The Eucharist and my stress

[Pakesh]

If a scrupulous person were to watch a video in Hi-def slow motion of just what happens at the breaking of the celebrant’s host, he would have to be institutionalized afterwards.

 

[Matthew_Holford]

The rite itself includes provision for receiving baptized Christians into the Church (see chapter five of the English translation).

Thanks! I know that the Rite of Reception of Baptised Christians into full communion with the Catholic Church is included in the Roman Ritual as part of RCIA. But in the Introduction it tells us that those coming into full communion who have been validly baptised in a Christian church or ecclesial communion are not to be called “converts” and that they shouldn’t go through the catechumenate. I suppose we could say they’re coming home by a different road.

 

[Being_Brave]

First, thanks to everyone for your posts! I didn’t expect so many people to try to help with this

Answer to my religious history: I was raised Southern Baptist, but my church never mentioned anything about other religions, so I was completely clueless as to what they believed or even that there was that big of a difference. (It’s been mentioned many times that I was lucky to have been in that particular church because a lot of Baptist churches bash Catholics.) I was baptised at the age of 7 (my age of reason per Baptists), and attended Baptist churches until I met and married my Lutheran husband. I found the CC by doing research to try to understand how to talk to Catholics about the differences and similarities between Baptist-Lutheran-Catholic beliefs. Once I started reading about the CC I just couldn’t stop, and finally got in contact with the local Church’s religious education office. They explained that even though I was validly baptised I would still need to go through about 7 months of RCIA to learn the catechism. It just started this month (September) so it’s just the very beginning.

I actually started attending Mass and bought a copy of the Catechism and Compendium of the Catechism about 3 months ago, so most of what I know is what I’ve observed and what I learned from reading the Catechism. I only have one Catholic friend, and he was very instrumental in directing me and answering my questions, but he and his wife just had a baby, so it’s hard to reach them (unless you are a grandparent or the doctor )

I call myself Baptist-Catholic because I’m not going to pretend to understand everything Catholicism teaches. I still find myself looking to scripture for explainations of some of the beliefs, which is something the fundamentalist in me is probably always going to want to do (Luckily I’ve een able to read, learn and pray through papal infallibility and Marian doctrine, so I think my biggest hurtles have been overcome before RCIA).

Matthew, SimonDodd, Pregustator: Thank you for explaining things for me!! and for your prayers! (Pregustator, actually those examples added a sense of humor for me, good stuff )

Cat, Newbie, HCC : Helpful suggestions and stories, thank you (HCC, I read that prayer in a book that my Catholic friend gave me, and I forgot about it, so thank you for reminding me.)

Thanks, again, to everyone. I think now that it’s off my chest and I’ve got some good information to digest I won’t feel so edgy about the Eucharist!

 

[Matthew_Holford]

First, thanks to everyone for your posts! I didn’t expect so many people to try to help with this

Answer to my religious history: I was raised Southern Baptist, but my church never mentioned anything about other religions, so I was completely clueless as to what they believed or even that there was that big of a difference. (It’s been mentioned many times that I was lucky to have been in that particular church because a lot of Baptist churches bash Catholics.) I was baptised at the age of 7 (my age of reason per Baptists), and attended Baptist churches until I met and married my Lutheran husband. I found the CC by doing research to try to understand how to talk to Catholics about the differences and similarities between Baptist-Lutheran-Catholic beliefs. Once I started reading about the CC I just couldn’t stop, and finally got in contact with the local Church’s religious education office. They explained that even though I was validly baptised I would still need to go through about 7 months of RCIA to learn the catechism. It just started this month (September) so it’s just the very beginning.

I actually started attending Mass and bought a copy of the Catechism and Compendium of the Catechism about 3 months ago, so most of what I know is what I’ve observed and what I learned from reading the Catechism. I only have one Catholic friend, and he was very instrumental in directing me and answering my questions, but he and his wife just had a baby, so it’s hard to reach them (unless you are a grandparent or the doctor )

I call myself Baptist-Catholic because I’m not going to pretend to understand everything Catholicism teaches. I still find myself looking to scripture for explainations of some of the beliefs, which is something the fundamentalist in me is probably always going to want to do (Luckily I’ve een able to read, learn and pray through papal infallibility and Marian doctrine, so I think my biggest hurtles have been overcome before RCIA).

Matthew, SimonDodd, Pregustator: Thank you for explaining things for me!! and for your prayers! (Pregustator, actually those examples added a sense of humor for me, good stuff )

Cat, Newbie, HCC : Helpful suggestions and stories, thank you (HCC, I read that prayer in a book that my Catholic friend gave me, and I forgot about it, so thank you for reminding me.)

Thanks, again, to everyone. I think now that it’s off my chest and I’ve got some good information to digest I won’t feel so edgy about the Eucharist!

I was so happy to read this post. You almost sound like a different person. You seem much happier and more relaxed. I hope you continue to find your faith journey stimulating and rewarding. I will continue to remember you in my prayers.

 

[jc-servant]

BB,

I’m going off topic here without apology. Yipee for you! I’m a former Baptist who “studied” myself into the Catholic faith. I had read the entire catechism before starting RCIA and now I’m a sponsor again for about the 7th time, yet I still hear new things and gain deeper understanding on some points each year in RCIA. We should never stop learning as adults and Catholic history is 2000 years long and very rich. You could spend a lifetime just studying the thoughts of one “doctor” of the church and their writings about a few of Christ’s teachings.

I hope that you keep right on reading and take it all in and pray and turn it over in your mind many times. If you ever want to PM me with questions or to ask for sources to read on any particular topic, feel free. I particularly enjoyed reading the stories of other converts and about the Eucharist (including miracles involving the Eucharist). Scott Hahn was a Bible scholar who “studied” his way to our church, so his books are a good place to start. There are also some collections of conversion stories compiled by Patrick Madrid (Suprised by Truth has a few volumes now) that might help you out in your faith journey. I like seeing how others before me went through their journey. I also read some amazing stories of Eucharistic miracles over the years that might help you on that subject when you see how God dealt with different situations.

One thing that helped me quite a bit in my conversion was that I was determined to find the original church that Christ founded. Once I discovered that the Catholic Church was the one church that He entrusted with His authority through apostolic succession, then it was easy for me to know that I needed to get on board with the church’s teachings versus trying to make them fit my prior beliefs. There are 2 pillars of authority, Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition (Tradition predates the Bible and Jesus actually gave the church through Peter and the other bishops who followed him the authority needed to decide with the Holy Spirit’s guidance what belonged in the Bible and what did not). If the church was given the authority that allowed it to determine the canon of books that should compose the Bible, then it stands to reason the church has the last word on how scripture should be read and interpreted. Nothing in Sacred Tradition can contradict Sacred Scripture and vice versa, so BB I think that the more you study the easier it will be for you to accept the essential teachings (dogma) of the church.

May God bless your faith journey abundantly!

 

[SimonDodd]

Being_Brave:

I still find myself looking to scripture for explainations of some of the beliefs, which is something the fundamentalist in me is probably always going to want to do (Luckily I’ve been able to read, learn and pray through papal infallibility and Marian doctrine, so I think my biggest hurtles have been overcome before RCIA).

For people raised protestant (of any flavor), I think infallibility is the biggest intellectual hurdle and Mary is the biggest emotional hurdle, so you’re doing great if you’ve overcome that initial resistance.

I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong in an instinct to say “where is that in scripture,” or “how does that square with scripture.” The key is to accept that some things belong properly to tradition (e.g. purgatory and the biblical canon), and that where the Church has seemingly put a gloss on scripture, that’s alright. Nothing in Catholic teaching (properly-understood) contradicts scripture (properly-understood). Perhaps no single realization was more important to my journey than what must seem obvious to most people: Christianity didn’t go on vacation until the reformation. The Bible didn’t just drop out of the sky in 1515. The Church as it exists today has existed continuously since the day recounted in Acts 1, teaching essentially the same thing. Think of the documentary history of the Church as a core sample going right back to calvary.

See, it sounds silly, but when I was an Anglican, I must subconsciously have been under the impression that you could only look within the Bible’s 8 corners. Some evangelicals put that point literally—the Bible by itself, without anything extraneous. That’s the “dropped out of the sky in 1515” model, and while it’s appealing at first blush, on closer inspection, it’s crazy! We don’t detract from the Bible’s authority as the source of revealed truth when we apply the normal tools of historical investigation to the Church. 1 Clement, for example, or the letters of Ignatius, may not be the inspired word of God, but they are a testimony to what Christians believed at that time. Perhaps we ought to listen to them. They believed in the real presence; how do we justify differing? A better reason is needed than “well, I read scripture today and I don’t think that’s the right reading.” Really, Calvin? Just like that? The consistent teaching of the Church since the beginning, the universal belief of the faithful, and you wake up one day, flip open the gospels over your wheaties, and decide it’s wrong? When you look at the intellectual history of the Church, I think you begin to grasp the audacity of the reformers and modernists.

If you want to take a real shock of the old, consider (rearranged a little for clarity), Justin Martyr’s description of how Christians were already worshiping a century after Christ’s death:

on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles * or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits. Then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray….

Having ended the prayers, we salute one another with a [sign of peace, which was then, and until the 1960s remained a] kiss. There is then brought to the president of the brethren bread and a cup of wine mixed with water; and he taking them, gives praise and glory to the Father of the universe, through the name of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, and offers thanks at considerable length for our being counted worthy to receive these things at His hands.

And this food is called among us Εὐχαριστία “Eucharist”], of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Savior, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh. For the apostles … have handed on to us what was given to them: that Jesus took bread, and when He had given thanks, said, “This do in remembrance of Me, this is My body;” and that, after the same manner, having taken the cup and given thanks, He said, “This is My blood;” and gave it to them alone.

And when [the celebrant] has concluded the prayers and thanksgivings, all the people present express their assent by saying Amen. … [A]nd there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given….*(Rearranged slightly for clarity from First Apology.) That was Mass in A.D. 150. And what do you know: if someone walks into a Catholic Church any given Sunday, they’ll see that’s still the Mass today.

I think now that it’s off my chest and I’ve got some good information to digest

I won’t feel so edgy about the Eucharist!Oooooh… Well played.

I will pray for you and your journey!

 

[Being_Brave]

thanks.

 

[Being_Brave]

Seriously, thanks to everyone for helping me with this! Last Sunday I had no issues during Eucharist!!