dg@pallio.uucp (David Goodenough) (08/17/90)
OFM writes: > ..... He used it [shampoo] on a Sunday when he had a bad cold, so he > was unable to smell the fact that the liquid was not what he expected. Ummm ..... having assisted as Sub-Deacon at Mass in an Episcopal church, one question comes to mind. Since the Celebrant first administers communion to himself (i.e. he eats the priest's host, and takes a sip of wine), how come he didn't notice it then? I can buy the bit about not smelling it, but I can't believe that a cold, no matter _HOW_ bad, is going to destroy your sense of taste to the point that you can't tell wine from shampoo. > But the question that interested my > friend was: what do you do with consecrated shampoo? He says that > nobody would tell him what was finally done. You wouldn't need to do anything with it. Since it wasn't wine, it couldn't have been consecrated in the first place (remember, they ate and drank at the last supper, the washing was limited to feet), so it's a moot point. It'd be the same question as asking "what would you do with the wine consecrated by a lay person imitating the Mass?". Nothing. Since it was done by leity, no consecration happened, so it's still ordinary wine. In Christ, -- dg@pallio.UUCP - David Goodenough +---+ IHS | +-+-+ ..... !harvard!xait!pallio!dg +-+-+ | AKA: dg%pallio.uucp@xait.xerox.com +---+
lshaw@walt.cc.utexas.edu (logan shaw) (08/21/90)
In article <Aug.17.03.33.18.1990.7804@athos.rutgers.edu> dg@pallio.uucp (David Goodenough) writes: [stuff about someone consecrating shampoo accidentally deleted] >> But the question that interested my >> friend was: what do you do with consecrated shampoo? He says that >> nobody would tell him what was finally done. > >You wouldn't need to do anything with it. Since it wasn't wine, it couldn't >have been consecrated in the first place (remember, they ate and drank at >the last supper, the washing was limited to feet), so it's a moot point. >It'd be the same question as asking "what would you do with the wine >consecrated by a lay person imitating the Mass?". Nothing. Since it was >done by leity, no consecration happened, so it's still ordinary wine. I have a question. What leads anybody to believe that the bread or wine is somehow different after being consecrated? (I'm assuming here that consecration is defined to be a prayer involving the bread and wine). To me, it seems the only thing you're doing when you consecrate the wine is letting God know you're thankful for him giving up his life for you. The only way the wine is involved is that it sorta looks like blood and therefore will remind you of the blood Christ shed. The prayer is supposed to affect your heart and God, not the wine (or shampoo, as the case may be). You're not praying for a miracle to change the wine into something it isn't. Kinda reminds me of a cartoon I saw once: A family is sitting around the dinner table, about to eat. A caption above a little girl's head say this: "Dear God, please heal this chicken." So, if the shampoo reminded you of how Christ gave up His life and shed His blood, then it did just as well as wine. But, if all it did was cause you to try to determine what to do with consecrated shampoo according to the rules of your church, then you're missing the whole point. %set soapboxmode I think that when Christ did the Lord's Supper, he was asking his disciples (not only his followers, but his friends) to think about Him every time they did what they were doing at that moment -- eating. All of us have eating in common, so we can all remember what Christ did for us when we eat. In other words, Jesus was trying to say: "Think of Me and remember what I've done for you every time you eat." He gave the wonderful analogy of bread being His body and wine being His blood. That serves to make us associate bread with His body and wine with His blood. Sometime since then, a group of friends who followed Christ ate together and decided that they should remember Christ's shed blood, since that's what he asked. Now, since a church is nothing but a group of friends who follow Jesus, churches are still doing that very same thing today. The only thing is that (as happens so often), this symbol has lost its real purpose and meaning in a bunch of regulations, traditions, and rules set up by _Offical_Church_Organizations_(tm). So, we should try to do as Christ really meant and remember Him any time we eat, not just when we drink wine (or grape juice or whatever) and eat bread at a church building when a minister or priest or deacon hands it to us. So, next time you have a Welch's grape soda and a couple of Wheat Thins, remember how Christ gave up his body and shed his blood for you, and don't forget to thank God for it. %unset soapboxmode ============================================================================ "The beauty queen, clevely clad, Logan Shaw admires herself in a cigarette ad. lshaw@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu Will she admit that all was in vain ======================== when the face in her mirror cracks like a windowpane?" -Elim Hall, _Things_Break_ [There are several answers to your question, depending upon how far you want to push things. Ultimately we have the Catholic position, which is that bread and wine used in communion actually become Christ's body and blood, in such as way that there's no bread and wine there anymore. The scriptural evidence, including the words of institution, and various passages in John and Paul, is given by John DiMarco in another posting in this group. However customs that involve respectful treatment of the elements need not depend upon transsubstantiation. Even if you see them as simply symbolic of Christ's presence with us, it is common to treat symbols with the same honor you would treat the original. Why are people so upset about burning the American flag? The rule that consecrated bread and wine must be reverently consumed, and can't just be flushed down the drain, is in some ways similar to the rule that wornout flags must be reverently buried or cremated: respect is being shown symbolically to Christ. At my Presbyterian church, for a number of years leftover bread was fed to the birds. No doubt Francis of Assisi would have approved. --clh]
jhpb@granjon.garage.att.com (09/20/90)
The moderator commented:
The rule that consecrated bread and wine must be reverently
consumed, and can't just be flushed down the drain, is in some ways
similar to the rule that wornout flags must be reverently buried or
cremated: respect is being shown symbolically to Christ. At my
Presbyterian church, for a number of years leftover bread was fed to
the birds. No doubt Francis of Assisi would have approved. --clh]
:-)
No doubt he would not have. He was a Catholic cleric in major orders (a
deacon, if I recall) at a time when transubstantiation was already
Catholic doctrine.
[The suggestion was not meant entirely seriously. --clh]