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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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To: Alamo-Girl

As usual . . .

I must boringly agree with you wholesale.

LOL.

What fun is that!

I still have an intense conviction . . . God is very holy.

He is not at all prissy.

He must laugh and cry alternately at a lot of humans

exceedingly fussy RELIGIOUS nonsense.


909 posted on 01/08/2010 10:10:19 PM PST by Quix (POL Ldrs quotes fm1900 TRAITORS http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2130557/posts?page=81#81)
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To: Alamo-Girl; xone; Quix; Dr. North
when you say "Real Presence" we may not be talking about the same thing

But that is all we need to know to see why you should not be receiving in the Catholic Church. You will be doing one thing and thinking another.

Out of curiosity, what are your thoughts about communities of faith that do not even claim the Real Presence? In most Protestant services that I visited, the words of Institution might be quoted, to be sure, but the minister quoting them does not believe nor does he teach that the bread becomes anything other than bread during the Last Supper ceremony he conducts.

1,052 posted on 01/09/2010 11:42:41 AM PST by annalex (http://www.catecheticsonline.com/CatenaAurea.php)
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