I'd have to go with a dictionary as well as a Bible. Since I dont speak greek or latin. I'd be typing into an ipad going, whats this term? What is a vicar? What is a layman? Sacrament? Whats that? Vestry? Narthex? Why do priests wear dog collars? 'Love offering?' benediction? Doxology? Arrgh. Far too complicated and religious for me.
Communion/Eucharist/Lord's Supper.
- Thread starter calvin
- Start date
The rice cake was neither, but somewhere between both. It was a long time ago now and I am no culinary expert!
Nepal cannot grow any of the usual bread flours, nor can they grow grape vines. There must be many other places on earth where bread and wine is unavailable for our communion. Its no good saying they can be imported because for many of these areas, importing of such things would have been very recent, leaving centuries of unavailability.
I have actually taken communion with all sorts of substitutes over the years. The ongoing proclamation of his death is more important than the detailed method.
Yes, I agree completely. Sad to say though, until you pointed it out it had never occurred to me that some would not have wine of some sort nor even corn bread or potato cakes or something.
Well, rice is a grain staple that is like bread for asians.
You can eat rice crackers...and they taste just like wafers and satisfy requirement cos you can break them. Jesus body broken for you...
As for tea, you can have fruit tea which would satisfy fruit of the vine requirement...it just needs to be red, to remind us of Jesus Blood, poured out for us.
You can find apple and blackcurrant tea, thats red.
You can eat rice crackers...and they taste just like wafers and satisfy requirement cos you can break them. Jesus body broken for you...
As for tea, you can have fruit tea which would satisfy fruit of the vine requirement...it just needs to be red, to remind us of Jesus Blood, poured out for us.
You can find apple and blackcurrant tea, thats red.
Glomung
Account Closed
Unless you are an Eskimo there are few places on the planet you can't grow grains and grapes.
Rye and barley and grown within the arctic circle and there are grape varieties that are cold hardy to -35 F.
The requirements for communion are bread made of grain and wine made of grapes. Anything else is not acceptible.
Rye and barley and grown within the arctic circle and there are grape varieties that are cold hardy to -35 F.
The requirements for communion are bread made of grain and wine made of grapes. Anything else is not acceptible.
For those who practice taking communion as a symbol and something that is eaten only to stop and meditate on Jesus, then that is how it will be looked at. I remember seeing a group take communion using soda and Doritos. To many people, this would be considered a "fun" and "new" way of doing this.
However, for others, because it wouldn't be considered just a symbol, they would go out of their way to reserve reverence to worshiping God by sticking to bread and wine in valid form. While it could be regarded as an occasional moment of reflection for some, it is the climax of the worship for others, so it becomes especially important that it done with sincerity and fullness of heart. For them, it's not bread because bread resembles skin color and it's not red wine because red is the color of blood -- it's each of these things because it's what Christ used in establishing the Eucharist on that Holy Thursday. Had Christ picked up an apple and said "This is my body" and then picked up olive oil and said "this is my blood" perhaps apples and olive oil would be the used items when receiving communion.
I'm not even making a case for what the Eucharist is (we both hold a different position on that), I'm only explaining why, for two thousand years, the items used wouldn't dare be substituted by so many.
You miss the point Glomung.
"...............there are few places on earth you can't grow grain and grapes."
That might be technically true in the 21st century, but for many centuries, such items would have been completely out of reach for a high percentage of the world. The modern world wide distribution system for commodities is just that, modern. Additionally alcoholic drinks are illegal in some countries, including Islamic ones. Are they to be refused communion until they smuggle the right ingredients or get the national religion changed.
You may consider things other than wine and bread as unacceptable, but I doubt that God is that pernickity.
Glomung
Account Closed
Islam has only existed for 1000 years, and before modern times did not much interfere with the religious practices of non-Moslems.
Grains exist all over the world and have been spread by trade for thousands of years. Grapes grow wild over most of the world, and again have been spread by trade. The Romans grew grapes in England during the period of Imperial Rome.
Lack of the proper ingredients has never been a real problem.
Glomung is right.
But let's say for a moment that there are extreme cases where the bread and wine aren't present (like a war zone perhaps or in areas where the resources are just so scarce -- though even in those areas they often are made available), that usually meant no substitute would even be available IF substitutes were permitted. Because substitutes aren't permitted, it isn't even considered.
Last edited:
Um.
No.
Asians cannot handle alcoholic beverages. Mostly. Other people cant either.
Well..lets test this shall we? elijah showdown.
We will commune with Jesus by eating rice crackers and drinking fruit tea or grape juice this passover.
You in the other camp, can go to official churches and eat wafers and drink alcoholic wine blessed by the priest in some kind of ritualistic mass.
We'll see if God can accept both kinds of observing until Jesus returns when we will eat and drink with him in the Kingdom...cos I dunno, he might serve us at seperate tables at the wedding supper, or he could just say to me couldnt you get drunk just this once, for me? But the other camp might turn up their nose at the rice crackers and say..we not eating THAT!
No.
Asians cannot handle alcoholic beverages. Mostly. Other people cant either.
Well..lets test this shall we? elijah showdown.
We will commune with Jesus by eating rice crackers and drinking fruit tea or grape juice this passover.
You in the other camp, can go to official churches and eat wafers and drink alcoholic wine blessed by the priest in some kind of ritualistic mass.
We'll see if God can accept both kinds of observing until Jesus returns when we will eat and drink with him in the Kingdom...cos I dunno, he might serve us at seperate tables at the wedding supper, or he could just say to me couldnt you get drunk just this once, for me? But the other camp might turn up their nose at the rice crackers and say..we not eating THAT!
May I suggest that people google the actual facts to see where the wine producing regions of the world are. The world maps clearly shows that the wine producing countries are very very limited, and that their vine growing areas are even more limited. Not only that, but many of those wine areas are comparatively modern developments, ie. California and Australia.
Today, mass exports do a good job of distribution around the world, but in previous centuries such exports were prohibitively expensive luxuries, which were only affordable by the ruling classes. Wines made from grapes were clearly not commonly available, as they were in Israel.
Jesus used wine as a metaphor for blood because it was the common beverage for that area. Wine, often diluted, was regularly drunk in preference to water because water was frequently too dangerous. Fermentation killed bacteria etc.
"Because substitutes aren't permitted......."
Substitutes might not be permitted by your church and many other western mainstream churches Lysander, but that's where it stops. Too many seem to be limited by their own tunnel vision, without considering those who are outside that landscape, who have never seen things from your convenient western perspective.
As mentioned previously, I was in Nepal, high in the mountains on an illicit mission where there was no wine for hundreds of miles. That happened because it is a tropical zone and grapes don't grow anywhere near, nor were there any shops for many miles.
I was visiting a christian village well off the beaten track and they regularly met for worship and communion together, with tea and rice cake. To deny them this freedom, based on a western legalistic understanding of wine and bread seems to be very sad indeed.
To prohibit communion to these people, until wine can be efficiently imported, is utter nonsense. Our spiritual walk should never be controlled by whether there is an effective commercial network available.
I am not in any way rejecting the use of wine and bread where it is the norm, I am just trying to burst the bubble of nonsense which surrounds taking communion. We have no right to tell those who don't have easy access to wine that they are wrong!
Lanolin, you say that Asians can't handle alcohol. OK, no argument from me, but...since rice wine is said to have originated in China, do you mean that there is no social drinking of wines, but it is used or meant to be only used in cooking? Just curious and learning new things.
@all
Now then one thing I learned only recently, is that the juice of all grapes is clear, ie. never red. Red wines are just so because of taking on pigment from the skins.
So if I was to take a quantity of, let's say Muscat grapes and crush them up and leave them with their skins for as while I would have red 'must' or if fermented, red wine.
If the juice is separated from the skins soon enough, I guess that would be how they make 'white' muscat wines.
So it seems reasonable to me that an over reliance on colour is a focus on the skin (outward appearance) rather than the inner quality. Yet it is also true that healthy blood is red and that is an inner quality of it.
So I figure that for a non RC, the outward quality of the liquid used is not as important as the inner quality of the worship offered by way of it.
I understand that there are other considerations that are of vital importance to RCs , so I suppose a priest would not/could not consecrate white wine or orange juice. For them, red wine for the Eucharist is most important.
@all
Now then one thing I learned only recently, is that the juice of all grapes is clear, ie. never red. Red wines are just so because of taking on pigment from the skins.
So if I was to take a quantity of, let's say Muscat grapes and crush them up and leave them with their skins for as while I would have red 'must' or if fermented, red wine.
If the juice is separated from the skins soon enough, I guess that would be how they make 'white' muscat wines.
So it seems reasonable to me that an over reliance on colour is a focus on the skin (outward appearance) rather than the inner quality. Yet it is also true that healthy blood is red and that is an inner quality of it.
So I figure that for a non RC, the outward quality of the liquid used is not as important as the inner quality of the worship offered by way of it.
I understand that there are other considerations that are of vital importance to RCs , so I suppose a priest would not/could not consecrate white wine or orange juice. For them, red wine for the Eucharist is most important.
With all due respect, you misunderstand. It's not a matter of permission (which was the word I used, so that's my fault), it's that they don't have the authority to change what is considered to be a sacrament.
No one is suggesting that the people in Nepal can't exercise their religion and perform communion with rice cakes and tea. That can use Rice Krispies and Pepsi if it is their wish. However, what Glomung and I are saying is that within the Catholic faith, that would not be deemed a valid communion because it is a tampering of the sacrament. There are criteria involving this, and what the host is made from isn't the only one.
And Catholic leaders, nor laity, have the authority to stop Protestant groups from performing what they accept as valid communion -- it just means they are in disagreement over it, that's all.
Only business men wanting to drug the other party into submission would think of serving alcohol.
No, generally, in china, the drink of choice is tea.
Rice wine is used in cooking.
As far as i know there are breweries the germans introduced for beer.
Recently cos of western ways and affluence, the moneyed classes now are being introduced to the wonders of wine snobbery. Nz now wants to export their expensive wines and is trying to convince the asian market to partake, as well as eat with knives and forks off separate plates and napkin rings. Well, at least we not importing opium.
No, generally, in china, the drink of choice is tea.
Rice wine is used in cooking.
As far as i know there are breweries the germans introduced for beer.
Recently cos of western ways and affluence, the moneyed classes now are being introduced to the wonders of wine snobbery. Nz now wants to export their expensive wines and is trying to convince the asian market to partake, as well as eat with knives and forks off separate plates and napkin rings. Well, at least we not importing opium.
That is an excellent observation. And you're not wrong at all. I remember at my first communion rehearsal, it was the first time I had ever seen the wine. At this time, I had been going to Catholic mass for awhile, but of course since I wasn't a Catholic then, I had never received communion there. We only saw the bread, but the wine was never visible clearly only because the cup is always a chalice -- so it's not transparent. So at the rehearsal, when I saw the wine was actually a clear beige, I was kind of surprised since growing up, grape juice was in place of wine to symbolize the blood. Some sacramental wines are a rose color, and some are deep red, but many of them aren't red at all.
Who's doing that, Lanolin? Because I agree with you.
I'm an Ordinary Christian as well. I wouldn't want to impose anything nor be imposed on.
Again, just a reminder for everyone -- no one here is arguing what Communion is. We're only stating what the different beliefs are and why they are what they are. If I make the statement that Lutherans believe in Consubstantiation, that isn't me saying that Consubstantiation is the true form of communion...I'm only stating a matter of fact that we all have to admit -- Lutherans believe in Consubstantiation. None of us are Lutherans that I know of.
Everyone is free to believe as they wish and without force from anyone.
Everyone is free to believe as they wish and without force from anyone.
In what context?