I heard on the news over the weekend that the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, due to the current flu epidemic, has suspended offering the consecrated wine to its faithful.
Our Next Secretary of Defense
2 days ago
Monday, January 14, 2013
Germs in the all-Pure Body and Blood of Christ - Really????
Posted by Anastasia Theodoridis at 2:18 AM
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11 comments:
oh good grief
"The big news of the week on the Boston religious scene was the announcement that the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, after consulting with public health officials about ways to slow the spread of swine flu, is recommending that parishes suspend the practice of sharing consecrated wine with laypeople during Communion and that laypeople stop shaking hands or embracing one another as a sign of peace at Mass. Several Protestant denominations had already recommended an end to the use of a common cup for Communion during this pandemic; the local Greek Orthodox Diocese, by contrast, is defending the practice, even during flu season."
No communion, no shaking hands... yep, sounds pretty sterile. I had to cheer at the mention of the Orthodox defense in the news article though!!
(Whole news article here: http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles_of_faith/catholicism/)
Well, thank you GOA!
This is blasphemous. Plain and simple.
Or maybe not. It's only blasphemy, I mean, where the consecrated wine really IS the Blood of Christ...
Lord have Mercy! Yay for the GOA.
At a time when we need His Gifts even more and they take it away from people.
Sigh. Are they going to introduce compulsory hand sanitiser cleansing too, before you enter the buiding?
I wouldn't hesitate to approach the Chalice; it's the life-giving Mysteries, after all.
This crops up from time to time, and it always makes me boggle. Leaving aside, for the moment, the idea that the Precious and All-Holy Blood of Our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ might bring anything other than healing, there have been a few peer-reviewed scientific studies over the years which have concluded that i) the alcohol content, ii) the precious metals and iii) the briefness of touch all serve to make the likelihood of transmitting even a highly infectious disease impossible at best, and highly improbable at worst.
Brains, people, please!
Wellll... I've seen the consecrated gifts get moldy. The human body of Christ died. The "natural chemistry" of precious metals, briefness and alchohol content do not make non-transmission of disease "miraculous", merely natural. If the true body and blood bring nothing but healing then we have a problem because people who partake still get the flu, cancer etc., and eventually still die. Let each approach the chalice convinced in his own mind and not judge his brother. And God will forgive both presumption and lack of faith, depending on which it turns out to be. Brains or faith? Either one individually or both mixed together could be right or wrong.
Good point, Anastasia. I guess I'm thinking that *they* think this is the real blood of Christ (the Catholics, anyway) so for *them* this would be blasphemous.
Matushka, I think you're probably right. It seems that what they proclaim in words they deny in actions.
S-p, there's a whole discussion about moldy Gifts over at
http://www.orthodoxchristianity.net/forum/index.php?topic=27997.0 which may prove helpful.
It has always been understood that people who receive the Holy Eucharist still die and still get sick - but not that they caught it from the Gifts!
You are quite right, s-p, but I was being careful to speak only of the "natural chemistry", and not of the Mysteries - which I am certainly not going to speculate on!
Evidently I was not as clear as I could have been, for which I apologise.
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