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as I receive His body and blood I am so brought into union with Him that I feel as though I am also encountering His sufferings, the sufferings for which and by which my sins are removed. In the Eucharist I am raised up with Christ to where He is; I am assured of the resurrection of my body and life everlasting joined mysteriously but truly to He who is Life Itself. In confession I am confronted with the gentleness and patience of Christ whose mercy is without limit.

This is not unique to your organization...For us Christians who received the Holy Spirit upon calling on Christ to save us, we have these same things, always...Not just at communion...But we have communion to reflect upon that Last Supper and the crucifiction...

But we don't get raised up everytime we eat the bread and drink the juice...We ARE raised up to sit with Jesus Christ, now and forever...We don't keep going up and down before and after communion...

But I always wondered, how long does a Eucharist last???How long can you go between Eucharists before you need to get 'refueled'???

Every Catholic I talked to (you are the exception) says you guys can not possibly have assurance of being raised up with Christ...

Those of us on the other side know we have that assurance and if you do, you maybe ought to pass that knowledge along to some of the other Catholics...

Iscool,

I do not claim that spiritual blessing is exclusive to Catholicism. I was raised Pentecostal, trained at a Presbyterian seminary, and then became Anglican, before recently becoming Catholic. In each of these traditions I have been enriched and strengthened in unique ways.

But I always wondered, how long does a Eucharist last???How long can you go between Eucharists before you need to get 'refueled'???

The Eucharist is not quantifiable. It cannot be measured, like gasoline. So the question is misguided. The question is not "How long can you go between Eucharists?", but "When may I again receive the Eucharist?"

Every Catholic I talked to (you are the exception) says you guys can not possibly have assurance of being raised up with Christ...

Having been a Calvinist during one period of my life, it seems clear to me that there are different senses of "assurance". One sense of 'assurance' is an infallible present knowledge of a future event (i.e. one's permanent entrance into heaven at the Final Judgment). Another sense of 'assurance' is a deep awareness of one's present relation to God, but without any infallible knowledge of one's future salvific condition. The former is what I as a Calvinist [thought I] had. The latter is what I now as a Catholic have.

-A8