Thread: How Often Need Catholics Take Communion?

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Transubstantiation is a process wherein the elements of communion (a.k.a. species) are transformed into Christ's body and blood; which, if true, is a tremendous advantage for Catholics. Here's why.

● John 6:53-54 . . Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life

If transubstantiation is true, then Catholics need to ingest the elements but once and they never need to ingest them again seeing as how eternal life is impervious to death. Were that not so it would be possible to assassinate God; viz: eternal life never wears out, nor wears off, nor spoils, not gets old and dies.

Q: When would Catholics obtain eternal life from the elements?

A: Right away. The grammatical tense of "has" is present tense.

NOTE: Jesus compared himself to manna; which was a curious nourishment that God provided His people during their forty years in the Sinai outback. Manna didn't give them eternal life-- in point of fact manna didn't even give them immortality; it just gave them daily sustenance.

Manna was dated; but not eternal life; no, eternal life is just as fresh now as it was a billion years ago because eternal life isn't an organic commodity; rather, it's power.

Well; if transubstantiation is true; then it isn't necessary to dine upon Christ on a daily basis, nor a weekly basis, nor even an annual basis because eternal life can't be used up; no, eternal life is endless.

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Q: What's the correct way to partake of Christ's body and blood?

A: Well; one thing we can be very sure of is that Christ wasn't literal. The reason being that right after the Flood, God forbad humanity to eat living flesh and blood (Gen 9:3-4). So if people are determined to eat Christ's flesh and blood, either literally or transubstantiated, they are going to have to first make sure it's quite dead; which of course is impossible seeing as how Christ rose from the dead with immortality. (Rom 6:9)

Also; the night of Christ's last supper, he and all the men present with him were Jews. Well; seeing as how according to Heb 9:16-17, the new covenant wasn't ratified until Christ died, then he and his men were still under the jurisdiction of the covenant that Yhvh's people agreed upon with God in the Old Testament as per Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

The covenant forbids Jews to eat any manner of blood (Lev 7:26-27). So if Christ had led those men into eating his blood that night, he would have led them into a curse (Deut 27:26) and thus relegated himself to the position of the least in the kingdom of God. (Matt 26:26-28)

Bottom line: We can, and we should, rule out transubstantiation as a valid explanation of John 6:32-58.

Q: What then is the correct way to go about it?

A: Well; Jesus informed his remaining followers that the words he spoke about eating his flesh and blood are spirit words (John 6:63). Not that people can't read and/or hear spirit words written and/or spoken in their native tongue; but in order to understand what spirit words are saying, people need some way to decode them.

No doubt Rome claims it has the ability to decode spirit words; but if John Q and Jane Doe pew warmer don't have the ability, then they're forced to take Rome's word for it.

Speaking for myself: I don't have the ability to decode spirit words, nor do I have access to an Enigma machine set up for decoding them. I think I know what Jesus' spirit words are saying; but in reality, my thoughts are only a theory; so in sharing my thoughts, I'd just be muddying the waters.

FYI: Christians are instructed to avoid eating blood. (Acts 15:20, Acts 15:29, and Acts 21:25)

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● John 6:53 . . Jesus said to them: Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.

Rome's understanding of the life referred to in Christ's statement is as follows:

"It is quite in keeping with the excellence of the heavenly Father that He should supply for His children during the pilgrimage a fitting sustenance which will sustain the dignity of their position, and be to them a pledge of resurrection and eternal life; and this is the Bread of the Holy Eucharist." (Catholic Encyclopedia)

Seeing as how the life obtained from the Eucharist has to be replenished from time to time in order to "sustain the dignity of their position, and be to them a pledge of resurrection and eternal life" then it's in the same category as manna, which was also a temporary sustenance. But Jesus said that the power of his "bread" isn't temporary; rather, it's perpetual.

● John 6:49-51 . . Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever;

Something else: I suspect Rome is under the illusion that John 6:48-58 and 1Cor 11:23-25 are teaching the same thing; but there is a world of difference between the two teachings.

As an illustration: The Viet Nam War Memorial in Washington DC isn't set up as a food court where visitors come and dine upon the bodies and blood of the servicemen and women whose names are on the wall. No, the memorial is set up for remembering the people whose names are on the wall; lest we forget.

● 1Cor 11:23-25 . . For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread, and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said, "This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me."

Note that, unlike John 6:48-58, the above passage doesn't say "do this in order to obtain eternal life". Not even! No, it's a memorial service; and the intent is to prevent Christ's crucifixion from becoming marginalized; and thus out of mind.

● 1Cor 11:26 . . For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes.

Q: But what about 1Cor 11:29? Doesn't that teach real presence?

A: No; it teaches that when people regard the Lord's supper as merely food on the table; they devalue the importance of his death; which is a pretty serious sin.

● 1Cor 11:30 . . That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep.

Apparently the Corinthian Christians set the Lord's supper up as sort of a potluck and/or an all you can eat buffet where people helped themselves instead of being served by priests and altar boys. Well; that would have been okay except that it led to excess and poor manners.

● 1Cor 11:20-23 . .When you meet together, it is not to eat the Lord's Supper, for in your eating each one takes his own supper first; and one is hungry and another is drunk. What! Do you not have houses in which to eat and drink? Or do you despise the church of God, and shame those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you? In this I will not praise you.

● 1Cor 11:33-34 . . So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for each other. If anyone is hungry, he should eat at home, so that when you meet together it may not result in judgment.

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● Lev 17:10 . . And if anyone, whether of the house of Israel or of the aliens residing among them, partakes of any blood, I will set myself against that one who partakes of blood and will cut him off from among his people.

The reason given for banning the eating of blood is because God designated it for sacrificial purposes.

● Lev 17:11 . . Since the life of a living body is in its blood, I have made you put it on the altar, so that atonement may thereby be made for your own lives, because it is the blood, as the seat of life, that makes atonement.

Was Christ's blood sacrificial blood? Yes; therefore it was illegal for Jews to eat it on the night before the day of his offering.

Failure to comply with Lev 17:10-11 is curse-worthy.

● Deut 27:26 . . Cursed be he who fails to fulfill any of the provisions of this law

So then, had Christ actually led his men to eat blood on the night before the day of his crucifixion, he would have led them into a curse for breaking the law; and thus relegated himself to the position of least in the kingdom of heaven

● Matt 5:18-19 . . Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever obeys and teaches these commandments will be called greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

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● John 6:53 . . Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.

When I was growing up a young Catholic boy back in the decade of the 1950s, we were given the bread at communion, but never the wine. In other words; in accordance with the principles of transubstantiation; we ate Jesus' flesh without his blood.

Well; Jesus' recipe for "life within you" consists of both his flesh and his blood. Therefore, none of my communions counted because they were incomplete. I obtained no life from them: none of them; not a single one. I might just as well have used the host to make a peanut butter and jelly hor d'oeuvre for all the good it did me without the wine element.

It is not only necessary to include the wine element in order to obtain life, but it is also necessary to include it in order to attain to Jesus' resurrection.

● John 6:53 . . Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.

So then, according to the principles of transubstantiation, I not only lacked eternal life due to my total, 100% lack of Jesus' blood; but my afterlife future was in grave peril too!

I was told that both species of the Eucharist-- the consecrated host and the consecrated wine --contain Christ's body and blood (a.k.a. real presence) so that either one alone will do the trick without the other.

Well; that might be what Rome says; but it's not what Christ preached.

1• Christ taught that his body is represented by the bread.

"While they were eating, Jesus took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and giving it to his disciples said: Take and eat; this is my body." (Matt 26:26)

2• Christ taught that his blood is represented by the wine.

"Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying: Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins." (Matt 26:27-28)

According to the apostle Paul, when pew warmers leave one of the elements out of their communion service, they convey an incomplete gospel.

"For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes." (1Cor 11:26)

Paul didn't say "and/or" no, he said "and". Jesus also said "and" rather than "and/or"

Rome was not only seriously negligent back in the day, but also grossly incompetent. It couldn't even conduct something as simple and straight forward as the Lord's Supper without screwing it up.

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