Communion Wafer Question
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Anonymous
| Read Eucharist by Robert Barron. Im a cradle Catholic who has tried to grow in devoutness and it blows my mind how terrible my catechesis was |
Anonymous
|
It’s because people need a crutch and can’t take personal responsibility. They want the drug to suppress their appetite because they have no self control.
They see the AYCE Buffet and know they shouldn’t eat it all but they pig out anyways. Medication helps supress that urge. So you go on vacay and pig out and start the medication again. That’s why people are on it for life. They don’t want to change their habits |
Anonymous
They don't. They re-enact the last supper reinforcing that all of us christians come to the same table and eat together and create a better world together. |
Anonymous
This kind of begs the question to OP who seems to suggest they are not Catholic: when did you partake in Catholic communion? |
Anonymous
| It’s usually a volunteer Parishioner in charge if the bread ministry. We have actual bread for communion with wafers in case we run out. |
Anonymous
Happy warm thoughts, but hardly Catholic theology. |
Anonymous
Wrong thread? |
Anonymous
|
From the catechism:
"279. What are the essential and necessary elements for celebrating the Eucharist? 1412 The essential elements are wheat bread and grape wine." The author of the Gospel of John says the death of Christ was the day before Passover, but the authors of the other gospels say the last supper was Passover, so it could have been either kind of bread, but the Catholic Church says it most probably was unleavened. (three against one, I guess). https://uscatholic.org/articles/201306/can-we-use-real-bread-at-mass/ Our hippie Catholic church in the 70s used regular bread sometimes (and folk music), but they really weren't supposed to (unless there was a shortage, which is possible given that this was the era of long lines at the gas pump and shortages of everything else). The Magesterium does say it should be unleavened bread. However, the Magisterium also states that while wheat is essential, unleavened is not, if you don't have it: "Unleavened Bread Not Essential This quality of the bread, however, is not to be deemed so essential that, if it be wanting, the Sacrament cannot exist; for both kinds are called by the one name and have the true and proper nature of bread. No one, however, is at liberty on his own private authority, or rather presumption, to transgress the laudable rite of his Church. And such departure is the less warrantable in priests of the Latin Church, expressly obliged as they are by the supreme Pontiffs, to consecrate the sacred mysteries with unleavened bread only." https://catholiclibrary.org/library/view?docId=/Magisterium-EN/XCT.290.html&chunk.id=00000669 The tradition of wafter hosts was started by French monks in the 7th Century. That is tradition, not essential either. |
Anonymous
Sure, but like…as adults, we all understand that it’s a wafer that the parish bought wholesale somewhere and then said a prayer over. We understand that it is not literally a piece of Jesus’ body that we are consuming. |
Anonymous
No, actually, “we” don’t understand anything of the kind. It was bread before being transubstantiated. Afterward it is not. Catholic (and Orthodox) theology are very clear. |
Anonymous
So you actually believe that when a priest speaks a few words over the wafers he bought on Amazon, it becomes Jesus’ body? |
Anonymous
| My church (Presbyterian) used matzah. |
Anonymous
First, they don’t get them on Amazon. They typically come from religious suppliers (Cavanaugh is a big brand), although some still come from (typically cloistered) convents of nuns who make and sell altar bread to support themselves. It is important that they be from a reliable source so that there is no adulteration with non-wheat flour, additives, flavoring, oil, etc. Second, they’re really not called “wafers,” at least by Catholics, but rather “hosts,” from the Latin “hostia” (victim), or more anciently “oblata” from the Latin word for “oblation” (offering/sacrifice). Both words emphasize Christ’s role as the perfect sacrificial victim in the Mass. Finally, yes, I (along with Catholics through time and across the ages who accept the Church’s immemorial teachings) believe, profess and hold to be true that through a miraculous change in substance, the bread and wine offered at Mass become by the action of the Holy Spirit and the intention and words of the priest the body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus, the Christ, the second person of the Holy Trinity, God. Even in this poorly enlightened age, I find it remarkable that a person (if this question is serious) would ask if this is what Catholics believe. I’d have thought it was common knowledge regardless of anyone’s religious affiliation. |
Anonymous
| Please remove this post. |
Anonymous
+1. |