First communion

“ THE most important and most holy action a man can perform, is to receive worthily, the body of Jesus Christ in the holy Sacrament of the Eucharist. The greatest favor, therefore, that can be granted him, is to communicate early in his life, and afterwards frequently. The first communion, then, should be a principal object in the desires, of every one. ”

“ This being done all go to the altar with this sacrament before the first curtain, and in this manner they give the communion to those that are there, and thence to [27] those who are at the other curtain, and thence to the secular people who are at the principal door, both men and women, if it is a church to which women come. At the giving of the communion, and likewise at all the offices of the church, all are standing up. When they come to receive the communion, all come with their hands raised before their shoulders, and the palms forward. ”

“ Formerly there was the missa catechumenorum and the missa fidelium, not because they had two kinds of communion, but because the primitive Christians dismissed their congregations at different times, first sending away the heathens and heretics, then the catechumens and public penitents, after having prayed; the faithful alone being suffered to remain during the celebration of the holy communion. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Those who have received communion have set a notable example. They have a sort of brotherhood the members of which are the most assiduous in their attendance at church. There are two women, among the most exemplary and capable, who take care of the rest; and when any woman asks to receive communion for the first time, they instruct her how to approach it. The example of these few women has induced the rest of the people to ask eagerly for the most blessed sacrament. During this time some seventy adults have been baptized, among them six datos, or headmen of districts, with their wives. ”

“ While the clause was probably inserted at first to vindicate the doctrine of communion of saints in this life, it has long been regarded as extending to a communion subsisting between the spirits of just men made perfect and followers of the Lord Jesus Christ who are still on earth. The passage last quoted justifies the inference that death does not suspend the fellowship which believers in Jesus Christ have with Him, their common Lord. Death separates the soul from the body, but it does not cut off the dead from communion with the Father or the Son. ”

“ In the monasteries of the Visitation, a Mass and general communion are offered for all benefactors, at their decease.
On the first Friday, or first Sunday of each month, offer your holy communion in union with the League of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and the intentions of the Apostleship of Prayer. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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?” ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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 ”

“ And if it is so, they say, then our communion is the Church of Christ; for the Holy Spirit does not work the remission of sins except in the Church. And if our communion is the Church of Christ, then your communion is not the Church of Christ. For that is one, wherever it is, of which it is said, "My dove is but one; she is the only one of her mother;" [37] nor can there be just so many churches as there are schisms. But if we should say that sins are not there remitted, then, say they, there is no true baptism there ”

“ With respect to the presence of non-communicants at the Holy Eucharist, I had of course seen such publications as have appeared in defence of the practice. But they fail altogether in the essential point, which is, to show that antiquity viewed the presence of such in any other light than either—1. As an utter carelessness and irreverence; or 2. as befitting penitents, and them only. The mediæval doctrine and practice, now being revived by some, is that it is a good and laudable habit for Christian persons in a state of grace to come to the Holy Communion, and to decline receiving it. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As a result of these measures, the people were so fond of holy communion, and so greatly enjoyed receiving it, that on some feast-days the crowd was as great as in cities of Europe; and with so thorough preparation, by fasting, discipline, prayer, fervor, and confession, that it seemed to be a primitive church. Thus their esteem for our holy faith is so increased that few are those who do not ask for or desire baptism. ”

“ 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." ”

“ According to which rule, although the Priest have all things ready, and desires to consecrate and receive the Holy Sacrament himself, yet he must not do it, unless he have such a number to communicate with him, that it may be properly a Communion. But, as it is there ordered, "Upon the Sundays and other Holydays (if there be no Communion) shall be said all that is appointed at the Communion until the end of the general prayer (for the good estate of the Catholic Church of Christ) ;" where we may observe, that the Church, as I have shewn, appoints the Sacrament to be administered every day. ”

“ Moreover, not only is the Mass our Christian Sacrifice; but in the Holy Eucharist we have the food of our souls and the proper sustenance of our spiritual life in this world. We hold and truly believe that in Holy Communion we receive really and in fact, and not in any mere figurative sense, our Blessed Lord Himself—Body, Soul and Divinity. This is our faith to-day as it was the unbroken belief of the Catholic Church from the earliest tunes. ”

“ Such of our churches as have already, week by week, a fairly attended Celebration, to which all the faithful are heartily invited and urged to come,—such churches exhibit [35] a spectacle of really Apostolical Eucharistic Service, such as the whole world beside cannot produce. Neither in East or West, but in the English Church only, is weekly Communion, as the bounden duty of all Christians, so much as dreamt of; so utterly has the apostolic model, throughout Christendom, faded from the memory of the Church of God. ”

“ Our Lord’s days are solitary—none to tune Zion’s harps. Oh! how it makes the soul long for the courts of the Lord, where we may go up with the crowds to keep holiday; how precious now would appear some of those seasons of Christian communion which we enjoyed in dear England and Ireland. When dear Mary was with me, we had an unceasing source of happiness in conversing on our common hopes in our common Lord. Our communion also with our dear friends was thus rendered vivid, aided as it was and encouraged by the help of correspondence and conversation ”

“ 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. ”

“ BE persuaded that you cannot better atone and satisfy for your sins, than by offering Christ and his sacred merits (which you possess in the holy communion) both to his Eternal Father, and to himself. The holy communion is the best preservative against sin. Therefore, whenever you offer the Holy Sacrifice for the remission of your sins, fail not to communicate at least spiritually. ”

“ HOLY communion is receiving the body and blood of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. The clergy when saying Mass, except on Good Friday, receive under both forms. When not celebrating Mass, they receive only the one kind, the consecrated bread. In the early ages of the Church communion was given to the people under both forms. ”

“ But with the present preaching appendages, it is impossible to make any thing like an approach toward the primitive practice. Thus a set of unscriptural holy-days— the mere inventions of men, have put the Lord’s Supper out of its own place among gospel institutions— have driven it into a corner. Nor let it be remembered, is the view of this subject maintained in this Inquiry, peculiar to those who act upon it. Presbyterians, both in and out of the establishments have lately advocated the cause of weekly communion, by arguments that cannot be refuted. ”

“ Your communion ought to be performed with so much the more fervour, as it is intended as a reparation of honour, and an atonement for the many negligences and defects in former communions. During the day, if convenient, pay a special visit to the blessed sacrament, and there, or in your oratory, at the foot of the crucifix, make a solemn act of atonement to the Sacred Heart, for all the indignities it daily receives in the blessed eucharist, and for such as we ourselves perhaps have been guilty of. ”

“ 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. ”