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Charlie Traffas
Charlie Traffas has been involved in marketing, media, publishing and insurance for more than 40 years. In addition to being a fully-licensed life, health, property and casualty agent, he is also President and Owner of Chart Marketing, Inc. (CMI). CMI operates and markets several different products and services that help B2B and B2C businesses throughout the country create customers...profitably. You may contact Charlie by phone at (316) 721-9200, by e-mail at ctraffas@chartmarketing.com, or you may visit at www.chartmarketing.com.
Religion
2009-10-01 09:07:00
How often should one receive communion?
Question: My question is about taking the Lord’s Supper (communion). In 1 Cor 11:23-26 St. Paul quotes Jesus: “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me. For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” Does this mean to do it “often,” or “as often as you do it?” I am aware that Catholics are encouraged to take communion daily, Christian churches weekly, Baptists only every three months, and some churches take it rarely or never. I would appreciate your insight on what this Scripture really means.
Answer: You are correct that the Catholic Church encourages her faithful people to receive the Lord’s Supper (Holy Communion) “on Sundays and feast days, or more often still, even daily” (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 1389). As you mention, other Christian churches take the Lord’s Supper less frequently, according to their proper traditions. Jesus and his Apostles did not give specific instructions about the frequency of celebrating and receiving “the Lord’s Supper.” The Acts of the Apostles makes only an occasional reference to “the Breaking of the Bread,” another term for “the Lord’s Supper” or Holy Communion. Early Christian writers, e.g. St. Justin martyr (100-165), speaks of the Christian community coming together on the first day of each week: to celebrate this memorial of Jesus’ death and resurrection. This mention relates what Justin observed in various places he visited as a traveling philosopher, and refers to very small groups of Christians. During the first two and a half centuries of her existence, the Church was living and spreading in various places, always under threat of persecution. So It was neither practical nor possible to hold the Lord’s Supper frequently and regularly. Only after the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great granted the Edict of Toleration for the Christian religion in the year 311, did it become possible for Christians to hold the Lord’s Supper regularly on Sundays and on special occasions. Only gradually over several centuries, as the Christian community grew in numbers and formed stable communities, the liturgies for the Lord’s Supper developed in various places. Alongside the liturgies, there arose various practices of devotion in regard to the Lord’s Supper or Holy Communion. Even during the times and places of persecution priests and deacons would reserve in their homes some particles of the consecrated bread (the Lord’s Body) for sick and dying persons to have as a consolation with Jesus in his Sacrament as their companion on their final journey. In the 4th century at Jerusalem there developed the annual memorial of Jesus’ death and resurrection with the Lord’s Supper being celebrated each day during the week before Easter. Rather soon, this week developed into two weeks, and then into the forty weekdays of Lent in preparation for Easter. Proper Masses for each day of Lent were composed to be used at the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. It was customary for all the Christians present at each celebration to take the Lord’s Supper. During the Middle Ages, i.e. from the 6th century on, particularly in monasteries and convents, gradually there was adopted the practice of holding the Lord’s Supper several times each week. By the 10th century this practice was extended to a daily celebration, but it was not general in parishes, which retained the earlier tradition of the Lord’s Supper just on Sundays and feast days and at funerals. During the 12th and 13th centuries devotion to the Holy Eucharist (the Lord’s Supper) expanded rapidly throughout the Christian world. Not only daily Mass but also various devotions, e.g. processions with Benediction, in which the consecrated breads were reverently carried, but also permanent reservation of the Eucharist in each church was introduced. Now the consecrated breads were reserved in the churches: not only for the sick and dying, but also for private and public adoration. The Catholic faith in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Holy Communion was commonly held by all Christians until the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century. At that time various Protestant leaders interpreted the gospel texts in a variety of ways, different from the traditional Catholic and Orthodox belief. As they broke from the Catholic Church, the Protestants differed one from another in regard to the frequency of holding “the Lord’s Supper” and even more about how often their members should take communion. These differences continue to the present.
 
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