MERGED & EDITED:Eucharistic misunderstanding/Wife feels unloved

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dskysmine

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Hello dear friends in Christ,
As some of you might know, my wife is from the Baptist Church. We have discussed at length all possible issues that could arise during a marriage between us regarding Baptism, and what to teach the children, etc… And we have reached agreements between us regarding children.
We usually go together to the Catholic Mass, but because she isn’t Catholic she cannot take part in the Eucharist. Also when sometimes we go to the Baptist service I do not take part in their Last Supper.
She is a very emotional kind of person and recently it has grown in her that she feels shunned in the Catholic Mass because she cannot take the Eucharist.
She has studied Theology and a lot of her female friends are also theologians (protestant theology though) and when discussing about couple unity there are some differences in how the man and the woman (her friends and their husbands) understand some parts of theology, one of her friends knows a Catholic priest that allows some protestants to take the Eucharist and she has asked me if we would to go the Mass with such a priest if I would allow her to take the Eucharist.
I tried to explain to her that the Eucharist is not mine and that I cannot allow or disallow people to take it or not. It is a Sacrament that the Church provides Catholics with that is the Sacrament of Unity which is why non-Catholics cannot take it, because the Unity between the Churches is not yet real.
She replied that it can never be real if we don’t allow other Christians to take part in the Eucharist, to which i replied that even some Catholics are not allowed to take the Eucharist if they are in Mortal sin.
This was the worst possible answer I could give since now she thinks I think she is in Mortal sin because she’s not a Catholic…
I never told her that she is in sin because she is not a Catholic, but only that she is not as lucky as me for not knowing the full Truth of the Christian Faith.
I explained to her that allowing her to take the Eucharist would be like me trying to have sex with her while we would not be “good” with each other, but she didn’t understand it like that.
I don’t know if there is anything else I can do to show her that I love her and that not taking the Eucharist is also “loving”.
I would appreciate if any female could give me advice since “logic” doesn’t seem to work here so well. As I said, she is very emotional and sensitive and “rules” and “logic” are not the best way to make her understand.

Thank you.
God bless,
D.
 
Hello dear friends in Christ,
I made this thread in the family part of the forum to get some advice from some female users but I would also like to ask for your help in terms of trying to explain the sacrament of Eucharist.
As some of you might know, my wife is from the Baptist Church. We have discussed at length all possible issues that could arise during a marriage between us regarding Baptism, and what to teach the children, etc… And we have reached agreements between us regarding children.
We usually go together to the Catholic Mass, but because she isn’t Catholic she cannot take part in the Eucharist. Also when sometimes we go to the Baptist service I do not take part in their Last Supper.
She is a very emotional kind of person and recently it has grown in her that she feels shunned in the Catholic Mass because she cannot take the Eucharist.
She has studied Theology and a lot of her female friends are also theologians (protestant theology though) and when discussing about couple unity there are some differences in how the man and the woman (her friends and their husbands) understand some parts of theology, one of her friends knows a Catholic priest that allows some protestants to take the Eucharist and she has asked me if we would to go the Mass with such a priest if I would allow her to take the Eucharist.
I tried to explain to her that the Eucharist is not mine and that I cannot allow or disallow people to take it or not. It is a Sacrament that the Church provides Catholics with that is the Sacrament of Unity which is why non-Catholics cannot take it, because the Unity between the Churches is not yet real.
She replied that it can never be real if we don’t allow other Christians to take part in the Eucharist, to which i replied that even some Catholics are not allowed to take the Eucharist if they are in Mortal sin.
This was the worst possible answer I could give since now she thinks I think she is in Mortal sin because she’s not a Catholic…
I never told her that she is in sin because she is not a Catholic, but only that she is not as lucky as me for not knowing the full Truth of the Christian Faith.
I explained to her that allowing her to take the Eucharist would be like me trying to have sex with her while we would not be “good” with each other, but she didn’t understand it like that.
I don’t know if there is anything else I can do to show her that I love her and that not taking the Eucharist is also “loving”.
I would appreciate if any female could give me advice since “logic” doesn’t seem to work here so well. As I said, she is very emotional and sensitive and “rules” and “logic” are not the best way to make her understand.

Thank you.
God bless,
D.
 
I know I’m not a woman, and you’re seeking specifically womanly advice, but I thought I’d suggest a different tack with her than you have been, anyway.

Try this approach: It is a matter of respect. When you visit a friend, you respect the house rules. For example, if they do not allow smoking in their house, then as a matter of respecting their house rules, you don’t smoke, even if you think there’s nothing wrong with it, or you do it in your own home.

Likewise, the Catholic Church has it’s own house rules. As a matter of respect, she should be obedient to those rules when visiting. When you visit her church, you’re respectful of and obedient to their rules. You wouldn’t, for example, loudly pray the rosary in their church before their service begins, like you might at a Catholic Mass. That would probably be highly offensive to them. In a similar way, she should respect the rules of your Church. One of those rules is that non-Catholics cannot partake in the Eucharist. If she did, it would be highly offensive to Catholics.

The theology behind it, the logic and reason, none of that matters. The only thing that matters is that Catholics have this rule, and as a visitor to a Catholic church, they should respect the house rules. It’s a matter of courtesy, and they would expect the same courtesy to be extended to them.
 
I understand where your wife is coming from. The Eucharist was one of the major reasons why I had problems with the Catholic Church. As a Protestant/Baptist, I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t take it when I “loved” Jesus just as much as anyone else at the Mass. I felt left out and mad.

The thing is that your wife still seems to accept Protestant theology (for the most part) whereas I found it unsatisfying and was looking for something deeper and more meaningful in my worship experience. I was willing to seriously look at Catholicism to see if I could really believe what the Church taught about these issues.

It’s not really a matter of emotion or logic. To me (as an emotional woman), it’s a matter of removing the blinders that the Baptists/other Protestants present to their membership. The Eucharist just isn’t that sacred in most churches. It’s more of an “after thought” than “an experience”. It’s like trying to put a square peg in the proverbial round hole.

I think this is a matter where you need to let the Holy Spirit start working on her. She has to figure out for herself why the Eucharist is different for Catholics.

Meanwhile, I’d suggest that you pick up the book “Spiritual Anorexia: How Contemporary Worship is Starving the Church.” by Doug Erlandson. It really resonated with me because someone was able to put into words what I felt about how a lot of contemporary Protestant churches treat Jesus and the Eucharist.

The thing is that sometimes, love is tough. It took me a long time to accept the teachings of the Eucharist. However, the church forces us to conform to Her. The church doesn’t conform to us and what we want and how we feel. It’s really not about her or me. It’s about Jesus. The thing is that if we don’t like the rules in one Baptist church, we can find another church we like better. You can’t do that when you are a Catholic. That’s a hard attitude shift to make. I still struggle with that, even though I am a Catholic now. Baptist/Catholic cultures are just different, regardless of whether we are all Christians. Good luck trying to bridge the divide. 👍
 
I am female and her issue with the Catholic Church is not a female issue, even if she is falling back on the emotional side of the argument. Since she isn’t a Catholic, she can’t receive period. If she is now using the argument that she doesn’t “feel” welcomed or wanted there because she can’t receive is bogus in my book. I get tired of women using their emotions to try to “get their way”. She married you a Catholic. Both you and her should have known what a struggle it is going to be to have two people practicing different faiths is going to be in a marriage and the potential conflicts this can bring. It seems now like reality in now hitting the both of you. I am sorry. I wish you well but this is going to be a long struggle if she decides that she can’t continue to attend Mass with you over this issue.
 
If your beloved wife is feeling emotional, the best thing you could do is to take her in your arms and whisper over and over again, “Honey, I love you” until you are able to reassure her. From your post, it seems like you are telling her you are superior to her because you are Catholic and can receive Holy Communion - like you have something she cannot have and she doesn’t understand why her beloved would withhold something - especially if it is so great.

When she brings up her concerns, you might gently say, “My darling, if you would like to receive Jesus Christ in the Most Holy Sacrament, I’d be happy to instruct you in the Faith and help you find a mentor/ spiritual director because it would be my great joy to share this Sacrament with you!”

If you need additional explanations that she’d be sure to understand given her religious background, look up 1 Cor 11:27together about partaking unworthily and how you love her too much to ever allow her soul to be in danger.

Good luck!
 
I don’t think this is a female thing. I have a male friend who is experiencing the same feelings right now. The bottom line is that your wife and my friend are being prideful. This is almost the exact opposite way one should feel about receiving Jesus into their body. “Lord, I am not with to receive You…” is true reaction to the Lord’s presence and this is evidenced repeatedly in Sacred Scripture. It’s not something we should feel owed to us. She wants to receive but does not understand what she would be receiving. Receiving is attempting to come into communion with something she does not agree with. That’s why we say no, because it will do her more harm than good to receive unworthily. It’s hard to explain and hard for someone outside of the fullness to understand. Maybe you could take her to discuss this with a faithful Priest. Overall, it is a good sign that she wants so badly to receive. God is calling her to Him.
 
Ultimately, it boils down to this:
  1. Does she believe what the Church teaches about the Eucharist?
  2. If not, why does she want to receive? If she doesn’t believe that it is truly the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ, then isn’t she bothered that Catholics act like it is?
  3. If she does believe what the Church teaches, then she should take instruction and become Catholic, because no Baptist church teaches what she believes.
Maybe it is some inner cognitive dissonance that is causing her problems.
 
The Catholic Answers apologists word it this way…

"Why does the Church practice closed Communion? If unity is caused by sharing in the Lord’s Table, then why not let everybody receive, whether they are Catholic or not?

Because unity is not caused by sharing in the Lord’s Table any more than a marriage is caused by intercourse. For those who are out of full communion with the Catholic Church, the spiritual unity must happen first (by entering into full unity with the Church through the rites of initiation), just as those who are not married must be married before they can enter into bodily unity. In both cases, the physical unity naturally flows from the spiritual unity. Eucharist strengthens the unity of the Body of Christ, just as the marriage act strengthens the sacrament of matrimony. But we must do first things first!"

catholic.com/quickquestions/why-cant-non-catholics-receive-communion

and this…

"The guidelines for receiving Communion, which are issued by the U.S. bishops and published in many missalettes, explain, "We welcome our fellow Christians to this celebration of the Eucharist as our brothers and sisters. We pray that our common baptism and the action of the Holy Spirit in this Eucharist will draw us closer to one another and begin to dispel the sad divisions which separate us. We pray that these will lessen and finally disappear, in keeping with Christ’s prayer for us ‘that they may all be one’ (John 17:21).

"Because Catholics believe that the celebration of the Eucharist is a sign of the reality of the oneness of faith, life, and worship, members of those churches with whom we are not yet fully united are ordinarily not admitted to Communion. Eucharistic sharing in exceptional circumstances by other Christians requires permission according to the directives of the diocesan bishop and the provisions of canon law. . . . "

Scripture is clear that partaking of the Eucharist is among the highest signs of Christian unity: “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread” (1 Cor. 10:17). For this reason, it is normally impossible for non-Catholic Christians to receive Holy Communion, for to do so would be to proclaim a unity to exist that, regrettably, does not.

Another reason that many non-Catholics may not ordinarily receive Communion is for their own protection, since many reject the doctrine of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Scripture warns that it is very dangerous for one not believing in the Real Presence to receive Communion: “For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died” (1 Cor. 11:29–30). "

catholic.com/tracts/who-can-receive-communion
 
Suslar said:
If your beloved wife is feeling emotional, the best thing you could do is to take her in your arms and whisper over and over again, “Honey, I love you” until you are able to reassure her. From your post, it seems like you are telling her you are superior to her because you are Catholic and can receive Holy Communion - like you have something she cannot have and she doesn’t understand why her beloved would withhold something - especially if it is so great.

When she brings up her concerns, you might gently say, “My darling, if you would like to receive Jesus Christ in the Most Holy Sacrament, I’d be happy to instruct you in the Faith and help you find a mentor/ spiritual director because it would be my great joy to share this Sacrament with you!”

If you need additional explanations that she’d be sure to understand given her religious background, look up 1 Cor 11:27together about partaking unworthily and how you love her too much to ever allow her soul to be in danger.

Good luck!
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This is excellent advice.

I might also refrain from receiving when she attends Mass with you. We receive great graces from receiving however you will also be blessed by not contributing to her distress. If she is coming with you every week, than you may not be comfortable continually refraining.
 
As a convert from a baptist church: Baptist churches are not hierarchical in the way Catholic parishes are. So in a baptist church, the local church community sets the rules for who may and may not receive. It’s likely that she sees the local priest as having the sort of authority a baptist minister would. To that mindset, if the local priest is ok with her receiving, then it’s ok for her to receive at that parish. She might be upset because to her mind that’s a reasonable compromise - it’s the sort of compromise a mixed protestant couple would do.
 
This isn’t a female thing. It is a problem that she is hearing about another Catholic priest that is supposedly allowing non Catholics to receive the eucharist. It makes people confused as to why this priest does this thing that most other priests don’t. I have no qualms telling non Catholic family members that they can’t receive at mass, and I’m female. It’s incumbent on us to not encourage others to sin by silence or perceived indifference.

I don’t know what will work with her, she needs to accept that the Catholic church has the right to enforce their own policies just as she thinks her church has the right to enforce their rules where she worships.
 
Cider said:
This isn’t a female thing. It is a problem that she is hearing about another Catholic priest that is supposedly allowing non Catholics to receive the eucharist. It makes people confused as to why this priest does this thing that most other priests don’t. I have no qualms telling non Catholic family members that they can’t receive at mass, and I’m female. It’s incumbent on us to not encourage others to sin by silence or perceived indifference.

I don’t know what will work with her, she needs to accept that the Catholic church has the right to enforce their own policies just as she thinks her church has the right to enforce their rules where she worships.
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I might point out, she may not understand where the Catholic church’s policies come from. In a Baptist church, the policies of the church come from the pastor of that particular church. I have had similar problems talking to baptists before. The do not easily understand that our priests are severely limited in their authority, unlike their pastors where each is a pope to his own congregation.
 
DarkLight said:
I might point out, she may not understand where the Catholic church’s policies come from. In a Baptist church, the policies of the church come from the pastor of that particular church. I have had similar problems talking to baptists before. The do not easily understand that our priests are severely limited in their authority, unlike their pastors where each is a pope to his own congregation.
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But if she believes that each particular church, such as her baptist one, has the right to make rules for it’s congregation when why not accept the same for other churches? Would she accept lutherans coming into her congregation and enforcing their rules? This seems more like a personal quirk than something inherent to protestantism.
 
Cider said:
But if she believes that each particular church, such as her baptist one, has the right to make rules for it’s congregation when why not accept the same for other churches? Would she accept lutherans coming into her congregation and enforcing their rules? This seems more like a personal quirk than something inherent to protestantism.
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She may not understand why it’s not ok for this particular priest to do what he’s doing. I’ve found it’s a common quirk of those varieties of protestantism that are congregational in their organization. After all, in baptist churches, the local congregation determines who may and may not receive. To someone who doesn’t understand the hierarchy of the catholic church, going to a different congregation where the local pastor is ok with her receiving would seem like a very reasonable compromise - because to her mind that’s probably where the authority to make that choice is.

Remember, to a baptist, the “church” is primarily the local community. So to say the church isn’t ok with her receiving when the local priest is ok just sounds like a contradiction in terms.
 
My advice as a female would be to refrain from drawing analogies to your sexual or marriage relationship, as that is emotional territory. Also, try to view her as a logical person. Of course, try not to get too frustrated trying to find logic in what she says when she seems emotional. But don’t attribute her “feelings” to being emotional, per se.

I think Dark Knight makes some good points and they are a good way to see the logic of your wife’s feelings.

The thread has lots of good advice. 👍
 
emilybarrassed said:
The bottom line is that your wife and my friend are being prideful. This is almost the exact opposite way one should feel about receiving Jesus into their body.
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Yep - it was really embarrassing and sad when I realized how prideful I was being towards taking the Eucharist.

I wanted it my way, not God’s way. :eek:
 
DarkLight said:
She may not understand why it’s not ok for this particular priest to do what he’s doing. I’ve found it’s a common quirk of those varieties of protestantism that are congregational in their organization. After all, in baptist churches, the local congregation determines who may and may not receive. To someone who doesn’t understand the hierarchy of the catholic church, going to a different congregation where the local pastor is ok with her receiving would seem like a very reasonable compromise - because to her mind that’s probably where the authority to make that choice is.

Remember, to a baptist, the “church” is primarily the local community. So to say the church isn’t ok with her receiving when the local priest is ok just sounds like a contradiction in terms.
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This! 👍

My husband (before we were married) made it clear that I couldn’t receive and because I was going to respect the “house rules”, I wasn’t going to fight it.

I’m in a Catholic parish where they are “ok” with non-Catholics taking communion if the other party wants to faithfully worship with us (huh?) I like my parish, but I think this is a bunch of “you know what”.

Fighting God over this made me a stronger Catholic. I wish some priests weren’t so wishy-washy about it. It made me feel like I didn’t have to have the struggle and I could have just kept believing all the stuff I did and just take Communion w/out all the “other stuff” - like going through RCIA and becoming Catholic. (Does any of this make sense?)

My husband says “if you are going to be Catholic, be Catholic”. Don’t just pick and choose the parts you like and disregard the rest.

A lot of people say that taking the Eucharist shouldn’t be “exclusive”, but for me, it diminishes the value of the struggles I had getting to be Catholic. I’m glad God and I fought about the true meaning of the Eucharist, Mary and the Saints, Confession, etc…I worry about the people who take the Eucharist, but don’t really believe what we believe. They take it for social reasons…not God reasons (again, hoping this makes sense).
 
Tell her that when Catholics approach in the Communion line and the Sacred Host is presented to them, we are required to respond “Amen” which signifies our belief that the consecrated Host is Jesus- body, blood, soul and divinity. It is not a symbol but the Host is Jesus in Eucharistic form of bread and wine. Ask her, “Which is more uncomfortable, feeling that you are excluded from Holy Communion, or saying “Amen- yes, I believe” to something that you do not?”
 
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