Who "communion" is "with"

[Vic_Taltrees_UK]

What or who is “Communion” or “Eucharist” WITH?

And which more so, and less so?

• Rome
• The suffering Church
• Fellow congregants

The word “communion” means relationship; and it means a ceremony. Not many people think there is any connection between them.

A “sacrament” is supposed to be a binding oath.

When a more powerful part of the Church has betrayed a less powerful part, I think it is better for consciences that we sit out, so as to not mock those impacted by poor quality relating.

I believe the same is advisable when meddling elements have driven wedges between fellow parishioners such that reconciling means going against their authority.

I believe all the public who are not going to heckle or smear excrement, are entitled to attend and hear Scriptures & sermon, and join in prayers & hymns.

I believe it is only since JP II that we were told “communion” is compulsory.

I think it’s necessary to discern the Body and that the sentimentalists deny that.

At one time politicians didn’t feel “excluded” sitting out because they had good company doing so: it was very tactful - the modern day fundamentalism is so impractical.

I don’t want CCC answers please, but deep and original insights.

 

[Montrose]

I don’t want CCC answers please, but deep and original insights.

So you are not interested in what the Church teaches and why??

 

[JerryZ]

First and foremost it is with our Lord Jesus Christ.
All the rest flows from there once you learn what the “Body of Christ” means and how many levels and layers are there.
Peace!

 

[Beryllos]

I don’t want CCC answers please, but deep and original insights.

Original? It’s scarcely possible. So much has been thought and spoken and written about Holy Communion, and so deeply, that we can do little more than paraphrase.

My standard for deep insights on the subject would be God Is Near Us: The Eucharist, the Heart of Life, a collection of homilies and lectures by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI).

No CCC? Very well, let’s examine John 17, in which Jesus prays to the Father that we may be one with each other, with him, and with the Father (and implicitly with the Holy Spirit, who is the love between the Father and the Son):

“I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, … that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be brought to perfection as one, that the world may know that you sent me, and that you loved them even as you loved me. … that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them.”

Communion is with God, with Jesus at the Last Supper, with all the faithful at every celebration of the Eucharist, in every age, and in heaven.

 

[c4csp]

The mass being the sacrifice at calvary and Jesus going to the Father on our behalf. We must also remember there is no concept of time, this is perpetually present at all times before the Father. Each mass we participate in this sacrifice. So communion is with Jesus. We take Him in body, blood, soul, and divinity to transform us.

I’m not sure if you mean communion as in are we in communion with the body of believers there in the church? Yes. A reason we cannot receive communion in Protestant churches is because we would be saying that we are in communion with these believers and we are not.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I believe it is only since JP II that we were told “communion” is compulsory.

Huh?

If you’re talking about receiving Holy Eucharist at Mass, it’s not “compulsory”. A good many people do not receive but still attend Mass and that’s perfectly okay.

Catholics generally want to go to Communion and will often go even if they’re not in a state of grace. There are various reasons for this, such as

• some don’t have a good understanding of what’s required to receive
• some genuinely are seeking some spiritual help/ healing/ closeness to the Lord
• some disagree with the Church on what constitutes grave sin
• some feel embarrassed sitting in the pew or don’t want to have to explain to their family etc

But it’s not “compulsory” to go, except once a year for Easter duty, which most definitely predated Pope JPII by centuries.

I don’t want CCC answers please, but deep and original insights.

Um, we’re supposed to respond to questions on here with actual church teaching from CCC, not with “original insights” we make up ourselves.

 

[Maximian]

Excellent c4csp. I wish there were more people who understood these fundamentals of Catholicism as you do.

 

[Vic_Taltrees_UK]

quote … we’re supposed to respond to questions on here with actual church teaching from CCC, not with “original insights” we make up ourselves unquote

I wasn’t asking you to confect anything, an insight CAN be something that comes TO you or that you are given. Teaching doesn’t come FROM the CCC, it was meant to go INTO it. It reads - in part - like a book of legislations.

Building on offerings so far (thank you):

My participation with my relating personality is within time, and the higher authority under which the sacrament is made effective operates in time and space.

Saying one is in communion (or not) is discerning the body which I insist on doing (as part of my state of grace) for my own conscience and in case anyone onlooking thinks it relevant to theirs.

St Paul warned church leaders not to be unequally yoked.

The corollary of not lording it, is to not be lorded over or be indifferent when someone is being lorded over.

Having excommunicated myself from the matter of the elements by missing my yearly deadline, I don’t need the Hierarchy for my Spiritual Communions since I’m not seeking a church position or to volunteer.

I think c4csp understands discerning the body, best out of you four so far. The Hierarchy who are essential to the operating of what I am swearing, can commonly be wedded to movements or quangoes or bad diplomacy in some way, please let’s be alert and not airy fairy. I don’t think St Paul intended that we who come after him should be more airy fairy than him.

Since it is they that are calling the shots (much as they hide behind the words of Jesus quoted) I cannot outsource the discerning to them without adding my own. There is some implied triumphalism in the sum of answers so far, namely that the confections that depend on them are more important or of higher status than Spiritual Communion.

My communion is with the weakest of my brothers and specifically not through influential organisations, any more than through the Protestant cults I have seen.

They pretend (in words) to be Jesus and then they want me to swear to it, but I prefer the old-fashioned tactful non-fundamentalist solution which, in those days, even visiting politicians were allowed to benefit from. (There was NO embarrassment in being seen to be sitting out, in those days.) I’m not actually excommunicating myself FROM what is of the greatest value - my weakest brothers, because it is in them that Jesus is.

I don’t think this is at variance with what was arguably originally intended by Our Lord, Holy Spirit and Apostles. I did warn you because I did say “deep”.

“Catholics generally want to go to Communion” sounds like a way of implying I would be pooping the party if I don’t join in the mission creep. The sons of God had glorious freedom, last time I checked!

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Having excommunicated myself from the matter of the elements by missing my yearly deadline, I don’t need the Hierarchy for my Spiritual Communions since I’m not seeking a church position or to volunteer.

This is not making sense. You don’t “excommunicate” yourself by missing your Easter duty communion. Furthermore, if you missed “deadline” this year, I would think the obligation was suspended due to COVID if you’re in UK, so you didn’t miss anything if that was the case.

If you’re trying to say that Spiritual Communion is just as good as physical Communion, Spiritual Communion is intended for people who for whatever reason are unable to receive physical Communion. If physical Communion is available and a Catholic can receive it, then a Catholic doesn’t typically reject it.

It has nothing to do with seeking Church positions or volunteering. I’ve not done either. Physical Communion allows me to be physically united with Christ. I want that.

Sorry if I’ve misunderstood, but your posts are very hard to follow.

 

[stoplooklisten]

What or who is “Communion” or “Eucharist” WITH?

Communion, sometimes called or translated from the Greek: koinonia is fellowship with the Triune God (vertical relationship) as well as fellowship with other covenanted believers (horizonal relationship).

It is a foretaste of heaven when God’s people will enjoy the holy presence of Almighty God and communion with Almighty God, angels and saints.

 

[stoplooklisten]

The sons of God had glorious freedom, last time I checked!

Yes, we do enjoy a certain freedom but not only freedom. “Where the Spirit of the LORD is, there is liberty” But, with great freedom comes great responsibilities. “To whom much is given, much is required.”

“His yoke is easy; his burden is light”. So, yes, there is a yoke to bear. And, we don’t bear it alone but in union and communion with the Church.

 

[JimG]

In receiving the Eucharist, we are in communion with Jesus, and with all other communicants, who receive the same Jesus. So we are united in Christ with one another and with all communicants who receive Christ in the Eucharst, past, present, and future.

 

[c4csp]

Pray the Amina Christi after you receive Jesus in the Eucharist and that will focus you on the communion.

 

[Gorgias]

I’m not actually excommunicating myself FROM what is of the greatest value - my weakest brothers, because it is in them that Jesus is.

I don’t think this is at variance with what was arguably originally intended by Our Lord, Holy Spirit and Apostles.

I’m not so sure. Let’s see what Jesus “originally intended”:

Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you

Spoiler

eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood

, you do not have life within you.

Whoever

Spoiler

eats my flesh and drinks my blood

has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.

For

Spoiler

my flesh

is true food, and

Spoiler

my blood

is true drink.

Whoever

Spoiler

eats my flesh and drinks my blood

remains in me and I in him.

Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who

Spoiler

feeds on me

will have life because of

Spoiler

me

.

This is John 6:53-57. I’ve blurred out certain words that speak to particular things that Christians do. So, here’s the question: did I blur places where Jesus said “commune with your weakest brothers”? Or did He say “eat my flesh and drink my blood”? Which of these two is Jesus saying will bring eternal life?

 

[fhansen]

I don’t want CCC answers please, but deep and original insights.

Ok. The entire purpose of our faith is for us to enter relationship or communion with God. Man was made for this union and is lost, dead, existing in a disordered or unjust state without it. The state known as Original Sin consists chiefly in our spiritual separation from God, an exile that Adam chose; his act of disobedience being a denial of God’s godhood for all practical purposes. Adam preferred himself to God as the Church teaches. But, “Apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). That’s what we’re here to learn.

So when the time was ripe in human history Jesus came to exhaustively reveal the true God so that we may know Him directly, for ourselves (ref the New Covenant prophecy of Jer 31:34), and by knowing Him we may come to believe in, trust in, and ultimately to love Him. This love, primarily, and the relationship which is intrinsic to it constitutes restored justice for man, even as it’s only a “partial restoration” in this life, to be fully consummated in the next life (ref 1 Cor 13:12). And this is why the Greatest Commandment is what it is BTW. In any case this is how we’re reconciled with God:
"Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." John 17:3

Anyway, the sacraments are always outward signs instituted by Christ to give grace. They effect what they signify. They “concretize” our theology so to speak, providing simple, physical means to acknowledge and experience God’s workings in us. So, in obedience to Jesus’ command in John chap 6, we embrace the need for partaking of Him, eating of the Tree of Life, as He must remain in us per John 15:4. This acknowledges the need for a regular, continuous accepting/embracing of Him and nourishing by Him.

And if we sin in some serious way such that our choices and actions naturally oppose and destroy love in us (mortal sin), then we die; we’ve turned away from God and his goodness and love; we’ve spiritually excommunicated ourselves even if we were to continue to physically receive the Eucharist. In this case only contrition and repentance, via a new change of heart and confession, can reconcile us anew so that we may, in good conscience and in actuality, commune with God again, partaking of His Body and Blood. In this way everyone, from the simplest to the most sophisticated, can know God’s will and live it out in the most basic ways, as has been understood and practiced through the centuries since the beginning of our faith. And the Early Fathers overwhelmingly attest to this understanding.

 

[Beryllos]

I am not sure I understand what your question is, but at least I am starting to see what it is not. I’m guessing it is not what I was writing about. I hope you get good answers!

 

[Vic_Taltrees_UK]

• shall try the Ratzinger book later
• shall find Anima Christi next & meditate on it. Shall let you know how I get on
• my responsibility stems FROM my freedom, there is no contrast. My affiliation is visible. I listed circumstances surrounding sources of power vis a vis the powerless. His Flesh is in the powerless

 

[Dovekin]

Some Aspects of the Church Understood as Communion is a good place to start for thes questions. It takes up the theme of Communion from Vatican II and gives some borders to the speculation based on it.

Ecclesial communion, into which each individual is introduced by faith and by Baptism, has its root and centre in the Blessed Eucharist. Indeed, Baptism is an incorporation into a body that the risen Lord builds up and keeps alive through the Eucharist, so that this body can truly be called the Body of Christ. The Eucharist is the creative force and source of communion among the members of the Church, precisely because it unites each one of them with Christ himself: “Really sharing in the body of the Lord in the breaking of the eucharistic bread, we are taken up into communion with him and with one another. ‘Because the bread is one, we, though many, are one body, all of us who partake of the one bread’ (1 Cor 10, 17)”
CDF. Communionis notio. 1992

 

[Vic_Taltrees_UK]

It has nothing to do with seeking Church positions or volunteering.

Indeed, one doesn’t need to be a communicant to be given an important church position, in present organisational practice.

(I missed last year’s deadline as well, in regard to that specific line of thought; but I think further detail on that isn’t needed; I have been contextualising the various aspects.)

 

[Vic_Taltrees_UK]

Some sacraments confer, but this one reflects or expresses, by its oath. Also its good effects probably take more than a year or two to fade. By 1992, power grabbing was less blatant as yet.

• Christ, strengthen me in your Passion
• Hide me in your pain

People who knew this wording shouldn’t have obeyed instructions to wait till after any ceremony - they should have applied it without any ceremony.

Life is urgent, if there is grace get on with it and stop hedging it round with niceties.

I identify with the suffering far more than with the power-grabbers. Organisational affiliation reaches a point where the connotations conflict.

I have to be seen how it fits my conscience. This leaves you free to find your own interpretation of your outlook and your own timing. As I am not allowed to relate, I have to discuss the entire thing in front of readership.

The body of information you have jointly presented confirms me in my interpretation. Some of your answers have been particularly inspired (as I wanted) and inspiring!