Communion at Protestant churches

[O.S.Luke]

There are multiple answers to this:

In many of the mainstream protestant churches the clergy there would have no issue whatsoever with a Catholic taking communion. They may ask do you believe this is (or in some cases represents) the body and blood of Christ shed for your sins. As a Catholic you probably would. In some cases the thoughts on communion are very nearly identical. The Catholic Church teaches transubstantiation and the Lutheran Church teaches Consubstantion. Both believe that the true body and blood is present. The Lutherans believe those things co-exist with the actual bread and wine that our senses perceive

Lutherans do NOT embrace consubstantiation - at least not in their official statement. The best definition probably comes from scholar Salmasius in the 17th century:

“Consubstantiation, or fusion of natures, is the commixtion of two substances as it were into one; but it is not this which the followers of Luther believe; for they maintain the co-existence of two substances distinct in two subjects. It is the co-existence, rather, of the two substances than their consubstantiation.”

Indeed, the Augsburg Confession says thus: “That the body and blood of Christ are present with the signs in the Supper substantially and corporeally.” By the classical definitions of the word, that cannot include consubstantiation or impanation.

Pfaff, a former Chancellor of the University of Tübingen in the late 1600’s, went further:

“All ours agree that the body of Christ is not in the Eucharist by act of that finite nature of its own, according to which it is now only in a certain ‘pou’ (somewhere) of the heavens; and this remains that the body of Christ is not in the world, nor in the Eucharist, by diffusion or extension, by expansion or location, by circumscription or natural mode. Yet is the body of Christ really present in the Holy Supper.

“But the inquisitive may ask, How? I answer, our theologians, who have rightly weighed the matter, say that the body and blood of Christ are present in the Holy Supper according to the omnipresence imparted to the flesh of Christ by virtue of the personal union, and are sacramentally united with the Eucharistic symbols, the bread and wine; that is, are so united, that of the divine institution, these symbols are not symbols and figures of an absent thing, but of a thing most present, to wit, the body and blood of Christ, which are not figurative, but most real and substantial. - Lehre and Wehre, II, 2, Feb. 1856, pp. 33-43, from C.F.W. Walther’s Editorials from Lehre und Where, 1981, pp. 15 and following).

Just leave it at “the Body and Blood of Jesus.” That’s easiest - and most faithful.

 

[viper78912]

Perhaps it would help to apply the WWJD (What Would Jesus Do) formula.
Our response is based on our reply to Jesus’ Question:”Who do you say that I Am?” (Matthew16:15)
The Eucharist is medicine and food for the weak. Our secret sins are always before God. (Ps.90:8).Jesus is worshiped in Spirit and Truth. (John4:24)
He Who Comes to Me I Will not cast out. (John6:37)
No one can Come to Me unless the Father Who Sent Me Sent Me Draw him, and I Will Raise him up on the last day”(John6:44).
As Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) says in ‘Journey towards Easter’ page141: No one has the right to excommunicate.’
We should adopt a reductionist, revisionist approach.
A case in point is the First Holy Communion/ The Last Supper. His disciples received the Eucharist, slept at Gethsemane, (Matthew26:26-46), and eventually betrayed Him. (Matthew26:25)
He Revealed Himself to His adversaries, and they “fell to the ground.”(John18:6).

 

[catholick345]

There is some very good information here.