Christian communion

“ It is the duty of all private christians to forbear communion in the mass, because it is a kind of idolatry, while they worship apiece of bread as God; as also image worship, and all other parts of their religion, in which they are put upon sin themselves, or that which is notorious scandal and symbolizing with them in their bread worship, or rather corruptions of the substance of God's ordinances. ”

“ Why does not the Church give Holy Communion to the people as it does to the priest under the appearance of wine also? A. The Church does not give Holy Communion to the people as it does to the priest under the appearance of wine also, to avoid the danger of spilling the Precious Blood; to prevent the irreverence some might show if compelled to drink out of a chalice used by all, and lastly, to refute those who denied that Our Lord's blood is present under the appearance of bread also. ”

“ No one but Jesus Christ would be so, because God alone is worthy to receive God. But I assure you, my dear Christian, that the longer you are absent from communion, all the more unworthy will you be to receive it; the more rarely you go to the table of the Lord, so much the more numerous will be your faults, because you are thus deprived of the principal means of freeing yourself from sin and amending your life, namely, the Holy Communion. ”

“ Bingham, in his able work on the Antiquities of the Christian Church, says of the early Christians: “As soon as a man was [p. 121] baptized he was communicated”—that is, admitted to the communion. Baptism, therefore, essentially preceded the Supper.—Christ. Antiq., B. 12, Ch. 4, Sec. 9, B. 15, Ch. 3.
Doctor Wall, who searched the records of antiquity for facts illustrating the history of the ordinances, says: “No church ever gave the communion to any persons before they were baptized. ”

“ Hence, as the Scripture nowhere connects the forgiveness of sins with the duty of sacramental communion, any more than with the performance of any other prominent christian duty, it is not proper that we should do so. The design of the Holy Supper is to show forth the Lord's death, to profess the name of the Redeemer before the world, to confirm the previous faith of the communicant, to bring him into closest spiritual communion with his blessed Saviour, and to secure his special spiritual blessing: but not to bestow forgiveness of sins upon the unregenerate, however serious they may be. ”

“ Mary Baker Eddy explains that dropping the annual communion service of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, need not debar distant members from attending occasionally The Mother Church. The following is Mrs. Eddy's letter: —
Beloved Christian Scientists: — Take courage. God is leading you onward and upward. Relinquishing a material form of communion advances it spiritually. The material form is a “Suffer it to be so now,” and is abandoned so soon as God's Way-shower, Christ, points the advanced step. ”

“ I am afraid that very, very few so-called Christian people habitually feel, as they might do, the depth and blessedness of this communion. And sure I am that only a very small percentage of us have anything like the continuity of companionship which my text suggests as possible. There may be, and therefore there should be, running unbroken through a Christian life one long, bright line of communion with God and happy inspiration from the sense of His presence with us. ”

“ She undoubtedly truly believed that the Christian Church ought to be banded together in one great communion, with the Pope of Rome as its [Pg 122] spiritual head, and that her father had broken away from this communion—which was, in fact, strictly true—merely to obtain a pretext for getting released from her mother. How natural, under such circumstances, that she should have desired to return. She commenced, immediately on her accession, a course of measures to bring the nation back to the Roman Catholic communion. ”

“ We have to consider the particular communion to which we ourselves belong, and ask whether there are any barriers in it that exclude from its membership or from its working force those who possess the Spirit of Christ, and so are divinely called into the Church and divinely endowed for service. We must make our own communion as inclusive as we believe the Church to be, or we are not attempting to organize the Church of Christ, but to create some exclusive club or sect of Christians of a particular variety. ”

“ Still, whatever may be the truth about totemism, there is much that points to the sometime existence in Europe of sacrifices that were not offerings, but solemn feasts of communion in the flesh and blood of a worshipful animal.{35} That the idea of sacrificial communion preceded the sacrifice-gift is suggested by the fact that in many customs which appear to be sacrificial survivals the body of the victim has some kind of sacramental efficacy ”

“ The two sides of deep and still communion, and of strenuous effort based on that communion, must be found in the experience of every Christian who has received Christ, and is advancing through the imperfect manifestations of earth to the perfect union with, and perfect assimilation to, the Lord. ”

“ A. Any one in danger of death is allowed to receive Holy Communion when not fasting or when it is necessary to save the Blessed Sacrament from insult or injury.
259. Q. When are we bound to receive Holy Communion? A. We are bound to receive Holy Communion, under pain of mortal sin, during the Easter time and when in danger of death.
260. Q. Is it well to receive Holy Communion often? A. It is well to receive Holy Communion often, as nothing is a greater aid to a holy life than often to receive the Author of all grace and the Source of all good. ”

“ Deceive not yourselves, then, my brethren; there is a way of receiving Jesus Christ, by which his presence is rendered useless to us; and would to God, that, in thus receiving him, we deprived ourselves only of those favours which follow a holy communion! Ah! my brethren, unless the communion gives birth to Jesus Christ in our hearts, it brings death to him there; if it does not render us participators of his Spirit and of his grace, it is the sentence of our condemnation: if it be not a fruit of life to our soul, it is a fruit of death. ”

“ Nobody but people we consider saved to be allowed to take communion with us! Nobody can meet God unless we introduce ’em! Self-appointed guardians of the blood and body of Jesus Christ! Whew!”
“Absolutely,” from Horace Carp. “And there is absolutely no Scriptural basis for close communion.”
“There certainly is!” shrieked Eddie. “Frank, where’s your Bible?” ”

“ Since Jesus Christ is whole and entire under the form of bread, as well as under the form of wine, the practice of the Catholic Church of giving holy communion under one form is reasonable.
Good Christians frequently receive their Lord and their God in holy communion. He inspires them with feelings of love, gratitude, and adoration. He reminds them to think frequently of their Creator—to give Him their first thoughts in the morning and their last in the evening. He gives them strength to restrain their guilty passions. ”

“ It has, we may trust, kept many from ever falling into grievous sin; and while we are of course unable to admit the validity of Anglican orders, and consequently of sacraments dependent on such orders, we rejoice to think that what the devout soul believes to be a sacramental communion may prove a spiritual communion and be a means of grace and blessing. ”

“ Our souls and bodies are united in a mysterious manner to the Divine Person of our dear Lord and Saviour, who became man and died on the cross for our salvation. He calls us to this communion, and gives Himself to us as the sweetest pledge of His Divine Love, as the most precious means of our sanctification, as a comforting food, as a holy offering by which we may praise and give thanks to God, as a feast of joy and the kiss of peace to the forgiven sinner. ”

“ In this way human association generates a feeling of fellowship with the divine, and this is the beginning of group worship. Partaking of a common meal was the earliest type of social communion, and so did early religions provide that some portion of the ceremonial sacrifice should be eaten by the worshipers. Even in Christianity the Lord's Supper retains this mode of communion. The atmosphere of the communion provides a refreshing and comforting period of truce in the conflict of the self-seeking ego with the altruistic urge of the indwelling spirit Monitor. ”

“ One of the most admirable effects of holy communion is to preserve the soul from sin, and to help those who fall through weakness to rise again. It is much more profitable, then, to approach this divine Sacrament with love, respect, and confidence, than to remain away through an excess of fear and scrupulosity. ”

“ We should have but little in the world, but what is this, if it be made up to us, in communion with God and his people? If we thrive in faith, and love, humility, and heavenly-mindedness, what matter is it, though we do not raise ourselves in the world? Oh! Who would leave so much grace, and so much comfort in communion with Christ and his saints, for the probabilities of living a little more handsomely. ’Tis a strange thing to see how Christians generally judge. ”

“ We do not expect to feed in any literal, carnal, or material manner, but we do expect, that while with the body we receive the bread in faith, our souls will receive Christ; and when with the lips we drink the wine, the heart will be made by the Holy Ghost partaker of his blood. Thus, to hungering and thirsting souls, the communion becomes inestimably precious. When we feel our weakness, we rejoice to come before him that we may be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man ”

“ For this reason it is that, as we find declared in a decree of Innocent XI., in 1679, the holy Fathers have so highly extolled, and so much promoted, the practice of frequent and even of daily Communion. Holy Communion, as the Council of Trent tells us, delivers us from daily faults, and preserves us from mortal ones. St. Bernard asserts [56] that Communion represses the movements of anger and incontinence, which are the two passions that most frequently and most violently assail us. St. Thomas says, [57] that Communion defeats the suggestions of the devil. ”

“ We have unwittingly passed over one other objection, namely, that the doctrine of the eucharistic sacrifice destroys the idea of communion. The eucharist does not cease to be [320] a sacrament by being a sacrifice. If there is communion among Episcopalians through a reception of bread and wine, it would seem that there might be also communion among Catholics in receiving the true body and blood of Christ. If the Protestant Episcopal liturgy is a common prayer, certainly the Catholic liturgy is equally one, though it is also a sacrifice. ”

“ What is Holy Communion? It is to receive the best of friends, who comes to advise us, to cheer and to encourage us. A friend who has power to protect us. Who loves to dwell in our hearts as in a castle, where He may fight for us against the enemies of our soul.
What is Holy Communion? It is a pledge of Heaven, and a foretaste of it. Union with God by a perfect love, will be our happiness for all eternity, and this is begun on earth in Holy Communion. As St. Peter says, it is to be made "partakers of the Divine nature." ”

“ Our belief about the communion service is that there Christ comes to us just as once the eternal Word, which was present with all His creation, none the less came in full manifestation under the limitations of time and space at a particular moment and in a particular country. So in the communion the Divine presence which fills the whole world ("Heaven and earth are full of His glory," as we say in the service itself) is offered to us, and draws near to us ”

“ Among the gifts of grace which the soul receives in holy communion there is one that must be numbered among the highest. It is, that holy communion does not permit the soul to remain long in sin, nor to obstinately persevere in it. ”

“ Your participation of the holy communion must be regarded as the fresh act of your espousals, as the solemn renewal of your covenant; as your surrender, entire and unhesitating, to the service of the Lord. It is thus that you confess Christ, and witness of Him to the world. If you eat and drink without discerning this great purpose, you eat and drink unworthily; if you repudiate such purpose, either in thought or act, you crucify in your measure the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame. ”

“ Why, I thought you considered baptism so important that a person could not be saved unless he was baptized; and now you say baptism is not necessary for the communion. That seems contradictory. I should think if baptism is essential to salvation it surely would be essential to taking the communion. Do you think a person ought to take the communion who has not been converted? ”

“ He who in faith acknowledges and in heart worships one God is in the communion of saints on earth, and in the communion of angels in the heavens. They are called communions, and are so, because they are in one God and one God is in them. ”

“ Frequent communion is also a safeguard against an unprovided death; for those who communicate often and with proper dispositions, are inspired with a sovereign horror for sin, and a holy ardor to keep their souls in the utmost purity. Frequent communion preserves us also from falling into a state of tepidity, and makes us strong to run in the paths of perfection. ”