Great.
You went on to quote someone who said participation in Eucharist helps us get close to God. I’m all for that! That’s great!
“If the bottom line is fine, what are you so upset about?” someone might say to me.
I’d reply, “It’s the condemnation of those who participate in a non-Catholic Eucharist, that I disturbs me—for their sake, not for mine. Jesus will protect me and reward me for any verbal abuse thrown at me, IF I don’t retaliate! But I’m concerned about you folks. Paul indicated that we all need each other (1 Cor. 12:21).”
Have a great evening, sister. (Are you a nun, by any chance?)
I certainly hope you have never heard any condemnation from me of those who participate in a non-Catholic communion service. I know, being a written forum, that sometimes we can be misunderstood. The people who participate are doing their best to get close to God in Christ. I only wish they could see the fullness available in the Eucharist.
There are times when Catholics may not receive the Eucharist. At such times, we have a prayer:
*My Jesus, I believe that You are present in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.
I love You above all things, and I desire to receive You into my soul.
Since I cannot at this moment receive You sacramentally, come at least spiritually into my heart. I embrace You as if You were already there and unite myself wholly to You. Never permit me to be separated from You. Amen.*
So, we do understand spiritual communion. It is the next best thing to receiving Our Lord in the Eucharist.
And that is just it - a spiritual communion is great, but there is no comparison to the Eucharist. I want others to know God in this very very special way.
As a charismatic, I sometimes experience (mind’s eye) visions and interior locutions. At Communion, I used to ALWAYS have a vision of Jesus. He would come to me and we would talk, all very personal stuff. There was a closeness that didn’t exist at other times, only at Communion, after I had received His Body and Blood. (how I lost my Communion visions is another story and one we cannot discuss since it involves the content)
The Holy Spirit convicted me and made me Catholic, before I knew anything about what the Church teaches. God had been calling me for several years before I finally responded. He had been tapping me on the shoulder and I kept saying, “yeah, thanks for … but I’m ok now. Later.” He had to smack me upside the head with a spiritual 2x4 to get my attention. Then I was filled, burning, with the desire to be baptised. Well, someone has to do the baptising so the question became, ‘Which church?’
Which Church did Jesus found? I grew up in the Middle East, near the Holy Land. I was deep into the history of the region. I knew that until the Schism in around 1000AD, there was only one Church, the Church that Jesus founded on Peter. Even though there might be some things I didn’t like about that Church (I had a lot of erroneous notions I had to shed), it was still the only one founded by Jesus. It still is.
Although I knew the history, I was not up on theology at all. I didn’t know one church from another by their teachings. When it came time for me to choose, my decision was not based on their teachings, because I didn’t even know them to know who was correct. It was not a matter of choosing a church which agreed with me, but rather,“Which Church Teaches the Truth?”, which Church has the promise of the Holy Spirit to protect Her from ever Teaching error? And, yes, I know from history that there have been some very dodgy Popes, but none of them ever changed what is taught. They had succumbed to the World and sinned in their personal lives, but the promise was not to protect popes from sinning, but to protect the Church from Teaching error.
If anyone ever convinces me that the Church is not protected by the Holy Spirit, it would mean that the Bible itself is no different from the holy books of other faiths, just pious fiction, and containing no Truth; that God, the Father, does not exist, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, are no different from Jupiter or Juno and they are all made up to satisfy the need in man for something beyond ourselves.
What other Christian churches have of the Truth has come from the Catholic Church. The Bible is ‘Our Book’. That you even know about Jesus is down to the evangelisation efforts of Catholics throughout history.
We want you to know Jesus even better than you do now. We are not content to let you stay outside on the doorstep not knowing all the Truth. We want you to come home.
(No, I am not a nun. I am a wife and mother of 2 grown sons, waiting on grandchildren. My religious vocation is Marriage, rather than Holy Orders.)
I appreciate the deluxe-ness of this forum’s application.
!
