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Interesting, to those of Orthodoxy do you concur with this?One of the arguments which was highly divisive during the Reformation was, if a crumb of the Eucharist fell to the floor and a church mouse ate it, what would the mouse be eating? Would it be receiving Christ?
The Anglican answer would be no. The Holy Spirit works a change in the elements but also in those who receive them; one of our foundational doctrinal statements says this:
"The Wicked, and such as be void of a lively faith, although they do carnally and visibly press with their teeth (as Saint Augustine saith) the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ, yet in no wise are they partakers of Christ: but rather, to their condemnation, do eat and drink the sign or Sacrament of so great a thing."
So while Christ is present in the Sacrament, that presence is received only by those with a "lively faith."
Interesting, to those of Orthodoxy do you concur with this?
Totally agree. There have been times where I have profoundly and tangibly experienced the Lord and those around me were totally oblivious to the situation and I have not dought the inverse has occurred also.One of the arguments which was highly divisive during the Reformation was, if a crumb of the Eucharist fell to the floor and a church mouse ate it, what would the mouse be eating? Would it be receiving Christ?
The Anglican answer would be no. The Holy Spirit works a change in the elements but also in those who receive them; one of our foundational doctrinal statements says this:
"The Wicked, and such as be void of a lively faith, although they do carnally and visibly press with their teeth (as Saint Augustine saith) the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ, yet in no wise are they partakers of Christ: but rather, to their condemnation, do eat and drink the sign or Sacrament of so great a thing."
So while Christ is present in the Sacrament, that presence is received only by those with a "lively faith."
I want to know what "lively faith" means. I'm assuming this has some particular meaning in an Anglican context.
Unfortunately this is one area where there are issues in the Anglican Church. In my former communion, if few people came forward to receive, the priest was not keen on consuming a large amount of consecrated wine, so at the end of the service he would, as he put it, pour it reverently down the sink. I'm not aware if it was a special purpose sink draining into the earth or if it was into the standard waste water system. Either way it was something that always troubled me back then.The dropped crumb is hypothetical. All of us are meticulously careful to ensure reverent treatment of the sacrament. It was a way of exploring the question, does one who receives without faith, receive Christ?
(And by the way, by what I said I did not mean to imply your Tradition was careless with the Eucharist. I had guessed the mouse was likely hypothetical.)The dropped crumb is hypothetical. All of us are meticulously careful to ensure reverent treatment of the sacrament. It was a way of exploring the question, does one who receives without faith, receive Christ?
I am not sure that we have a neat and concise definition anywhere. My sense of this is that the piece of doctrine I posted was attempting to say that physically receiving the sacrament, does not automatically mean that Christ is present and active in the heart of the believer as a result; and that receiving the physical sacrament is meant to be a means of receiving grace in one's heart (soul, inner being, etc).
Traditionally in Greece, all bread is treated as a symbol of Christ. A lovely woman in Greece who posted on Monachos.net related how she once put a loaf of bread on the meal table upside down, and her father gently reprimanded her while putting it right side up, explaining that as a symbol of Christ it should always be treated with respect.I still remember being horrified as a mostly baptist-Pentecostal-type background evangelical to see children tossing bits of the bread around in a game and people casually trampling it underfoot. I didn't really understand what anyone's Eucharistic teaching was, but I DID accept the fact that Christ said the bread was His Body, so I always thought it was, in a spiritual sense at least.
I like this.Traditionally in Greece, all bread is treated as a symbol of Christ. A lovely woman in Greece who posted on Monachos.net related how she once put a loaf of bread on the meal table upside down, and her father gently reprimanded her while putting it right side up, explaining that as a symbol of Christ it should always be treated with respect.
It is interesting to me, for the purposes of drawing a distinction between this kind of explanation and what you can find in the Orthodox liturgical texts of my own Church ("the sanctification is by the Holy Spirit" -- period), how much transubstantiation relies on the knowledge and acceptance of these philosophical categories, without which nothing can be made of the doctrine at all (according to the above). After all, the piece starts off noting that this is all "besides the real presence", so this is something additional to the basic belief that Christ is truly present in the bread and wine, which is not a point of difference between the Roman Catholics and the Orthodox.
Please don't be petty as with the last statement. If we are going to have a meaningful discussion, there should be some respect here. Doctrine is not just what you do, but it is also what you believe. If you do not believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, then you wouldn't be "doing this". One gets to "doing this" by "believing this".From having been RC and now not being so (I suppose to the those of the Chalcedonian confession such as yourselves it's a matter of opinion as to whether or not I am Orthodox now; I will continue to write in this manner in defense of my Church regardless), I think you could say that about a lot of things that distinguish Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy: the question of their differences is not usually at the level of what they are talking about (e..g, in this case, the Eucharist or the real presence of Christ in it or whatever you want to call it), but of how they talk about it. As I wrote in my earlier reply, I don't see why any of this is necessary at all, as it wouldn't even occur to me to make the kinds of distinctions or statements that to Roman Catholics quite reasonably underlie what they say about their faith. "Accidents", "substance", "properties"....er, okay, then. You have a good time with that. I'm gonna be over here, doing this:
Transubstantiation isn't a philosophical argument, it isn't even a philosophical statement, it is a term used to describe a theological belief. Big difference there.And while I'm doing this, I'm going to be giving the responses from the section of the liturgy I already presented ("Amen, I believe", etc.), which is what my faith requires, so that we all know in a crystal clear and experiential fashion what it is we are engaging in and why. We prostrate here before the holy body and blood of Christ our God, present before us, and given for us for the remission of sins and for eternal life. Philosophical arguments may have their place (I guess...for other people in other traditions), but that place is not here, and not now.
Respectfully what I see as the difference is that we are not ignorant of the fact that Christianity from its very beginning, starting with St. Paul, has used philosophical terminology to help explain theological meaning. The doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation are perfect examples of the use of philosophical terminology to help provide theological meaning. God gave us human beings reason, and there is a reason for that. If you want to claim that your faith tradition doesn't want to use reason, then that is up to you. Catholics from the very beginning have used reason to help us better understand and defend our faith. That didn't stop in the 4th-5th centuries.Respectfully, that is the difference. There is a great deal of philosophy underlying RC ideas about many subjects that quite simply has no place in other traditions, and that is why you end up with these differences that maybe you cannot see as differences because they are ingrained in the way you talk about something, even something that we both agree on at a different level of discussion. They are not similarly ingrained in other peoples' faith.
Unleavened bread has been used in the West, from what I can find, at least since the 4th-5th centuries. Our emphasis on it being the New Passover is the reason for this. St. Leo the Great, St. Augustine, St. Jerome and others speak of using the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.Why was this changed to unleavened? Unleavened was only used DURING the days of unleavened bread. Leavened bread was used the rest of the year.
Question. What is the process by which a Copt receives communion?Also, in the Coptic Orthodox Church we use communion cloths which pretty much eliminate any possibility of dropping anything:
A cloth such as this one (this is printed with the Coptic cross and the words "Jesus Christ, the Son of God" in Coptic around it, but I've seen and used others with other things printed on them, such as precommunion prayers to be said by the communicant) is carried and placed under the chin of the communicant in order to ensure that when the Eucharist is received, there will be no spilling of crumbs or any such thing, and immediately after receiving the body into the mouth (we do not receive in the hand, as Catholics may, but directly from the hand of the priest), it is brought up to cover the mouth, so as to make sure that there is no chance of crumbs resulting from the communicant's chewing. And it is kept there in front of the mouth until everything is fully digested into the stomach. And directly after communion, water is given so as to make sure that anything that may remain even after swallowing is properly digested/washed down into the stomach.
It is an incredibly thorough and meticulous process. And that is for the individual communicants/laypeople -- the priest and deacons also engage in further rituals so as to make sure that the bread and wine are completely consumed even after the people are communed, including drinking from the paten and the chalice in the process of washing it three times with purified water, while saying special prayers. (I am told that this is an echo of the episode in the life of St. Bishoy, one of the most famous Coptic saints, wherein it is said that after the saint washed the feet of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Who had appeared to Him as a traveler in the desert, the saint asked to drink the water and his request was granted; I always thought that was kind of neat, as my parish was named after St. Bishoy, though for all I know that could've been why I was given that explanation.)
Given all this, when I say that we don't have an answer for what would happen if a mouse were to eat a crumb, hopefully this will be understood as something we don't have to answer because we actually do have that covered by being exceedingly careful with our approach to the Eucharist, as is only right to be.
As it should have if I understand this correctly. This idea reminds me of the issues that were presented concerning whether or not a Sacrament is valid dependent upon the minister's sanctity. It seems here that it is just reversed, and becomes dependent upon the recipient's sanctity.Unfortunately this is one area where there are issues in the Anglican Church. In my former communion, if few people came forward to receive, the priest was not keen on consuming a large amount of consecrated wine, so at the end of the service he would, as he put it, pour it reverently down the sink. I'm not aware if it was a special purpose sink draining into the earth or if it was into the standard waste water system. Either way it was something that always troubled me back then.
I'm confused here. So you do not think one should have an understanding or proper definition of the terms used? That really makes very little sense, especially considering that in philosophy the term "substance" has been defined quite differently depending upon the philosophical school using said term. To leave the terms "substance" and "accidents" as being open to one's interpretation would not be feasible in any discussion. Should we also take the same approach with other theological/philosophical terms as well?
God gave us human beings reason, and there is a reason for that. If you want to claim that your faith tradition doesn't want to use reason, then that is up to you. Catholics from the very beginning have used reason to help us better understand and defend our faith. That didn't stop in the 4th-5th centuries.
I'm confused here. So you do not think one should have an understanding or proper definition of the terms used?
That really makes very little sense, especially considering that in philosophy the term "substance" has been defined quite differently depending upon the philosophical school using said term.
To leave the terms "substance" and "accidents" as being open to one's interpretation would not be feasible in any discussion. Should we also take the same approach with other theological/philosophical terms as well?
Please don't be petty as with the last statement. If we are going to have a meaningful discussion, there should be some respect here.
Doctrine is not just what you do, but it is also what you believe. If you do not believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, then you wouldn't be "doing this". One gets to "doing this" by "believing this".
Transubstantiation isn't a philosophical argument, it isn't even a philosophical statement, it is a term used to describe a theological belief. Big difference there.
Respectfully what I see as the difference is that we are not ignorant of the fact that Christianity from its very beginning, starting with St. Paul, has used philosophical terminology to help explain theological meaning.
The doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation are perfect examples of the use of philosophical terminology to help provide theological meaning.
God gave us human beings reason, and there is a reason for that.
If you want to claim that your faith tradition doesn't want to use reason, then that is up to you.
Catholics from the very beginning have used reason to help us better understand and defend our faith. That didn't stop in the 4th-5th centuries.
Question. What is the process by which a Copt receives communion?
Unleavened bread has been used in the West, from what I can find, at least since the 4th-5th centuries. Our emphasis on it being the New Passover is the reason for this. St. Leo the Great, St. Augustine, St. Jerome and others speak of using the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
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