I believe there are some “dry” Protestant sects which hold that the “wine” shared among Christ and the Disciples was just grape juice. Welch’s Grape Juice, in fact, was developed by adherents of such a sect that did not hold with fermented wine.
As for other sects that do use actual wine, it’s just wine. In Los Angeles, much of the wine used by the Archdiocese is supplied by San Antonio Wines, which still maintains a winery downtown although the actual grapes are brought in from Central California. Besides supplying the Church it’s a typical winery with tours and a gift shop. AFAI understand it’s supposed to be a blessing invoked by the priest which makes the wine suitable for the sacrament, but before that it’s just ordinary wine.
There are always people who want to turn their religion into a tool. Sadly, in America, these people often picked teetotaling as their end. Seriously, who wants to get rid of alchohol?
The wine is any wine that is blessed at the time of communion. They wouldn’t use something produced by a satanic cult of course. A pastor or priest could go into a bar, order the house special , and provide communion for all the people there if he wanted to.
We have the same thing at my protestant church, except for two things: we’ve found it easier to move the people rather than the wine, and all of them are grape juice. They’re pentecostal–they get “drunk in the Spirit” instead.
Our “host” are extremely small crackers. They’re about the size of store-bought croutons, but flat instead of cubical. And I’m not sure they weren’t all purchased pre-millennium
BTW- the only time I’ve ever had alcohol was at communion–but it was an accident, as the grape juice had turned.
The theology of the sacrament is definitely not GQ material – but that’s very loose language for what Christians who believe something happens, believe happens. I’d be willing to get into it in some detail in GD, where witnessing and theological disputes are de rigueur, if you like.
I’ve been to about a dozen different parishes (all in the Northwestern US) and I’ve never seen a mass that didn’t offer both wine and the bread. Is this a cultural difference between nations, or is offering only the host common in the US?
At the United Church of Canada when I was a kid, they used Welch’s grape juice. I don’t know if there was any big historical reason for not using alcoholic wine, or if it was just because it tasted better for the kids (children were encouraged to take communion) or because it was cheaper, or what. They also used cubes of regular bread instead of wafers. Communion happened once every few months, and the trayful of tiny glasses was distributed to the congregation in their seats. (There were little racks for the glasses on the back of each pew, next to the rack for Bibles and hymn books.)
Once, not knowing what it was for, I poured myself a big glass of the Welch’s in the kitchen in the church basement. My parents were… somewhat amused.
I’ve been to Mass in the US in Miami, Orlando, C-dale, Houston, San Francisco and Philadelphia. The only one where wine was offered to the congregation was one in Houston, but it happened to be a Confirmation Mass; I don’t know whether that particular parish would offer the two forms on other days. As you see, in my experience it is rare enough that I remember it.
Notice that this is not about whether both forms were consecrated (they always are), but about whether both were given to the congregation.
Weird. I haven’t been to many Catholic churches in the US (Chicago area and some in Wisconsin) but the wine was offered to the congregation. Some opted to skip, especially with the greater awareness about influenza and such at one point, but I think “dipping” was one of the offered alternatives.
I grew up in a Protestant (Calvinist) church that used grape juice only. :mad:
Whenever you have been to a Catholic church, was it a special celebration such as weddings, baptisms, funerals, first communions? It is more common to offer both species in such cases; it is also common when the congregation is small.
When we travel, I often attend mass with my very Catholic wife, and I’ve also almost always encountered both species both at Saturday vigil mass and at Sunday mass. Not being able to take Communion myself, I have lots of time to watch others do so. In the past year, I can remember seeing the chalice offered in Chicago; McLean, Va.; Sacramento; Minot, N.D.; Milwaukee, and in churches ranging from small parishes to cathedrals.
An exception was last November at the cathedral in Savannah, during the H1N1 scare.
Not encountering the wine at Communion (on Sunday, at least) is odd enough to her that she mentions it when it happens.
I have no idea why our experiences are so different.
You’d think so, but several years ago I was visiting an Episcopal church in Massachusetts and the communion wine was white. Or, more literally, yellow. I’m not much of a wine expert so I can’t tell you what kind it was, but when we got back to the pew after partaking, my wife whispered to me, “I think we just celebrated with the body and urine of Christ.”
In our parish in Sacramento, CA, we get very, very sweet white wine. The wine is offered at Saturday evening, and all the Sunday masses, but not at the 8am daily mass.
Mostly Sunday services on holidays, now that I think about it. I don’t remember what the communion consisted of at our wedding, as I couldn’t partake. I’ll have to ask my husband what the usual communion consists of at his church.
I grew up in the ELCA. 95% of the communion cups were filled with red table wine, poured out of a 1 gallon jug kept in the kitchen. There were also a couple of cups filled with white grape juice on each tray, for anyone that wanted that instead. The cups were filled by whomever had volunteered that day.
Now the host/bread, that definiately was a specialty item. Round white flat crackers with a design stamped on the top. They were slightly more tasty than the glue on the back of an envelope, but not much.
I think there might have been a shift towards wine being offered more often, in the past few decades. When I was a kid, it seemed to be the norm that most churches only offered the bread, except on big occasions like Christmas, Easter, or First Communion. Now, though, it seems like most parishes will have both, every week.
On the bread question, for it to be valid and licit, it has to have no other ingredients than flour and water (in particular, no leavening). Matzo or tortilla would be fine; the use of the little round wafers that taste like styrofoam is just a matter of habit. In practice, many parishes ignore the unleavened requirement, which is valid but not licit (that is to say, the belief of the Church is that leavened bread which is consecrated in the proper way still becomes the Body and Blood of Christ, but you’re still not supposed to do it that way).
