I am Going to My First Roman Catholic Mass Tomorrow

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It’s different than the Orthodox, they HAVE valid sacraments, Anglicans do not, therefore, Orthodox faithful have received thier first Eucharist, Anglicans have not, and the USCCB Code is obviously a different translation that of the Holy See’s website
 
Logically, this issue makes no sence, why should an Anglican want to receive at a Catholic Church? When they could go to a different protestant denomination? They may believe that we have valid Orders, (of course, because we’ve been here the longest), and make a profession of faith, but, (unless of a GRAVE matter) one has to make a profession of the ONE, HOLY, CATHOLIC, and APOSTOLIC, faith in the Catholic Church, in full communion with Rome, in order to receive the Eucharist licitly, this decision should not be made only by the pastor.
 
JimR-OCDS said:
Canon law says that its the ordinary, i.e. the Bishop can give permission. That Bishop can give the decision making authority on this issue to the priest, especially if the Bishop knows the priest well enough to trust his decision. Pastors don’t operate in a vacuum. They’re usually well connected with their Bishop.

In this case, you have no proof that the priest is in error, and the statement is merely your assumption.

My proof is Canon Law, Jim. The Eucharist is NOT an arbitrary thing whereby at some whim a bishop or a priest can offer to a non-Catholic.

The priest is in grave error and if he got the “OK” from the bishop then there are two in grave error.

There are great concerns by many of us as to the laxity of attitude towards the actual Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Savior.

The distribution of the Eucharist to a non-Catholic borders on sacrilege. Not the recipient but the priest; he knows better and has no authority to do that. He will stand in Judgment if not repented of…it is in his best interest to seek forgiveness. (The bishop too, if he had a part in this).

Jim
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totustuus2345 said:
thank you for agreeing with me…

XC
Patrick
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I read your personal profile, Totustuus, and I can’t help but believe that your closeness to the Eucharist and devotion to IT comes from being just a few feet away just as Our Lord descends from Heaven and immerses Himself into the Bread and Wine on the altar at Consecration.

I get the feeling you are special to Him. The Eucharist is our way to eternal life. It is the greatest gift we can possibly be given in our redemption.

You are defending the Sacrament and it is being noted by all of the angels above. It could be your mission in life is to accent the Sacrament and inculcate others of the mystical and loving gift we are given.
 
totustuus2345 said:
Logically, this issue makes no sence, why should an Anglican want to receive at a Catholic Church? When they could go to a different protestant denomination? They may believe that we have valid Orders, (of course, because we’ve been here the longest), and make a profession of faith, but, (unless of a GRAVE matter) one has to make a profession of the ONE, HOLY, CATHOLIC, and APOSTOLIC, faith in the Catholic Church, in full communion with Rome, in order to receive the Eucharist licitly, this decision should not be made only by the pastor.
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Have you ever been to a ‘Protestant’ service (other than Lutheran)? The Communion is merely symbolic and is not the focal point of the service.

My reasons for wanting to attend a Roman Catholic Mass and receive the Eucharist:
  1. I (as an Anglican) recognize the Holy Orders, Apostolic Succession and Sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church as being valid
  2. The liturgy at a Roman Catholic Mass is very similar to at an Anglican Eucharist (after all, the Anglican Book of Common Prayer is based on the Pre-Reformation Latin/Sarum Rite)
  3. I believe in the Real Presece in the Eucharist and that such a Real Presence exists in the Roman Catholic Sacrament
  4. I believe in the Nicene Creed’s ‘One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church’ and believe that the Roman Catholic Church is a valid expression of the OHCAC
Prior to the Mass, I made sure I was in a state of grace by Roman Catholic standards (I actually received Reconciliation minutes prior to the beginning of the Mass); also, I am validly Baptized and believe in the Real Presence.
 
nsper7 said:
Have you ever been to a ‘Protestant’ service (other than Lutheran)? The Communion is merely symbolic and is not the focal point of the service.

My reasons for wanting to attend a Roman Catholic Mass and receive the Eucharist:
  1. I (as an Anglican) recognize the Holy Orders, Apostolic Succession and Sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church as being valid
  2. The liturgy at a Roman Catholic Mass is very similar to at an Anglican Eucharist (after all, the Anglican Book of Common Prayer is based on the Pre-Reformation Latin/Sarum Rite)
  3. I believe in the Real Presece in the Eucharist and that such a Real Presence exists in the Roman Catholic Sacrament
  4. I believe in the Nicene Creed’s ‘One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church’ and believe that the Roman Catholic Church is a valid expression of the OHCAC
Prior to the Mass, I made sure I was in a state of grace by Roman Catholic standards (I actually received Reconciliation minutes prior to the beginning of the Mass); also, I am validly Baptized and believe in the Real Presence.
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Remove all controversy and just go to a parish, become a catechumen; learn the inner beauty of the Church, its history, its saints, its sacraments and become one of us.

As it is now you are “betwixt and between.” You will be accepted and your name enrolled in the Book of Life. You will grow in the Faith if you do this.
 
nsper7 said:
Have you ever been to a ‘Protestant’ service (other than Lutheran)? The Communion is merely symbolic and is not the focal point of the service.

My reasons for wanting to attend a Roman Catholic Mass and receive the Eucharist:
  1. I (as an Anglican) recognize the Holy Orders, Apostolic Succession and Sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church as being valid
  2. The liturgy at a Roman Catholic Mass is very similar to at an Anglican Eucharist (after all, the Anglican Book of Common Prayer is based on the Pre-Reformation Latin/Sarum Rite)
  3. I believe in the Real Presece in the Eucharist and that such a Real Presence exists in the Roman Catholic Sacrament
  4. I believe in the Nicene Creed’s ‘One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church’ and believe that the Roman Catholic Church is a valid expression of the OHCAC
Prior to the Mass, I made sure I was in a state of grace by Roman Catholic standards (I actually received Reconciliation minutes prior to the beginning of the Mass); also, I am validly Baptized and believe in the Real Presence.
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This is all good, but you still are not a Roman Catholic, in full communion, you will return to the Anglican Service eventually, right? This is the problem, by the Catholic Church’s teaching, you are not a pracicing Roman Catholic, and you probably didn’t confess “I missed Mass on all of the Sundays that I attended my Anglican service” missing Mass on a Holy Day of Obligation i.e. Sunday, is a mortal sin in the Catholic Church, and the Church does not consider your Eucharist Valid.

I implore you, the Eucharist is the greatest gift that God has given us, please, don’t receive the Eucharist in the Church unless you become Catholic, out of respect, us Catholics take grave offence to this…

XC
Pat
 
saylo said:
I read your personal profile, Totustuus, and I can’t help but believe that your closeness to the Eucharist and devotion to IT comes from being just a few feet away just as Our Lord descends from Heaven and immerses Himself into the Bread and Wine on the altar at Consecration.

I get the feeling you are special to Him. The Eucharist is our way to eternal life. It is the greatest gift we can possibly be given in our redemption.

You are defending the Sacrament and it is being noted by all of the angels above. It could be your mission in life is to accent the Sacrament and inculcate others of the mystical and loving gift we are given.
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Thank you, pray for me.
 
The liturgy at a Roman Catholic Mass is very similar to at an Anglican

You mean that the Anglican service is very similar to the Roman Catholic Mass.
Remember: we were here first…
 
totustuus2345 said:
The liturgy at a Roman Catholic Mass is very similar to at an Anglican

You mean that the Anglican service is very similar to the Roman Catholic Mass.
Remember: we were here first…
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Same difference. Remember that I experienced an Anglican Eucharist before I experienced a Roman Catholic Mass. Maybe I am biased, but I do like the Anglican Eucharistic liturgy better (although I do not deny the effectiveness or validity of the liturgy of the Roman Catholic Mass).

And I acknowledge Roman Catholics ‘were here first’. Historically, I do believe that the Roman Catholic Church was the primary (if not singular) expression of the ‘One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church’ prior to the Great Schism.
 
JimR-OCDS said:
totustuus

I didn’t misquote anything. I copied and pasted it from the USCCB website.

Many Bishops give the priest that serve under them, the authority to make such decisions. I have seen times where the priest has more expertise on the issue than the Bishop. I’ve seen cases where the parish priests are theologians and liturgist, who the Bishops consult for on issues.

My confessor, who is now a pastor of a parish, was once the head of the theology department at the local Catholic College.
He got tired of the job and asked to be assigned to a parish.

Don’t assume that the OP’s priest didn’t have permission to make such a decision, or that he doesn’t know what he’s doing.

My advice to the OP is, go by what the pastor at the parish you’re attending tells you.

Jim
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My advice to the OP is, go by what the pastor at the parish you’re attending tells you.
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These are my thoughts, also.

I really and truly wonder what exactly The Lord thinks about all these exacting rules and regulations and the great burden they can be…and the complexity and confusion of them for simple everyday people. I truly wonder where is Jesus at times who was often found dining in the company of sinners, who said that He came for sinners…and who railed against the pharisees for all their rules and regulations which burdened the people and which missed the whole point of The Law - Love. The issue too in the parable of the Good Samaritan is that the Samaritan acted out of care and concern, ignoring his own religious laws.
Jesus when he instructed his apostles to eat the ears of corn on the Sabbath (forbidden under Jewish Law on The Sabbath) spoke of David who at the bread in the Temple and also forbidden. Jesus was sort of saying to His apostles…Oh don’t be so stupidly scrupulous - go and pick and eat the corn. You are hungry for goodness sake. And anyway I am Lord of The Sabbath and if I wanna break rules, then I will. Are we or are we not united to Jesus through Grace?
As I read all these arguments over the law…it reminds me of the pharisees who were continually arguing the finer points of law, and the attitude of Jesus to them - consistently trying to point out that they were missing the core of matters and the whole point of The Law, and simply because The Law for them had become an end in itself. The underlying principal was that if one kept The Law, one had a free pass to Heaven.
St. Paul, however, pointed out for us that all - the only thing - The Law can tell us/dp for us is that we are sinners…for when I keep one law I am remiss in another.
 
BarbaraTherese said:
These are my thoughts, also.

I really and truly wonder what exactly The Lord thinks about all these exacting rules and regulations and the great burden they can be…and the complexity and confusion of them for simple everyday people. I truly wonder where is Jesus at times who was often found dining in the company of sinners, who said that He came for sinners…and who railed against the pharisees for all their rules and regulations which burdened the people and which missed the whole point of The Law - Love. The issue too in the parable of the Good Samaritan is that the Samaritan acted out of care and concern, ignoring his own religious laws.
Jesus when he instructed his apostles to eat the ears of corn on the Sabbath (forbidden under Jewish Law on The Sabbath) spoke of David who at the bread in the Temple and also forbidden. Jesus was sort of saying to His apostles…Oh don’t be so stupidly scrupulous - go and pick and eat the corn. You are hungry for goodness sake. And anyway I am Lord of The Sabbath and if I wanna break rules, then I will. Are we or are we not united to Jesus through Grace?
As I read all these arguments over the law…it reminds me of the pharisees who were continually arguing the finer points of law, and the attitude of Jesus to them - consistently trying to point out that they were missing the core of matters and the whole point of The Law, and simply because The Law for them had become an end in itself.
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Very nonchalant perception of the Holy Euharist.
 
saylo said:
Very nonchalant perception of the Holy Euharist.
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…“judge not that you may not be judged”…“man judges by appearances, but The Lord knows the heart”…

The Blessed Eucharist is that same Jesus that walked our earth some 2000 odd years ago and remains Truly God and truly man…

Can you see from my Post how I am quoting to you the Law of Scripture, and at the one and the same time breaking The Law - because I too am judging you. I can see the splinter in your eye…but what about the log in my own.
As St. Paul pointed out…all The Law is going to do for us is point out to us that we cannot keep The Law to perfection and will always be in contradiction of it - breaking it somewhere. Our justification hence can never be through The Law or laws…

This is the mentality, I believe, that has crept into Catholicism in this instance and through all our rules and regulations laws…bow once on Tuesday, Only drink water in the mornings Friday etc. etc. …keep these and bingo “Free Pass to The Pearly Gates”…and it is not our fault, our culpability. It is what the law is doing to us …and in the process with all these rules and regulations, laws, we are alienating simple and ordinary people seeking the meaning of life (or Truth) from Catholicism in many cases…
 
BarbaraTherese said:
These are my thoughts, also.

I really and truly wonder what exactly The Lord thinks about all these exacting rules and regulations and the great burden they can be…and the complexity and confusion of them for simple everyday people. I truly wonder where is Jesus at times who was often found dining in the company of sinners, who said that He came for sinners…and who railed against the pharisees for all their rules and regulations which burdened the people and which missed the whole point of The Law - Love. The issue too in the parable of the Good Samaritan is that the Samaritan acted out of care and concern, ignoring his own religious laws.
Jesus when he instructed his apostles to eat the ears of corn on the Sabbath (forbidden under Jewish Law on The Sabbath) spoke of David who at the bread in the Temple and also forbidden. Jesus was sort of saying to His apostles…Oh don’t be so stupidly scrupulous - go and pick and eat the corn. You are hungry for goodness sake. And anyway I am Lord of The Sabbath and if I wanna break rules, then I will. Are we or are we not united to Jesus through Grace?
As I read all these arguments over the law…it reminds me of the pharisees who were continually arguing the finer points of law, and the attitude of Jesus to them - consistently trying to point out that they were missing the core of matters and the whole point of The Law, and simply because The Law for them had become an end in itself. The underlying principal was that if one kept The Law, one had a free pass to Heaven.
St. Paul, however, pointed out for us that all - the only thing - The Law can tell us/dp for us is that we are sinners…for when I keep one law I am remiss in another.
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Yes, but Jesus also said,

“If you love me keep my commandments”

And let’s not forget the words of the Psalmist David himself:

“Teach me the demands of your precepts, and I will keep them to the end”
-119:33
 
Thank you for the response, totustuus2345.
I did edit my post and you may not have read the conclusion.

And what is the commandment that Jesus gave to us “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another” And when the lawyer is asked by Jesus what is the Law, he replies “that you love The Lord your God with your whole heart and your whole soul and your neighbour as yourself. This is The Law and The Prophets” and Jesus replies that he is correct and looks upon him with love.

I am not saying abolish all laws. For Jesus Himself said that he had not come to abolish the Law and The Prophets, but to bring them to fulfillment. Now we cannot keep The Law as I pointed out in my previous post…but He can and did, hence our justification is in Him, through unity with Him in Grace.

No, I am not saying abolish The Law and our laws etc., but we must not and cannot make them ends in themselves…and this often is what we are doing. We fail to love and be concerned about the other pointing out points of law that must be observed and interested not in the person and their needs etc., only that The Law is observed… - and cannot see that in observing The Law, we do in fact break The Law. We are in fact being pharisee like that Jesus railed against.

This does present a quandry and a conflict. What am I to do? If I keep this law, then I break that law. And this is exactly what St. Paul pointed out to us re The Law - all it can do for us is tell us that we are indeed sinners because we cannot keep The Law and stand hence under God’s Judgement. We need to be people of prayer, much prayer, and humility, and to ask The Holy Spirit to “teach us all things” and to be people of balanced spirituality…and to humbly admit that we are in a quandry and conflict and over The Law. The thing about keeping the law is that it gives me a sense of security…I am safe because I am keeping the law…and this means, to keep me in my sense of safety and security…that I have to point out to that other that they are breaking the law and must keep it like me. This then, if I went further into it, introduces the subject of our “herding instinct”.

Under The Law I stand under God’s Judgement and so, in Grace, I claim Jesus as my Justification and God willed and accepted this through His life, death and resurrection. Jesus is our Justification under God and The Law. And if I am to claim Jesus as my Justification, then I need to listen and heed well all He had to say in The Gospels and Scripture. For The Old Testament is pointing to Jesus as it were and The New Testament in Jesus fulfills the Old, which is The Law and The Prophets.
 
Receiving the Eucharist sacreligiously is not loving Christ as he commanded, it is an act ob disobediance…
Love is the empting of oneself into another, and this includes obediance.

Blessings upon you all

Pat
 
totustuus2345 said:
Receiving the Eucharist sacreligiously is not loving Christ as he commanded, it is an act ob disobediance…
Love is the empting of oneself into another, and this includes obediance.

Blessings upon you all

Pat
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If I receive the Blessed Eucharist in the state of mortal sin, then I am in fact committing another mortal sin and a most serious one. My soul is destined thereby, without repentance, to Hell. Even so, I need to recognize personally my very real and true unworthiness to receive The Blessed Eucharist ever or at any time, under any and all circumstances: “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word, and I shall be healed”. It is an astounding and stunning matter that though this is very true, The Lord ardently desires with Overwhelming Love to be united to us in Love and through reception of His Body and Blood in The Blessed Eucharist. This is an amazing and awesome matter.

To commit a mortal sin, three clear conditions must be present at the time of comitting a mortal sin:
I must recognise that grave matter is indeed involved
I must in that knowledge and in complete freedom consent/will to commit that grave matter anyway either by word, thought, deed or omission.

Obedience to The Lord is a very important virtue indeed and is one of the evangelical counsels, and underlying it or its foundation is humility - a real recognition of The Lord as the one who must increase, and I decrease. I was reading yesterday a beautiful homily on John The Baptist (and in a lesser way in this particular homily, St.Paul)on this theme - from one of the Church Fathers, I will try to find it in my files and post it at some later point. John was the central theme, but quoting the similarities to St. Paul. And The Holy Father has declared this year as The Yeaer of St. Paul.

How can I know if I really love God? “How can you say you love God whom you cannot see, if you do not love your neighbour whom you can” (often I quote from memory, but I can dig up the actual reference if needed). Who is my neighbour then?..I think we are all very familiar with the parable of The Good Samaritan…but their are quite a few more lessons from Jesus in this parable than identifying one’s neighbour.

Blessings and regards…Barb:)

Edit: The homily on John The Baptist:here
Analysis of Parable of The Good Samaritan. Not a Catholic document but does give quite a few interesting thoughts to ponder that are not contrary to Church Teaching, which I uphold.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_good_Samaritan
 
For any interested, a conscise and simple explanation of the term “herding instinct” here
I am not proposing it as Catholic Doctrine or teaching. It is an interesting concept. Another interesting concept is Pope Paul VI’s interpretation of the word “dialogue” which can be found in this article: here
 
Hi Nsper7…Been out for a walk and amazing what fresh can do! I think I am guilty of dragging this thread totally off topic or “hijacking the thread”.:o
It occured to me while out and thinking of your queries, if I were you and still unable to settle my questions, I would either speak with a priest, or ring my Catholic diocesan offices and explain in outline my problem. They should either be able to put you through to someone who can from an educated standpoint give you your answers, or they will give you the telephone number of someone who can.
Sometimes if I have a problem and am confused…the more different sources I seek answers or advice from, the more confused I can get. At some point I have to settle on a decision and carry it through. If at some later point I discover I have done the wrong thing but in good faith and in a sincere heart, I dont see the flames of Hell before me, I would simply go to Confession (or talk to The Lord about it if not a serious error). Although personally I find Confession a great source of Peace be matters venial or mortal…or just my own stupidity and humanity.

However, since one has acted in sincerity with integrity and an honest heart, this is what the Lord looks at…mistakes and errors, putting a wrong foot, is simply our human condition without getting ridiculous about it of course.

Blessings and Peace to you and yours and you will be in my prayers. regards - Barb:)
 
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