, I don’t think they believe there is any magic way to salvation, i.e., you don’t get to salvation by some trick like consuming the eucharist: it involves real stuff, like faith in God and genuine confession of your sins. There used to be magic tricks to salvation, like the sale of indulgences, but I think the Church has given up on that idea these days.
Oh sure! If you’ve done any sinning since the last time you partook in the body of Christ (assuming you were free of sins at that time) you have to confess before getting the holiest of crackers.
Somehow though, I believe that if you did choke to death on the eucharist, I can only see two options. Either God himself has it in for you, or there is no God. Either way, no heaven for you.
The only thing that the Catholic church claims removes all sin automatically is baptism, and you can only get that once. There was a trend for a while for folks to postpone getting baptised until they were on their deathbed, for this reason, but this is strongly discouraged, because of the risk of dying unbaptised. A person who drowned while being baptised would presumably go straight to Heaven, but for your scenario, all we could really say would be “I hope so”.
Sure, since we are talking about a religion. For many people, things like god and heaven are automatically unreal. But the question is (it seems to me) once you accept basic Chistian ideas about God, heaven and salvation, does Catholicism add any magic tricks such as that suggested in the OP about the eucharist giving you a “Go directly to Heaven” card.
I would think that is person dropped dead when the Eucharist hit their mouth, that would be a sure sign of going to Hell.
Heck, Vampires only get 2 degree burns from the Eucharist.
So why don’t Catholics kill babies seconds after baptism?
Baptism removes the stain of original sin, babies are incapable of sinning and they’ve accepted their salvation through Jesus by proxy. Seems like a one-way ticket to eternal paradise to me, and not to mention the kindest act one could perform, seeing as they risk burning for eternity in the fires of hell otherwise.
Well, yes, you do go directly to Heaven (Don’t pass Purgatory, don’t receive 200 indulgences), but you have to endure God’s withering stare, and listen to Him say:
“Well, THAT was a stupid thing to do!”
This keeps most people from doing it.
In Christianity, loving somebody doesn’t necessarily mean avoiding pain and suffering. This life is supposed to be about training ourselves to be children of God, so killing babies is, besides the obvious reasons, still not a good idea.