communion question

[asteroid]

Kendy:

I was raised in the catholic church, but I am now a practicinng protestant. I know catholics who reject the churches teaching sexuality and actively support homosexual activists, I also know catholics who donate the money to planned parenhood to counteract the churches pro-life activities. I know catholics who refuse to give offerings in order to avoid funding pro-life activities. I know catholics who are great supporters of liberation theology. Yet, all these people receive communion, and would get really angry if I received communion eventhough I seem to agree on a lot more of the church moral teachings than they do.

I also know catholics who don’t believe in the real presence, but still receive communions. How much of the church teachings does one have to accept to receive communion?

Just Curious,
Kendy

There are many people who receive communion who shouldn’t.

Tonight is Christmas Eve. The churches will be packed with people, many of whom won’t have been to a service since last Christmas Eve.

Some of these will go up and receive Communion.

They shouldn’t of course.

But what can the priest do? He has no way of knowing if someone is in mortal sin through repeatedly not bothering to show up on a Sunday, or whether they are visiting from another parish, or even if they’ve received the Sacrament of Reconcilation since missing Mass last Sunday.

In the end he has to leave the judgement in the hands of God as to whether they receive life or death and judgement as they receive Jesus.

 

[itsjustdave1988]

Kendy:

Sherlock:

Our concern ought to be to eliminate the dissent and disobedience entirely. QUOTE]

I see the value of that, but I wonder if there are potential pitfalls. It seems to leave no room for the individuals to exercise the conscience and permits church authorities to never seriously engage with the reasons for dissent. Given that the church is made of men, it seems potential dangerous.

I realize I am probably going to get no where with that idea, but I had to ask.

Kendy,

What do you suppose the Sacred Writer had in mind when he asserted…

Heb 13:17 “Obey your leaders and submit to them; for they are keeping watch over your souls, as men who will have to give account. Let them do this joyfully, and not sadly, for that would be of no advantage to you.”

It appears the ecclesiology of the Sacred Writer is not one that asserts, “I don’t need a Church telling me what to do, I have the Bible alone.” On the contrary, Biblical ecclesiology connotes obedience to earthly leaders, ordained pastors of souls, as imperfect as they are.

Certianly, the obedience of Heb 13:17 does connote what St. Thomas Aquinas called “indiscreet obedience,” that is, obedience even in things unlawful, when one’s superior demands something contrary to higher authority.

Would that be the potential pitfall that you are referring to?

Many seem to discard the notion that their pastor is led by the Holy Spirit, practically looking at their pastor with an attitude of skepticism and doubt, waiting to disagree or disregard his teaching at the drop of a hat.

One who takes this view would certainly have trouble following Heb 13:17. In fact, Heb 13:17 becomes virtually meaningless with this attitude. It becomes, “obey only when you agree.” Or, “agree only when he convinces you from the Bible alone.”

Catholics ought to reject such an attitude. Holy Orders mean more than just a college certificate from a seminary. It means a sacramental laying of hands from a episcopal authority that traces its succession back to the apostles. Such an ordination comes from God, not a university, not earthly credentials. It implies a real Divinely-established superior-subordinate relationship for the faithful, one which requires obedience.

Do you suppose that God would have set us up for a fall by demanding in Heb 13:17 that we obey our collective college of ordained bishops with the possibility that they demand from us something damnable? Certainly they can demand from us something silly, something imprudent, something like a cross that is difficult to carry. Yet, isn’t it more reasonable to believe that the Church, what Scripture calls the “pillar and foundation of truth” is that which the Word of God says it is? No matter how often she may stumble, isn’t it Biblical to believe the “pillar” will always be fortified by the hand by God, who will never let her fall, never let her demand of the faithful something damnably contrary to His Divine Will?

I believe St. Catherine of Sienna was correct when she asserted “For divine obedience never prevents us from obedience to the [Pope]: nay, the more perfect the one, the more perfect is the other. And we ought always to be subject to his commands and obedient unto death. However indiscreet obedience to him might seem, and however it should deprive us of mental peace and consolation, we ought to obey; and I consider that to do the opposite is a great imperfection, and deceit of the devil.” (Letter to Brother Antonio of Nizza)

What strikes me is that what Hebrews teaches is completely imcompatible with the Protestant Reformation, which was a revolt against Divinely appointed authority, much like that of Korah’s rebellion warned against by the NT (see Num 16; Jude 11). Didn’t Luther commit Korah’s sin? Didn’t Calvin? Or did they obey as Heb 13:17 demands?

 

[Kendy]

**Certianly, the obedience of Heb 13:17 does connote what St. Thomas Aquinas called “indiscreet obedience,” that is, obedience even in things unlawful, when one’s superior demands something contrary to higher authority.

Would that be the potential pitfall that you are referring to?**

That might be one pitfall, but also the pitfall that one’s leaders might lead you astray. I had a catholic priest tell me that my lesbian feelings were acceptable and a gift from God. I realize that this is not the church’s teaching, but it was at a crucial period when I began to take my faith seriously and his teaching encouraged me to persist in sin. It was the reading of scripture and prayer that undid that damage. So, in this case, I am glad that I eventually rejected the advise of my priest and believed the scriptures.

**Many seem to discard the notion that their pastor is led by the Holy Spirit, practically looking at their pastor with an attitude of skepticism and doubt, waiting to disagree or disregard his teaching at the drop of a hat. **

I don’t know how pervasive this. A lot of time has been spent on this site saying that protestants believe this or that. Perhaps, we need to take a scientific poll. I believe that my pastor has been called by God to be the pastor of the Hyde Park Vineyard Church. I believe that he has been ordianed not just by a seminary degree, but by the laying of hands. I believe that the Holy Spirit guides him. I trust him, and while I am willing to question, it’s only to increase my understanding. Once something happened at church that bothered me and I didn’t think it was biblical. He very calmly sat down with me for an hour and taught me what the scripture teaches about this. I am gald I was not so arrogant that I just walked away to another church, but not so naive that I just buy anything my pastors says. Generally, I follow my pastor’s lead, but ultimately, I am accountable to God not him. So, to a certain extent, I have to take ownership of what I do with my Christian walk.

Yet, isn’t it more reasonable to believe that the Church, what Scripture calls the “pillar and foundation of truth” is that which the Word of God says it is? No matter how often she may stumble, isn’t it Biblical to believe the “pillar” will always be fortified by the hand by God, who will never let her fall, never let her demand of the faithful something damnably contrary to His Divine Will?

I am beginning to realize after spending some time on this site that this isn’t something worth arguing. What you said is not inherently unreasonable. However, I don’t believe it. I think we have different views about what is meant by the word “church.” I think I am part of the church, the body of Christ, and this occurs wherever I am. So, I believe that the pillar will never fall in that the Holy Spirit will contine to bring glory to God through believers, but I am not convinced that only catholics are part of that. I have seen nothing about in the RCC that makes me feel that it is a better representative of the gospel than the other many committed, and hopelessly flawed Christians who are also trying to carry their cross.

I believe St. Catherine of Sienna was correct when she asserted “For divine obedience never prevents us from obedience to the [Pope]: nay, the more perfect the one, the more perfect is the other. And we ought always to be subject to his commands and obedient unto death. However indiscreet obedience to him might seem, and however it should deprive us of mental peace and consolation, we ought to obey; and I consider that to do the opposite is a great imperfection, and deceit of the devil.” (Letter to Brother Antonio of Nizza)

Well, I just don’t believe this. I will pray about it, but right now, I am not convinced of its veracity.

What strikes me is that what Hebrews teaches is completely imcompatible with the Protestant Reformation, which was a revolt against Divinely appointed authority, much like that of Korah’s rebellion warned against by the NT (see Num 16; Jude 11). Didn’t Luther commit Korah’s sin? Didn’t Calvin? Or did they obey as Heb 13:17 demands?

If I recall Luther was excommunicated by the church, he didn’t leave. Sure, he refused to recant of those ideas that the church believed were heretical so he was in deed disobedient. However, this brings me back to blind obedience. The NT teaches us to obey our secular rulers. However, there’s a limit to this. You can’t do this if it means disobeying God. In the same way, I will obey the ordained ministers of my church if they don’t ask me to disobey God. Luther believed that the church hindered his obedience to God. Thus, in my view, he was right to disobey. The only question is was the church indeed a hindrance. If it was, then Luther did the right thing; if the church was not, then Luther was misguided.

Kendy

 

[ThisOne]

Kendy:

I was raised in the catholic church, but I am now a practicinng protestant. I know catholics who reject the churches teaching sexuality and actively support homosexual activists, I also know catholics who donate the money to planned parenhood to counteract the churches pro-life activities. I know catholics who refuse to give offerings in order to avoid funding pro-life activities. I know catholics who are great supporters of liberation theology. Yet, all these people receive communion, and would get really angry if I received communion eventhough I seem to agree on a lot more of the church moral teachings than they do.

I also know catholics who don’t believe in the real presence, but still receive communions. How much of the church teachings does one have to accept to receive communion?

Just Curious,
Kendy

They’re going to have to settle up with Christ when they die, Kendy.

And the Catholic Church teaches that those who “don’t know Christ and His Church” (which can include those who have heard the message, but heard it badly stated) are not necessarily lost.

See usccb.org/catechism/text/pt1sect2chpt3art9p3.htm

(Excerpt of relevant text follows)
"Outside the Church there is no salvation"
**846 **
How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers?335 Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body:

Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.336

**847 **
This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:

Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience—those too may achieve eternal salvation.337

*848 **
"Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men."338

The Catholic Church basically believes that it is at the moment of death that a person can make his or her definitive decision for Christ and prays fervently that all may be saved.

 

[itsjustdave1988]

Kendy,

The only question is was the church indeed a hindrance. If it was, then Luther did the right thing; if the church was not, then Luther was misguided.

I’m sure Korah thought Moses was a hinderance too. However, even if Moses was leading the people in the opposite direction from the promised land at times (and he did), he was the one being led by God to do so, and Korah and his buddies should have simply followed.

Likewise, there is but one ark of salvation, with a chief earthly pastor ordained by Christ, through the laying of hands, through apostolic succession. When it appears that the chief pastor is at times, like Moses, wandering away from the promised land, it is not for the crew to wrest the steering wheel from him by force. If the crew doesn’t like where the pastor is heading, they have the responsibility and obligation to pray about it, and manifest there opinion to him while respecting that it was God who chose him to be the captain of the ark.

There were many fine saints of the Catholic reformation who did exactly as I described. They didn’t reject the Church in favor of their own opinion. They didn’t elevate the magisterium of the conscience above the ordained magisterium of pastors. They didn’t disregard Heb 13:17. However, some reformers at that time were impatient, and jumped ship because they weren’t aware that God sometimes sends Moses through what appears to be aimless wanderings through the desert as a trial, a test of faith.

But the keeper of the keys of Peter is still God’s chosen, even when it appears he’s wandering aimlessly in the eyes of his subordinates. The faithful need not revolt. That’s a sign of unfaithfulness, as one is saying by their Korah-like rebellion that they don’t trust God to guide the faithful, and must intervene on the behalf of the crew because God can’t or won’t. Korah and the Protestant Reformers alike, lacked faith in God’s own hierarchy, and God’s own correction in God’s own time. Instead, they impatiently rebelled against God’s hierarchy, those Divinely ordained to pilot the ark of salvation. That’s like throwing the baby out with the bath water.

God tests our obedience from time to time, and Luther failed that test. One cannot simply wrest the keys from Peter’s successor, flee the barque of Peter and build one’s own ship under the pretense that those familiar with ecclesial history won’t notice that it’s no longer the same historical barque that has its roots in apostolic succession.

In other words, one cannot lay hands upon oneself or have another layman do it and call it “ordained.” Your pastor may be a very good lay minister, but a lay minister he is unless his ordination was validly ministered by a bishop having unbroken succession to the apostles.

 

[Kendy]

itsjustdave1988:

Kendy,

I’m sure Korah thought Moses was a hinderance too. However, even if Moses was leading the people in the opposite direction from the promised land at times (and he did), he was the one being led by God to do so, and Korah and his buddies should have simply followed.

Likewise, there is but one ark of salvation, with a chief earthly pastor ordained by Christ, through the laying of hands, through apostolic succession. When it appears that the chief pastor is at times, like Moses, wandering away from the promised land, it is not for the crew to wrest the steering wheel from him by force. If the crew doesn’t like where the pastor is heading, they have the responsibility and obligation to pray about it, and manifest there opinion to him while respecting that it was God who chose him to be the captain of the ark.

There were many fine saints of the Catholic reformation who did exactly as I described. They didn’t reject the Church in favor of their own opinion. They didn’t elevate the magisterium of the conscience above the ordained magisterium of pastors. They didn’t disregard Heb 13:17. However, some reformers at that time were impatient, and jumped ship because they weren’t aware that God sometimes sends Moses through what appears to be aimless wanderings through the desert as a trial, a test of faith.

But the keeper of the keys of Peter is still God’s chosen, even when it appears he’s wandering aimlessly in the eyes of his subordinates. The faithful need not revolt. That’s a sign of unfaithfulness, as one is saying by their Korah-like rebellion that they don’t trust God to guide the faithful, and must intervene on the behalf of the crew because God can’t or won’t. Korah and the Protestant Reformers alike, lacked faith in God’s own hierarchy, and God’s own correction in God’s own time. Instead, they impatiently rebelled against God’s hierarchy, those Divinely ordained to pilot the ark of salvation. That’s like throwing the baby out with the bath water.

God tests our obedience from time to time, and Luther failed that test. One cannot simply wrest the keys from Peter’s successor, flee the barque of Peter and build one’s own ship under the pretense that those familiar with ecclesial history won’t notice that it’s no longer the same historical barque that has its roots in apostolic succession.

In other words, one cannot lay hands upon oneself or have another layman do it and call it “ordained.” Your pastor may be a very good lay minister, but a lay minister he is unless his ordination was validly ministered by a bishop having unbroken succession to the apostles.

Dave, I have no interest in trying to persuade you that the catholic church and it’s leaders are not called by God to lead the sheep. However, I do know believe that my pastors calling is from the Holy Spirit. The bible says, by their fruits shall ye know them and the Hyde Park Vineyard Church bears good fruit. So, whatever acts of rebellion the reformers committed, I know that God has used protestant churches for his glory and furthering of the gospel message. There are members of my church all over the world ministering to the broken and preaching the gospel. One very Godly young woman is creating schools for street children in South Asia (I can count on my hand the number of people I know who exude this much commitment to the Lord and love for her neighbor.). Another is working with orphans in South America. There’s a couple risking their lives trying to covertly share the gospel in an Islamic country, and there are a few others that I am not thinking of. And then there’s the fact that we are the only church in Hyde Park where homeless people feel welcomed enough to attend in our neighborhood. I know this because when I first moved to Hyde Park, I visited nearly all the churches, and this was one of the reasons I decided to attend the Vineyard. We take the poor you will always have with you very serious. We also take bear each other burdens seriously. When I need rent money, my church members bailed me out, something we do all the time.

So, it looks like Satan intended for ill (creating division in the body), God has used for good. Let’s at least praise Him for that.

I think it would do a lot for Christian unity if the RCC or its members could recognize the validity of the calling on the lives of our ministers. I don’t know how I can take you seriously when you dismiss my pastor as someone foolishly laying hands on himself. It is simply not possible for me to deny the work of the Holy Spirit that I have seen through the healing of the sick, the ministering to the poor, and the commitment to serving God. If God did not call him to be a minister, then Satan did a very foolish thing in amking that call. Either way it’s a point for the kingdom.

God Bless,
Kendy

 

[estesbob]

Kendy:

I think it would do a lot for Christian unity if the RCC or its members could recognize the validity of the calling on the lives of our ministers. I don’t know how I can take you seriously when you dismiss my pastor as someone foolishly laying hands on himself. It is simply not possible for me to deny the work of the Holy Spirit that I have seen through the healing of the sick, the ministering to the poor, and the commitment to serving God. If God did not call him to be a minister, then Satan did a very foolish thing in amking that call. Either way it’s a point for the kingdom.

God Bless,
Kendy

I am always puzzled by this desire for Christian unity. I am blessed to belong to the One True Church-the Church that was founded by Jesus Christ. The Church that is the receptacle fo the TRUTH. The Church who’s ministers can trace their lineage in an unbroken line to Christ himself.

Bearing this in mind any attemp at Christian unity, barring the return to the True Church of our seperated Bretheren, would result in Catholics accepting a watered down version of the TRUTH.

I am sure your Pastor is a fine man. However, being he is seperated from thr One True Church all he can offer you is a pale shadow of the TRUTH compared to of what a minister of the Catholic Church can. Its not the man so much that is the problem-its the message…

 

[itsjustdave1988]

Kendy,

I’m not saying your pastor is not a minister of God. He is simply a lay minister.

“Obey your leaders” (Heb 13:17) is God’s Holy Word which applied to rebellious Catholics in the 1500s too, just as it applied to Catholics today.

You said:

I know catholics who reject the churches teaching sexuality and actively support homosexual activists, I also know catholics who donate the money to planned parenhood to counteract the churches pro-life activities.

It appears you know a lot of Catholics who, like Luther, reject the inspired nature of the Epistle of Hebrews.

 

[scylla]

So if I started a church of my own and it was successful and laid hands on someone would they be sent by God or by me? Would I have been sent if I took it upon myself to start a church as Martin Luther did?

This is not saying that these are not commited Christians who love the Lord and are not spreading the Gospel. But are Presbyterians 100% correct in their doctrine or are people from Vineyard? Was Chuck Smith 100% correct and if so why didn’t Vineyard remain in unity with Calvary Chapel?

Communion is a sign of unity, God(Jesus prayed that we would be one just as He and the Father are one) That is what disturbs Catholics so much is the di-unity.

On aspect of Communion is an assent to unity and one of the things that shows our unity.

I know you love the Lord and I as a Christian invite you to keep doing His will the best you can.

God Bless
Scylla