“Is ‘taking’ communion a REQUIREMENT for retaining one’s salvation?”
Partaking of communion, of the Eucharist, the Body of Christ is part of how God’s grace leads us to His salvation.
HOWEVER, we leave salvation up to God. He decides how to judge us all. But we should do as scripture tells us and not hope He MIGHT save us. Salvation is a cooperation. He didn’t die to just send us all to heaven. He doesn’t force us to be with Him if we don’t want to be. So we do what He has told us to do in order to be with Him in heaven. To not do what he said (or on the same token to do what He said not to do…) is a sin and can bar us from heaven. And to answer your question simply: “Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen, I say unto you: except you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood abideth in me: and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, the same also shall live by me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Not as your fathers did eat manna and are dead. He that eateth this bread shall live for ever.”
That doesn’t sound like a symbol to me. It wasn’t a symbol to the Apostles. It wasn’t a symbol even to the first Protestants. Its now a symbol to those that want it to be. And a symbol is nothing and wouldn’t be needed to be received. Nor would it be something that your soul would depend upon.
“Therefore, whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord. But let a man prove himself: and so let him eat of that bread and drink of the chalice. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord. Therefore are there many infirm and weak among you: and many sleep. But if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But whilst we are judged, we are chastised by the Lord, that we be not condemned with this world.
The first Christians were accused of being cannibals. Why would that be if no one thought they were eating the body and blood of Jesus?
Nah. Unsustainable by the overall context of accurately translated Holy Scripture alone. And at root, this is exactly why the Vatican-ruled "Catholic" Churches are not and cannot ever be the Ekklesia on Earth of the Risen Jesus of the Bible. Your paedobaptism was an instrument of the Constantine's state organ of religion, whence a new-born infant must be declared and acclaimed invariably as a citizen of the Roman Empire, by an unachievable individual personally-instructed "faith" in an imaginary person whom that infant cannot know or believe on when his/her desire to sustain life is only and solely on milk from a mother's breast, and nothing else--no accountability to the laws of the religion or the Roman state that invented it.
The "Roman" of this particular religion does not refer to the Rome of the location of the Vatican's currently accepted Ruler, now divorced from any state politic. It refers to the long-dead Roman Empire of Constantine and Justinian, who instituted this false organization as the State Religion. It has been a dead religion for a long, long time, a continued successive funerary receptacle of condemned spiritually dead souls that it cannot ever revive, Purgatory or not. Ask any truly regenerated servant of the Risen Living Christ who has escaped from the bondage of Romanism.
So true!!
We gotta have Mary to lead us to Jesus!
--Wannabe_Catholic_Dude(Hail Mary!)
And iff'n ya don't believe ME...
Jesus said "Without Me you can do nothing". In this crisis which looms ahead of us, Our Lady has told us that we need Her help, Her intercession. We must ask for Her help with the Rosary and the Scapular.
At Fatima , Our Lady told us very plainly that "Only I can help you". Today more than ever is this so true.
Pray the Rosary and sacrifice yourself for Our Lady.
I urge you to also make some sacrifices as Our Lady of Fatima asked us. For those who are able, do some fasting. If you can, abstain from meat by eating meat only during one meal a day. Try to do this for two days, even ten days or 30 days. Of course we should abstain totally from meat every Friday.
Jesus and Mary — Our Hope
It is so urgent that we reach as many souls as possible before it is too late. Let us be of good cheer and remember the words of Jesus to each of us, "It's never too late to have recourse to Jesus and Mary." That is why it is so important to reach the many millions of souls who do not know this, and who do not know the grave dangers lying in wait for their souls.
No, we must never lose hope. Mary is our hope. She can obtain for us what we cannot by ourselves. Read what St. Alphonsus has to say regarding confidence in Our Lady's intercession in "Mary Leads Her Servants to Heaven". Father Manelli also reminds us of the importance of devotion to Our Lady. (See "Hail Mary, Full of Grace"). Our Blessed Mother tells us to turn to Her in confidence. She tells us repeatedly to ask Her intercession through the frequent fervent praying of the Rosary. (See "The Rosary"). She tells us we must pray the Rosary every day. She wants us to pray it many times a day.