Why wouldn't a Protestant want to receive the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist

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Tis_Bearself said:
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Wannano:
I read that only a small percentage of Catholics really believe yet they partake…which they can do because they have been baptized Catholic.
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I would caution you to not believe every “poll” you read, especially since many Catholics who respond to such polls are not necessarily the actively practicing kind.

Given that one is a “Catholic” simply by virtue of being baptized into the faith as a child, I could name you all kinds of “cultural Catholics” who know very little about the faith and actually receive the sacraments sporadically or not at all, yet still would say they’re a Catholic if you asked them, or if a pollster called.
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I believe I understand that and I mentioned that in my first post. Personally, the Catholic format is appealing because as I see it, one does not have to believe much of anything and still be in the Church by as you said “virtue of infant baptism” which puts an indelible mark on your soul that you can never get rid off. (I do not claim to understand that though. )
 
Well, some Catholics who have posted here really hate that because they feel that they’re now stuck in the Church with this indelible mark, can’t get out, and are always going to be subject to some higher penalty for sin because they’re Catholic, or something of the sort. We had a guy posting here regularly on that theme for quite some time, though I think he eventually got suspended.
 
No. Communion isn’t a Catholics versus everybody else sort of situation. It really is about being prepared to receive Jesus.

St. Paul says “So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup.” The Church teaches that one must believe what the church believes to receive the Eucharist. And you must have no mortal sins in your soul which haven’t been confessed.

Many Easter/Christmas Catholics are likely violating both of those expectations. Many Protestants also mistakenly receive at Catholic Churches. It’s a great pity that Catholics aren’t better formed so as to not commit this sacrilege (the actual term the church gives it, not my words).

So no. Catholics vs. everybody else isn’t a good way to view things.
 
chessnerd321 said:
As a Protestant I very much always felt that communion was a meaningless waste of time. I can remember Christ without some grape juice and bread. That doesn’t make much sense to me. Anyone can make up a symbol of Christ.
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My husband and I were Evangelical Protestants (me Baptist, he Pentecostal) for the first 47 years of our lives.

We always felt that Communion was a mysterious, reflective time when we weren’t singing or listening to preaching or loud music (usually the organ was playing softly in the background, and usually the hymns played were “Christ’s Sacrifice” hymns like When I Survey the Wondrous Cross).

We were just sitting in silence (remember, in Protestant churches, babies and toddlers are down in the nursery, not sitting fussing in their parents’ laps), examining our consciences and asking the Holy Spirit to bring to mind any sins that we were not willing to give up or confess, and asking Him to help us turn ourselves completely over the Jesus Christ, holding nothing back.

We were often overwhelmed with love for Jesus and gratitude for His love and sacrifice for our salvation.

It was a time when many of us made life-changing decisions for the Lord–I will start praying in the morning, I will sign up to help out at the rescue mission, I will start visiting the elderly in the nursing home, I will say “Yes” to the Christian Ed. committee and start teaching the 3rd grade Sunday school class.

And most importantly–the warning was ALWAYS spoken by our pastors–“IF YOU HAVE anything AGAINST your brother, do not receive Communion. Go NOW and make things right, and then return and receive Communion. Receiving unworthily will endanger your soul!”

And really, truly, I am NOT making this up–people in our church would get up out of their seats, approach another person in the congregation, and the two of them would quietly leave the sanctuary (which is what Protestants call the nave), and they would literally make things right between the two of them, and then return to their seats and receive.

Time was allotted for this in the communion service. No one expected communion to be finished in a few minutes. Our communion services generally lasted a half hour or more, as people made peace with each other before receiving.

This is one reason why I have no sympathy for Catholics who refuse to participate in the Sign of Peace. It’s one of the oldest, most Biblical practices in Christianity, and it is a direct command of the apostles–to not eat and drink the Body and Blood of Christ unworthily. Obviously our current “Sign of Peace” is symbolic, but it is a stark reminder to Catholic Christians that they should not be receiving Communion if they are harboring ill-will towards a fellow human being, and that they need to “make peace” first and then receive!

Even Protestants do that!

For me and my husband, the “seeds” of eventually converting to Catholicism were planted during those Protestant Communion services. We KNEW that this was something special, something supernatural, but we also sensed that it wasn’t “complete.” Catholic Communion is “complete.”
 
And amidst the motley Anglicans, many will be found affirming the real presence. Even if some of them don’t answer to the word “protestant”.
 
I feel like you know me, Peep. I respect that for you the move to Catholicism gave a “completeness.”

What then for someone like me that has been to numerous Catholic Masses and even asking God in prayer, do not feel the authenticity?
 
Fair enough. Thanks for sharing. Although you must admit. “Not complete” is putting it quite lightly. I didn’t mean to imply that God wouldn’t choose to impart grace through Protestant communion. Especially one so prayerfully done. He just never did for me.

Not all converts feel how I do, but I often regret that I spent any time as a Protestant. And in comparison to the sacraments to me it felt like a waste of time. But of course as I just said it formed me into the person who made the choice to be Catholic. So it can’t be all bad.

I shouldn’t have been so harsh in my word choice.
 
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GKMotley said:
And amidst the motley Anglicans, many will be found affirming the real presence. Even if some of them don’t answer to the word “protestant”.
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Is the Anglican affirmation of the Real Presence exactly the same as the Catholic position?
 
Peeps said:
This is one reason why I have no sympathy for Catholics who refuse to participate in the Sign of Peace.
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The refusal to participate in the Sign of Peace is not because Catholics don’t want to forgive each other. There are a lot of reasons for not wanting to do it that are in all the 1,000,000 threads on the Sign of Peace.

Given the nature of Catholic Churches, it is highly likely that the person the Catholic most needs to forgive is not sitting in the church with them, and they can’t go out into the vestibule and have a chat. In my case, the people I have most needed to forgive not only lived in a totally different part of the country, they weren’t even Catholic. There’s no way I would be shaking their hand at church, nor even calling them up before or after Mass because the toxicity of the relationship meant no contact was best.

I do participate in the Sign of Peace, but me wishing the Sign of Peace to everybody in the church around me is just a goodwill gesture at best. I have no beef with any of them. Usually I don’t even know them. This is one criticism Catholics have about the sign of peace, that it’s an empty gesture or “social time” as implemented in the Catholic Mass, and not what Jesus truly intended, and I think that’s a reasonable criticism. It might be better if the priest directed us all to think in our heart about who in our lives we need to forgive and do that before we receive.
 
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Depends on the Anglican. As does all such Anglican questions.

You will find some on the symbolic side. Some on the real presence, but not affirming transubstantiation camp ( affirming the “what”, not the “how”), accepting that it is a mystery, and then those who accept Trent Session XIII, Canon 1 (at least).

Motley is in my name for a reason.
 
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The Anglican point on the poster should be “depends on the degree to which you are basically Anglo-Catholic” (deriving from the Tractarians). High Church is more related to ritualism (derived from the Ritualist movement, natch). But it’s a fine point.

Or, you could put Anglican over all the definitions
 
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And it’s precisely how I was taught to explain it. Re-presentation. We are brought to the foot of the Cross, as time and eternity intersect at the altar.
 
There’s no protestant in the world who would “hate” to receive Christ in the Sacrament, I reckon. Rather, there’s millions (billions?) of protestants who don’t believe- if they believe at all- that you have to “go to Jerusalem” (the Church) to receive Him. It’s been awhile since I’ve been that far in the Old Testament (I’m rather enamored with the Torah), but I seem to remember that, after the Kingdom was split, the northern tribes established their own temple to offer sacrifice so they could avoid Jerusalem. This seems like protestants today who have separated themselves from the One Church (who is like Judah) in order to go their own ways and have their own sacrifices. Denial of a sacrifice at all is just a byproduct of their frequent splintering.

If we want protestants to return to us as Benjamin returned to Judah, then they just have to be convinced that where there is a temple, there is a sacrifice.
 
GKMotley said:
And it’s precisely how I was taught to explain it. Re-presentation. We are brought to the foot of the Cross, as time and eternity intersect at the altar.
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Please help me understand…if it is a re-presentation, which I am not arguing against, and we are brought to the foot of the Cross, as time and eternity intersect at the altar, then if there is no re-sacrifice of Christ, it seems to me to be symbolic?
 
No. It is the same Sacrifice. Not a symbolic one, not another one, not a repeated one, not a different one, not an added one, not a successive one (continue ad infinitum). It is the same Sacrifice. Same Victim. Same Blood. Same Sacrifice. That one. What it means to be brought to the foot of the cross. What it means to say the intersection of time and eternity. The same sacrifice offered, eternally (not within time) to the Father, by the Son, for us (who are within time).
 
If you truly understand that I can’t help but admire you for it is beyond me.
 
I have been taught that we need to go to the foot of the Cross, unload our sinful baggage at the foot of the empty cross…empty because it is finished.
 
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