[bornacatholic]

I remember Sister Mary Whoever telling us that after communion our souls were perfectly white and that if we got hit by a bus crossing the street after Mass, we'd go straight to heaven. Of course, we were maybe 8 years old and she was no theologian, but it appears that at least the image stuck in one little Greek boy.

*LOL Sister Mary W. was a pretty good theologian. I can't imagine a young Kolokotronis, no doubt having gone to Confession the day before Eucharist, dying post-Eucharist and not going to Heaven immediately(unless you were as bad an 8 y.o. as me)

Seriously, I understand your point. I was told the same thing about Confession and the salient truth one can't gain Heaven without Sanctifying Grace in their soul underlies the colloquial theology we learned from Nuns and Priests back then.

What about +Ratzinger's comments on the Eucharist as "the" or "a" defining element of the Church,..

*I learned that, in its essence, the Church is all about Christ; that the Eucharist is all about Christ; that our Sacramental union with Him in Communion is how we become the men God intended us to be, men filed with Sanctifying Grace becoming ever more Christ-like while retaining our unique manhoods, personalties etc.

[Knitting A Conundrum]

---I learned that, in its essence, the Church is all about Christ; that the Eucharist is all about Christ; that our Sacramental union with Him in Communion is how we become the men God intended us to be, men filed with Sanctifying Grace becoming ever more Christ-like while retaining our unique manhoods, personalties etc.---

Each time you come to us,
O Lord,
Body and blood,
Soul and Divinity,
in that simple guise of bread,
it is like a heartbeat of love,
coursing through our soul,
healing our wounds.
O Bread of Heaven,
Adoro te devote, latens Deitas!

[Kolokotronis]

"I can't imagine a young Kolokotronis, no doubt having gone to Confession the day before Eucharist, dying post-Eucharist and not going to Heaven immediately(unless you were as bad an 8 y.o. as me)"

Unfortunately, confession was virtually unknown in the Orthodox Church around here when I was a kid, so the Roman priests said I should go to the Roman confession and I did. Communion was reserved for the Orthodox Church, however. As for being a naughty 8 year old, well, we had a principal, Sister Mary of the Hard Ash Pointer; everyone thought I was her secretary because I was always sitting outside her office! :)