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To: Alamo-Girl; xone; Quix; Dr. North
So if withholding the cup and bread from a non-member is the loving thing to do, shouldn’t he also be loving to the members of his own assembly whose conscience is likewise unknowable to him?

Yes. When persistent sin is public knowledge, the priest should withhold the Eucharist also from a Catholic. When the sin is unknown, the presumption is that the Catholic confessed it and received absolution. When a known non-Catholic approaches to receive, the presumption of being in the state of grace cannot be made, and the Eucharist is withheld. That is because at least one thing that is known about the person is that he or she resisted conversion so far.

You then go on to say that you recognize the Real Presence of Christ. So then you are in a curious position where Christ asked you to eat of His body, you know that He did, yet you won't do it for one reason or another. This is hard to reconcile with freedom from sin, and hence with the conditions spelled out in 1 Cor 11.

848 posted on 01/08/2010 4:38:46 PM PST by annalex (http://www.catecheticsonline.com/CatenaAurea.php)
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To: annalex
When a known non-Catholic approaches to receive, the presumption of being in the state of grace cannot be made, and the Eucharist is withheld.

There are Christians who are not Catholic.

853 posted on 01/08/2010 5:04:22 PM PST by Dr. North
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To: annalex; xone; Quix; Dr. North
Thank you so much for sharing your insights, dear brother in Christ!

You then go on to say that you recognize the Real Presence of Christ. So then you are in a curious position where Christ asked you to eat of His body, you know that He did, yet you won't do it for one reason or another. This is hard to reconcile with freedom from sin, and hence with the conditions spelled out in 1 Cor 11.

What I do and do not do is based on Spiritual discernment not sensory perception. (John 15, John 10, I Cor 2, Romans 8, etc.)

Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know [them], because they are spiritually discerned. - I Cor 2:13-14

The testimony of a priest when he hands someone the bread and says "the body of Christ" is not what makes it so. God alone makes it so according to His own will.

For that reason I would not say that every communion in a particular assembly or location is divine. Nor is it exclusive. God makes it so - or not - whether Catholic, Lutheran, Orthodox, Baptist, the bread and wine as a Christian family observes Shabbat, etc.

Other examples from Scripture would be God's presence in the burning bush, the pillar of fire and smoke, the Temple. And of course, most especially, in my brothers and sisters in Christ:

What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost [which is] in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? - I Cor 6:19

Or to put it another way, I spiritually discern the body and the blood of Christ in many communions.

So when you say "Real Presence" we may not be talking about the same thing even though the words would fit.

xone provided a very illuminating pdf about close communion in the Lutheran doctrine. If you have a link for a similar Q&A on the Catholic doctrine, I'd like to read it. Without further information, I suspect the Catholic doctrine claims a Spiritual discernment as well as a physical discernment in its exclusion of non-Catholics.

God's Name is I AM

906 posted on 01/08/2010 10:06:49 PM PST by Alamo-Girl
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