So to get back to my question which isn’t very clear…
What if, for those who do not have the chance to take communion, might it be that in that afterlife moment of limbo, they can really imbibe Christ in the fullest way. without even the symbolic aspect of the eucharist. This is also speculation. When it comes to those who aren’t given much of a chance, I don’t have a lot of answers, but I do think the catholic church has the most sensible answers, from what I’ve read in the Cathechism.
God Bless
-Justin
Maybe this will help and I just thought of it. When you are in heaven you are partaking of this mystery
Those in heaven are partaking in this feast.
But God alows us to take part of it right now. That is why John when he is call up on the lords day (more than likely it was at mass) he sees the Lamb as if slain. He sees everything we see at mass
We “lift up our hearts” to heaven and are, in a real sense, “caught up in spirit” and taken into a liturgy that’s always going on in heaven (see Revelation 4:2).
That’s what was revealed to the Apostle John in the Bible’s last book. In fact, it’s the Mass that makes sense of the puzzling, and often frightening visions and symbols of Revelation.
What’s revealed to John is that the Mass we celebrate on earth is a participation in the liturgy of heaven.
John’s vision begins on “the Lord’s day,” Sunday (see Revelation 1:10) - the name the first Christians gave to the first day of the week, upon which they celebrated “the breaking of the bread” (see Acts 20:7; Luke 24:1).
John is “caught up in spirit on the Lord’s Day.” In other words, possibly while celebrating the Eucharist himself, John is taken to heaven.
And John sees the same things we see when we come to Mass.
He sees an altar (see Revelation 8:3); candles (1:12); incense (5:8); priests dressed in robes (4:4). And he sees bread or manna (2:17), and bowls or chalices of blood (see Revelation 16).
He sees heavenly worshippers – angels and saints – crying, “Holy, Holy, Holy” (4:8), singing a hymn to the glory of God, the heavenly king (15:3) and shouting “alleluia” (19:1,3,6) and making the sing of the cross on their foreheads (14:1).
There are readings from Scripture (Revelation 2-3), and, finally, the “wedding feast of the Lamb” (19:9).
With the Angels and Saints
John is invited to “come up here” (see Revelation 4:1). And we are invited to come up to heaven, as well – to lift up our hearts - at the beginning of our Liturgy of the Eucharist.
When we lift up our hearts, we are asked to sing with the angels and saints.
This is not simply a fine expression of sentiment. As with everything else in the Mass, there is a “sacramental realism” at work here.
At this point in the Mass, we are in a mysterious way joining our song to the song that John – and the prophet Isaiah before him – heard in heaven: “Holy, holy, holy . . .” (see Revelation 4:8; Isaiah 6:3).
The second part of our song ("Blessed is he . . . ") is taken from the Psalm that pilgrims to Jerusalem would sing at Passover. It was also the psalm that was sung upon Christ’s triumphal entry to Jerusalem (see Mark 11:10; Psalm 118:26).
The biblical words give us clues to what’s going on in the Mass. We have gathered around the altar – not only an earthly altar, but a heavenly altar as well. We have made our way to Mount Zion, the new and heavenly Jerusalem.
This is what John saw – “the Lamb standing on Mount Zion” (see Revelation 14:1).
The Letter to the Hebrews (see Hebrews 12:22-24) likewise speaks of the Eucharistic celebration on earth as entrance into and participation in the heavenly liturgy in the new Jerusalem.
In the Mass, says Hebrews, we approach “Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.” There, we join “countless angels” and “the assembly of the firstborn” and Jesus, “mediator of the new covenant and the sprinkled blood” in a “festal gathering” or feast.
And notice the similarities between Hebrews’ description of the Mass and John’s Revelation. Both see a new Jerusalem, a new Zion, the dwelling place of the Lord (see Psalm 132:13-14). Both see angels and Jesus, the Lamb whose blood takes away the sin of the world. And both see a “feast” and a gathering of “firstborn” or “firstfruits” of those who believe in Jesus (see Revelation 14:4). And both see in this feast in the temple of heaven a sign of the new covenant wrought in the blood of Jesus (see Revelation 11:19)
What these Scriptures show us is that the Mass is the summit of salvation history told in Scripture.
And this is the same thing that the prayers of the Mass tell us.
This wedding feast of the lamb is when everyone will partake of this feast and everyone will have life but we can have it all right now.
