The elements your church/congregation/community uses for communion?

[Kliska]

My understanding is that the Catholic teaching that both body and blood are present under either species comes from 1 Corinthians 11:27 where St. Paul says “Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord.” (emphasis mine). St. Paul indicates that unworthily receiving either species results in profaning both the body and the blood, thus, both body and blood must be present under either species.

I think that explains part of the teaching on it, but the part I guess I don’t understand is where Jesus says eat and drink… not just eat. So even if we do assume that the bread becomes body, blood, soul, and divinity, there is still just an “eating” verb covered in that, and not “drinking.”

Please do correct me if I’m wrong (someone/anyone), but the presiding priest always eats and drinks but the congregation doesn’t, at RC Mass. So, he would follow the eating and drinking, but for the congregants just offered the bread, they couldn’t follow Jesus’ command. Is it true that now in most US parishes that both bread/body and wine/blood are received?

 

[SoMissCatholic]

I think that explains part of the teaching on it, but the part I guess I don’t understand is where Jesus says eat and drink… not just eat. So even if we do assume that the bread becomes body, blood, soul, and divinity, there is still just an “eating” verb covered in that, and not “drinking.”

Please do correct me if I’m wrong (someone/anyone), but the presiding priest always eats and drinks but the congregation doesn’t, at RC Mass. So, he would follow the eating and drinking, but for the congregants just offered the bread, they couldn’t follow Jesus’ command. Is it true that now in most US parishes that both bread/body and wine/blood are received?

I have never not had both species offered at any mass I have ever attended. I think the canons only require the priest to receive under both species, but I think the common practice (at least in the U.S.) these days is to offer under both species.

One question I have for you though, and I don’t mean for this to sound snarky or rude, but why do you insist on a literal interpretation of Jesus saying both eat and drink, but don’t have a problem disregarding a literal interpretation of “this is my body” and “this is my blood”? I really am not trying to be uncharitable in that question, but I really am interested in how you decide that one must be taken literally (eat and drink) but not the other (this is my body/blood)?

 

[Kliska]

I have never not had both species offered at any mass I have ever attended. I think the canons only require the priest to receive under both species, but I think the common practice (at least in the U.S.) these days is to offer under both species.

One question I have for you though, and I don’t mean for this to sound snarky or rude, but why do you insist on a literal interpretation of Jesus saying both eat and drink, but don’t have a problem disregarding a literal interpretation of “this is my body” and “this is my blood”? I really am not trying to be uncharitable in that question, but I really am interested in how you decide that one must be taken literally (eat and drink) but not the other (this is my body/blood)?

I guess for me, it shows a strange disconnect in the RCC to teach that it is literal body and blood, and that Jesus’ words are literal, but that the eating and drinking somehow doesn’t count, whereas, it would be flipped for those like me; we believe in literal eating and drinking but perhaps not literal body and blood. From my perspective that specific thing; the Passover Matzoh did indeed in an efficacious and powerful way show Jesus’ body; sinless, broken, bruised, pierced, and then the wine did indeed in an efficacious and powerful way show Jesus’ blood spilled for sin and each person present partook of both.

My thoughts are in reference to the last supper, not the bread of Life discourse in John. So, “This is my body, take and eat,” and “This is my blood, take and drink” seems at least clear on 2 points; there is both bread and wine, and there are two actions eating and drinking. Even symbolically both need to be present, it would seem clearer to me then, if it were literal that it would be even more important for both to be there since that is what He literally said.

I don’t think it is snarky or rude at all for you to ask. This is just something that has always kind of made me wonder. The literal words spoke were not “body, blood, soul and divinity so eat and/or drink” but rather “this is my body, eat” and “this is my blood, drink.”