Frequency of Eucharist in different churches

Member of a United Methodist church. Methodist isn’t part of the name, so unless you read deeper about the church, you’d probably think it was a non-denominational church when visiting. We hold an open-communion at every service, wafers (with gluten free offered at one station) and grape juice through intinction (dipping your wafer into the chalice before eating).

While Catholics may be surprised at the lack of frequency of eucharist in Protestant churches, conversely non-Catholics are surprised at the lack of emphasis on the preaching (length, quality) in Catholic churches. The way I’ve heard this summarized is that Protestants go to church for the preaching while Catholics go to church for the sacraments especially the Eucharist.

As for how frequently a Catholic church might celebrate the Eucharist on a weekday: Quiapo Church in Manila (full name is Minor Basilica of the Black Nazarene and St John the Baptist) on weekdays has 9 masses.

I grew up in a small town, in a Southern Baptist church. I don’t recall exactly how frequently we did communion, but I’d guess a few times a year. Someone mentioned six previously and that sounds about right.

But it’s not a big deal to Baptists - they don’t view the grape juice and bread as literally consuming Jesus, it’s just a commemoration of an important event to Christianity, the Last Supper.

Another Missouri Synod Lutheran (not any longer, but whatever) checking in:

We had services three times on Sundays (two morning services and an evening service, and every Wednesday night, and communion (it was only called Eucharist in the bulletin) was offered at every service. The pastor team also went out into the community to members who were ill (either temporarily or permanently) and administered the sacrament to those people on whatever day they managed to get to them.

I remember being shocked when I spent a few weeks with a Catholic relative up north and they attended evening services EVERY FREAKING NIGHT and had the sacrament available at each one. I was ALSO shocked when I started attending some sort of Pentecostal church with my mother and they were proud of themselves for having it MONTHLY instead of only on the high holy days.

Parenthetical note, since it’s come up a couple of times:

Methodists (among other churches, often more conservative ones) use grape juice rather than wine in communion. Pasteurized grape juice was developed by a gentleman named Thomas Welch, who was a Methodist and wanted to be able to provide unfermented grape juice for churches. :smiley:

One thing that’s amused me about being a member of a fairly liberal Methodist church: we use grape juice at communion, and no alcohol is permitted in the church building. But, after church, a number of us go out to an Irish pub for lunch, and have beers.

And to Catholics, it’s an important event because it instituted the sacrament of the Eucharist.

Possibly of interest.

I grew up Presbyterian. My church had communion (I don’t think it was ever referred to as the Eucharist) a few times a year. Six, as others have mentioned might be a good guess. My family was fairly religious, but I stopped believing and stopped attending services when I went to college. When I was in graduate school, I met the woman I married. I attended Catholic services sometimes with her and was surprised they always had communion though I didn’t partake.

It was a college chapel so many faiths used it. I was surprised when, on Ecumenical Sunday, the priest said “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me whenever you worship.” I had never heard those last three words before even at the previous Catholic services at the chapel, but it did seem to explain why Catholics had communion at every service.

Of course I couldn’t leave it there. I looked in the Bible and could not find that phrase. (I don’t know if I found it in Luke or 1st Corinthians and doubt I looked past my first finding and we didn’t have the internet making such searches so easy in those days.) My wife and I were attending pre-Cana at the time with the same priest so in class I called him on it saying, I thought was not proper to amend the quote to point out differences in practice on Ecumenical Sunday.

Ahh youth.

Episcopalian here. Holy Eucharist is celebrated at all services. We go to early service. Sing a few hymns, say the Apostles Creed, listen to a 10 minute sermon, take Holy Communion and we are done.

Yep, no limit. But more than once per day is pretty rare these days. There is a RCC a couple blocks from my house and they have a morning Mass everyday, with Eucharist. Every day, including Saturday. Actually, twice on Saturday because they do the 5PM Mass that counts as a Sunday observance.

As a kid, when I went to weekday Mass, there was no sermon at all. Just the liturgy ( which is the same stuff every Mass) and, of course, communion. Yeah, we thought of going to Mass mainly to take Communion, but it was still compulsory either way.

I grew up Catholic, but I can’t say that I’ve ever heard those final three words appended to that particular prayer, so I’d agree that it sounds like it was that particular priest (or church) ad-libbing.

I heard this joke yesterday:

Q: What does it mean when a Baptist preacher looks at his watch during the sermon?
A: Absolutely nothing.

Yeah, the only place in the liturgy with space made for the priest to preach is the homily after the Gospel reading. God knows I wore out a lot of missalettes trying to stay awake during the homily as a kid.

Definitely ad-libbing (a no-no). The former translation and new one are below and neither one adds that part.
Before he was given up to death, a death he freely accepted, he took bread and gave you thanks, He broke the bread, gave it to his disciples, and said:
Take this, all of you, and eat it;
this is my body which will be given up for you.
When the supper was ended, he took the cup. Again he gave you thanks and praise, gave the cup to his disciples, and said:
Take this, all of you, and drink from it;
this is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for all so that sins may be forgiven. Do this in memory of me.


on the day before he was to suffer,
he took bread in his holy and venerable hands,
and with eyes raised to heaven
to you, o God, his almighty Father,
giving you thanks, he said the blessing,
broke the bread
and gave it to his disciples, saying:
take this, all of you, and eat of it,
for this is my Body,
which will be given up for you.
in a similar way, when supper was ended,
he took this precious chalice
in his holy and venerable hands,
and once more giving you thanks, he said the blessing
and gave the chalice to his disciples, saying:
take this, all of you, and drink from it,
for this is the chalice of my Blood,
the Blood of the new and eternal covenant,
which will be poured out for you and for many
for the forgiveness of sins.
Do this in memory of me.

Actually, the Catholic liturgy is a bit different for the daily masses than for the Sunday. If nothing else, Sunday’s liturgy will include two non-Gospel readings, while a daily mass will only include one. Daily mass will also tend to include fewer songs, a shorter sermon, and so on, but those are less official. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a church that omits the sermon entirely on weekdays, but it wouldn’t surprise me (often, it’s only a few sentences). The net result is that a Sunday mass is usually about 50 minutes to an hour, but a daily is only 20-30 minutes.

The large Catholic parishes I attended around 1960 had several masses each weekday. Every half hour starting at 6:30 am through 8:30 am, IIRC. No sermon at all. The larger of those parishes still has 3 masses each weekday.

Yeah, but to those of us who are, or who were raised Catholic, anyone who isn’t Catholic, or Orthodox is considered to be Protestant. (And is, of course, going to Hell) :wink:

Most Catholics probably consider Episcopalians to be Protestants (and many Protestants consider them Catholics), but even Catholics will generally put the Jehova’s Witnesses, Latter-Day Saints, Christian Scientists, and the like in a different category.

I interpreted at an Episcopal church that offered communion at all its Sunday services, and it had three* (the third one was interpreted) and has daily services with communion every day but Saturday. If a Deaf person wanted to go, they were supposed to request an interpreter 48 hours in advance, and then the church would call me. It usually happened that they called me at home instead about an hour before, and if I was free, I’d call the church, and say “Cool with you?” (ie, “will you pay me?”)-- answer always yes.

The priest told me that people were supposed to receive communion only once per day, so if for some reason a person attended two Sunday services, they weren’t supposed to take communion at both of them.

I know it’s not protestant, but just FYI, I know that the Greek Orthodox church offers the Eucharist every Sunday, but not every person participates, because to participate requires preparation, including abstaining from meat for, IIRC, three days before.

*They had a bunch of different liturgies. They used an obsolete one with an old prayerbook that old people who didn’t like the new prayerbook went to first, and a couple of younger (middle aged) people who didn’t like women priests, because this services the church’s woman priest absented herself from. The second one used all modern language from the regular prayerbook, and the third one used more Elizabethan-like language also from the regular prayerbook. I still have the prayerbook they gave me when I worked there. It’s really interesting, because it has all kinds of commentary on the history of the liturgy.

I don’t know about the GOC, but in RCC tradition, you don’t take communion if you have an unconfessed mortal sin. When I was a kid, the other rule was you had to fast (no food at all) from midnight the day before. Then they made it 3 hours. I don’t know what it is now.

50-60 minutes.