I was raised Catholic, I went to a Catholic university, my wife is Catholic, my child is Catholic and goes to a Catholic school, and I am STILL Catholic, a member of Knights of Columbus and Knight of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem (accepted but not yet invested), and I have a licentiate in canon law.
I’m not at all Catholic, so if you say so. It just sounds weird to me, and my wife, who was raised Catholic, said that the host itself would always be called the host, or the Eucharist wafer, but never just the Eucharist.
But what do I know, so if you say the wafer is just a Eucharist, so be it, even though it sounds so weird. Pass me a Eucharist.
Except don’t, because I don’t believe in transsubstantiation or all that other weird stuff.
Cite that communion wafers are a restricted gift? Merely religious guidelines don’t mean shit.
If they were, I never noticed them. I don’t look at the stuff in the pews. At my wife’s church, all they have is songbooks and offering envelopes.
In this case it doesn’t matter because it didn’t happen in church and there weren’t any pews.
I would call it a eucharist.
And I still know just as much as you about Catholicism.
Well, whether or not you yourself happen to believe that anything in particular happens in a metaphysical sense, my observations are:
[ul][li]In the Epiclesis, the bishop or priest beseeches God the Father to send His Holy Spirit on the bread and wine being offered on the altar, that they may become the Body and Blood of Christ.[/li][li]The Words of Instiution call to remembrance (anamnnesis) Jesus’s instructions to His disciples at the Last Supper, viz., “Take and eat this, all of you, this is My Body given for you…”[/li][li]The Words of Administration assert to each recipient that the piece of pressed matzoh he or she receives is “the Body of Christ.”[/ul][/li]
Regardless of what one’s personal beliefs on the subject may be, the sum of these utterances and actions indicate that to the giver, i.e., the priest and people of Our Lady of Perpetual Bingo Roman Catholic Church, the individual hosts comprising the Eucharistic elements are regarded as having been invested by God with the nature of being in some way the Body of Christ, and that they are being given for the purpose of the recipients’ taking and eating them, presumably more or less reverently.
In essence, I see that as meeting the conditions Bricker outlined for a conditional gift, irregardless of the recipient’s beliefs or lack thereof in transubstantiation. It is stated verbally in the hearing of all that the bread is in some way being equated to the Body, that it was and continues to be given for the purpose of being taken and eaten, and that identity is reiterated in brief to each recipient. This does not depend on anyone’s knowledge of whom Catholicism considers an appropriate recipient or their metaphysical theories – whatever you may regard that piece of pressed unleavened bread to be, it is being given you for the purpose of immediate consumption.
I didn’t realize that you were asking me what I thought really, physically happened during a eucharist. Obviously, I think nothing happens. you were describing the steps of the ceremony, so my answer was simply the name of the ceremony.
Belief in transubstaniation is beside the point. If the receiver has no awareness of any conditions, then I don’t see how any conditions could be enforceable. That’s the rub - that the recipient has not been made aware of any conditions.
I’m not saying it matters, I’m just questioning how much you actually know about Catholicism, given that you’ve never paid enough attention to your surroundings in church to have noticed the missalettes, or noticed that no one ever refers to the host as “a eucharist.”
I’ve never heard anyone call an individual wafer “a eucharist.” They call them hosts or wafers. Parts of “the eucharist,” yes, but individual eucharists, no. I asked my wife (a lifelong catholic who is still practicing), and she said she’s never heard anyone call an individual wafer “a eucharist” either.
I was not asking you what you thought happened. I believe that reiterating “irregardless of the recipient’s beliefs” several times would make that clear to most people capable of reading the words of others.
Rather, I was setting up the point that the recipient, regardless of his or her own religious beliefs, could reasonably be expected to realize that the hosts were given for the purpose of immediate consumption, byt rehearsing the aspects of the liturgy that bear on what the church believes itself to be doing in handing out the breads.
To construct an analogy, Bricker or Mrs. Cynic, as good Catholics, are obliged to assent to Leo XIII’s teaching that Anglican Eucharists are invalid – despite the fact that we do the same things, and for much the same reasons, as their church does. If either of them should show up at an Episcopal church, they are welcomed as baptized Christians to receive the Eucharist – for immediate consumption, for the same reasons as are noted in the liturgical excerpts above and also outlined in the BCP. They are not free to take uit, wave it about in the auir, and shout, “Woo hoo! The Pope says this isn’t real!”
Am I crazy, or did you argue that that’s what it was for like 2 pages in this thread?
I disagree that this is a reasonable expectation - or at least that it’s reasonable to expect that it’s the only option. Catholics know the rules, but someone completely uninitiated could have no real idea what was going on at all.
I still contend that the recipient has to have some demonstrable awareness of these conditions in order for them to be legally binding.
Let’s say that it is a conditional gift. Wouldn’t the church still have to go through some kind of civil process in order to get it back? Is there any court that would take up the matter of a wafer that’s probably worth, at most, a couple of cents?
ETA: This site has 1000 for $11.40, so a little more than a penny a piece.
While I don’t think anything is legally binding, all the recipient has to do is see what everyone else is doing. It’s like eating at a fancy dinner party. I see which fork is used for the salad and which is used for the main course by watching other people, then doing what they do. While I see the “desecration” as much ado about nothing, it’s not difficult to know what is supposed to be done.
Considering the fact that you rather foolishly insisted that the Serbs are Catholics and that “the ceremony is called the Eucharist not the wafer” I seriously doubt a single person believes that.
I certainly don’t and deep down, you probably feel the same.
Anyway, just admit that he knows more about it than you do.
There’s nothing wrong with admitting ignorance on certain subjects.
I certainly don’t know nearly as much about Islam as either Yusef Al Qaradawi or the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
It’s not “a” Eucharist. It’s “the” Eucharist. There’s a distinction. Dio believed that the term “the Eucharist” only referred to the ceremony, not the consecrated host and wine. Both the wine and the host are “the Eucharist” together and separately.
Dio also had never seen a missal in all his years of attending Mass.
The average seven year old Catholic knows more than he does about Catholicism.
I was correct on both counts.
I haven’t been wrong about a single fucking thing I’ve said.
Except when you said that “the Eucharist” only referred to the ceremony, right? You weren’t wrong then? You’re sticking to that?