Do you worry about drinking from the chalice?

[tee_eff_em]

Okey - I’m new here, very new. And already I am sorry I even answered this question - forget what I said.
I’ll be more careful in the future what I say.

[user]gloriajean[/user], please don’t let me scare you off and if my post seemed at all hostile or provocative, believe me, that was not my intent and I apologize for having expressed myself badly. :tiphat:

I think you were misunderstood. You said that you would not receive from the Chalice if you had a cold, but I think the person who responded to you responded as though they thought you said that you would.

This sort of misunderstanding is quite common on the Internet. Don’t get shy just because of that.

No, I understood.

[FTR, I am no longer addressing any poster in particular – To reiterate: There are plenty of instances of people making similar claims in this forum and elsewhere – I’ve no need to name names]

I cannot tell you the number of times I have encountered people who say (or write) “I receive from the cup and never get sick” and then in the very next sentence state “But if I am feeling sick, I do not receive from the cup”. And I don’t understand this (either you never get sick, or you sometimes get sick, right?).

Or even people who state “I have never gotten sick from receiving the cup”, but who do not claim to never getting sick from other causes. Well, how do you know? Maybe other folks have stronger constitutions than I, or are more attentive to their day to day interactions – I probably get at least one good cold per year, and I don’t think I could tell you the vector of contagion through which I received it in more than a handful of those occassions. (I can tell you it is probably not the common cup – My parish does not proffer it).

I am not saying people should not receive from the common cup – If that is where your discerment leads you, that is fine – You don’t have to justify it, unless you want to. (I myself sometimes receive when I am at a celebration where it is offered and sometimes do not) But I find the justifications of the sort given above to be kind of funny and nonsensical.

And if I (who am friendly to those who receive the cup) find them so, what must people who think the cup should not be offered think?

:twocents:
tee

 

[gloriajean]

I am defending my Faith in a very secular shopping board, and I am being respected over there. I have toughened up. I just thought over here it would be nicer - I have a ministry over there, which I’ve been doing over a year. I joined here yesterday to be with Catholics who share my faith.

 

[Joe_5859]

Not to derail the thread, but I have a question. Some decline the Precious Blood, because they believe (and the Church teaches) that the host is BOTH species.

That being the case, why does the Priest say “Body of Christ”, instead of “Body and Blood of Christ”, when distributing hosts?

I’ve always wondered about that.

It’s not that the host is both species, it is that Jesus is present whole and entire in each of the species.

Bread more easily lends itself as a sign of Christ’s body and wine more easily lends itself as a sign of Christ’s blood. I would guess that this sign value is why they say “Body of Christ” or “Blood of Christ” but not “Body and Blood of Christ”.

 

[jmcrae]

I cannot tell you the number of times I have encountered people who say (or write) “I receive from the cup and never get sick” and then in the very next sentence state “But if I am feeling sick, I do not receive from the cup”. And I don’t understand this (either you never get sick, or you sometimes get sick, right?).

They probably mean that they never got sick from the cup.

You can count back the time from the first symptoms of a cold, to the 12 hours before, to see where you got it from. If you only go to Mass on Sundays, and you get a cold on a Wednesday, you can know for sure that you didn’t get it at Mass - you got it doing whatever you were doing on Tuesday.

I am not saying people should not receive from the common cup – If that is where your discerment leads you, that is fine – You don’t have to justify it, unless you want to. (I myself sometimes receive when I am at a celebration where it is offered and sometimes do not) But I find the justifications of the sort given above to be kind of funny and nonsensical.

And if I (who am friendly to those who receive the cup) find them so, what must people who think the cup should not be offered think?

Well, and to me it seems nonsensical to think that the Church would ever do anything that would be likely to harm your health, or that Jesus would come to us under the form of something that can hurt you in any way - it seems like an insult to Jesus and to the Church to go about crying “unclean” about the Chalice, as though it were being offered solely to tempt people to make themselves sick.

 

[tee_eff_em]

Well, and to me it seems nonsensical to think that the Church would ever do anything that would be likely to harm your health, or that Jesus would come to us under the form of something that can hurt you in any way

I do not think the Church asks us (in general) to do anything extraordinary that would harm our health. Likewise, I think the Church does not make any claim that her vessels, envirnoment, matter, et cetera are exceptionally free from ordinary risks to our health.

:twocents:
tee

 

[jmcrae]

I do not think the Church asks us (in general) to do anything extraordinary that would harm our health.

Of course not. And there is nothing “extraordinary” about receiving Holy Communion from the Chalice in Church.

Likewise, I think the Church does not make any claim that her vessels, envirnoment, matter, et cetera are exceptionally free from ordinary risks to our health.

Right. It’s just odd that people fixate on the Chalice as an agency of plague, when it’s probably the least likely thing to have germs on it, because of the alcohol.

 

[po18guy]

No! The Blood of Christ gives life toward eternity. Any temporal displeasure that may come through its consumption is for the perfection of the soul. Isn’t this similar to one of the twelve asking Christ to please wash His hands before distributing the Bread of Life? Why do we focus on the humans in front of us, and not on the God before us?

Christ’s peace

 

[oremus]

or that Jesus would come to us under the form of something that can hurt you in any way

Unless one has celiac disease. This was hard for me when first diagnosed 4 years ago, that receiving Our Lord in the host was harming me physically. (Low-gluten hosts are now available.) Thank God for being able to receive from the cup.

 

[po18guy]

Unless one has celiac disease. This was hard for me when first diagnosed 4 years ago, that receiving Our Lord in the host was harming me physically. (Low-gluten hosts are now available.) Thank God for being able to receive from the cup.

Such is God’s grace. Amen!

 

[tee_eff_em]

[ASIDE]

tee_eff_em;3643376:

I do not think the Church asks us (in general) to do anything extraordinary that would harm our health.

Of course not. And there is nothing “extraordinary” about receiving Holy Communion from the Chalice in Church.
When I wrote that, I meant it, but on reflection I need retract it.

When I wrote “extraordinary” I meant in the sense of snake-handling. The Church does ask us to do ordinary things which could endanger our health, like minister to the sick and the dying. The Church also does ask us to do extraordinary things (in exceptional circumstances), eg if we be put in a position to lay down our lives for Christ or his Church. Ergo, I retract the statement.[/ASIDE]

There is nothing extraordinary about receiving via the common cup.

tee

 

[Cara_Serrano]

Unless one has celiac disease. This was hard for me when first diagnosed 4 years ago, that receiving Our Lord in the host was harming me physically. (Low-gluten hosts are now available.) Thank God for being able to receive from the cup.

As I was reading this post, I was wondering if Catholics battling alcoholism receive the Blood of Christ without any ill effects or do they simply abstain? Any comments from those who know?

 

[redrosetea]

Gloriajean ,your opinion is very important to me. You are always so kind to everyone

I wish I felt as safe as you do. I have had a bit of a virus for a couple of weeks ,and I keep thinking I picked it up from the chalice…I have refrained from receiving the wine because I don’t want to infect someone else…My husband also has it, and he never drinks from the chalice…I think I gave it to him

I guess I could have gotten it anywhere, but when you use a common cup I think there are a certain amount of risk of infection

Isn’t the wine from the other chalices poured into Fr’s? I don’t think he uses a common chalice

 

[Muzhik]

Gloriajean, Shalom, and Welcome!

Yes, I think it is very possible for germs and microbes to be transmitted to others through the Precious Blood. I understand that the custom of receiving only the Host began after the Black Plague. I don’t think it happens very often, because I think a lot of people try to be responsible regarding communion. Catholics ARE taught to treat the Precious Body and Blood with respect, aren’t they? (even if they don’t always show it?)

I’ve just been glancing through the messages, so if someone has brought this up, please forgive me. While people are focusing on sharing the cup, no one seems to be considering what happens during the sign of peace. All it takes is for one person to have sneezed or coughed into their hand earlier in the service, and any infections can then be transmitted through the handshake.

FWIW, whenever I’ve wondered about sharing the cup, I think of the people who work with the ill at Lourdes, bathing them, etc. As an act of faith, at the end of the day, each worker drinks a cup of the water that was being used to bathe people.

<><

 

[gloriajean]

And when I had polio at the age of 9, it was so contagious that my parents and everyone else could only visit me thru the window, but the nurses and everyone else could treat me and be close to me, bathe me and everything else. That never made sense to me. This was way before the polio vaccine, back in '49.
When my DH had a bleeding ulcer years ago and didn’t drink any alcohol, he still would drink the Precious blood of Christ because he said it wasn’t wine anymore, it was the Blood of Christ.
Never did him any harm.

 

[Phemie]

As I was reading this post, I was wondering if Catholics battling alcoholism receive the Blood of Christ without any ill effects or do they simply abstain? Any comments from those who know?

The ones I know abstain.

 

[redrosetea]

Gloriajean, Shalom, and Welcome!

FWIW, whenever I’ve wondered about sharing the cup, I think of the people who work with the ill at Lourdes, bathing them, etc. As an act of faith, at the end of the day, each worker drinks a cup of the water that was being used to bathe people.

<><

I would never drink that water…It has nothing to do with not loving God and everything to do with using the brain I was born with

 

[Ghoti]

I hate anecdotal evidence, when someone starts with “I heard somewhere…”

Nevertheless, I’m going to indulge in that now.

I do remember reading in the newspaper about a parish somewhere that opted to stop distributing under both species because of an outbreak of (I believe it was) meningitis (mighta been hep – it was one of the contagious -itises). The outbreak was traced to the cup.

I used to believe that one could not get any illnesses from the Precious Blood – although I don’t know if that was faith or pious superstition. Again, while the Blood may not carry any pathogens, they may very well exist on the cup, or on the cloth the EMHCs use to wipe it. I no longer receive the Blood at Communion; I don’t have to, because it’s not like you’re only getting “half a sacrament”.

As for drinking Lourdes water after it has been bathed in…I think there’s faith, and there’s putting the Lord to the test.

 

[Phemie]

I hate anecdotal evidence, when someone starts with “I heard somewhere…”

Nevertheless, I’m going to indulge in that now.

I do remember reading in the newspaper about a parish somewhere that opted to stop distributing under both species because of an outbreak of (I believe it was) meningitis (mighta been hep – it was one of the contagious -itises). The outbreak was traced to the cup.

There was a case of meningitis in New Brunswick, Canada a few years ago and the public health message went out that the victim had received Communion from the chalice a day or so before. The PSA was put out not because she had contracted meningitis from the Chalice but because she was contagious at the time she received and they believed that everyone who received after her was in danger. All were advised to present themselves to the Public Health Office for prophylactic antibiotics. Nothing ever came of it.

I know that when they had the outbreak of SARS in Toronto, Ontario, the Archdiocese ordered parishes to stop Communion from the Chalice and the Sign of Peace.

 

[Ghoti]

There was a case of meningitis in New Brunswick, Canada a few years ago and the public health message went out that the victim had received Communion from the chalice a day or so before. The PSA was put out not because she had contracted meningitis from the Chalice but because she was contagious at the time she received and they believed that everyone who received after her was in danger. All were advised to present themselves to the Public Health Office for prophylactic antibiotics. Nothing ever came of it.

I know that when they had the outbreak of SARS in Toronto, Ontario, the Archdiocese ordered parishes to stop Communion from the Chalice and the Sign of Peace.

Maybe that was the story I was (poorly) recalling.

At any rate, I only receive the Host now.

 

[Tammy111]

I must confess I always set right up front and notice how many people drink the precious blood before I do

If I am not one of the first I just abstain. I am afraid of picking up someones illness

I guess my faith must be a trifle weak…But I can’t seem to get this idea out of my mind

Am I the only one that feels like this?

Wine/alcohol has been used for years as a disinfectant. That prevents most germs. Also, I simply want to partake in the precious blood.