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Can We Talk About The Lord’s Supper?
I ask us to reexamine our traditions concerning the Lord’s Supper.

What About Catholics?


In the last chapter, “Doctrinal Point of View”, it was said that the point of view of this study is essentially a polar opposite to Catholic doctrine. But that doesn’t mean that anything here is intentionally hostile to Catholicism. Whenever it is pertinent to the study to mention Catholic doctrine or practice, every effort is made to fairly state it. When specifics are mentioned, it is for the sake of making something clear and understandable. There are no condemnations or negative statements concerning Catholicism.

This doesn’t mean that everything, or anything, said here is acceptable to Catholics. The profound differences have been mooted by centuries of disagreement and this study neither ignores them or attempts to bridge them.

Now then, given the above, Catholics share with Protestants the characteristics of many of the aspects of the Lord’s Supper as discussed here. It is granted that they are come at from different points of view, and they lead to different ultimate conclusions. But within the areas of overlap, this study can be profitable for Catholics.

For example, take the aspect of sacrifice in the Lord’s Supper. Catholics and Protestants both agree that the sacrifice of Christ, His death on the cross, is at the heart of things. And both points of view can benefit from the fact that we are pointed to Christ’s sacrificial death, and led into what can only be called a profound contemplation of it. This is so whether we consider the cost to the Lord, whether we consider the sorrow, or whether we consider that by it, the Lord purchased our redemption.

Those are areas of overlap. The major area of disagreement is whether or not Christ’s sacrifice is made present to us in a literal sense (what is termed Transubstantiation). But that isn’t a part of the study, though because this study is Protestant, the presuppostion that no literal sacrifice is present in the Lord’s Supper underlies the whole study.

But again, this isn’t necessarily hostile to Catholic doctrine, even if it is contrary to it. If that issue is left aside, the other shared aspects of sacrifice are worthwhile and profitable to both sides, as far as they go.

No doubt some (maybe many?) Protestants will be dissatisfied with this approach. All that can be said about this has been said already. It is not the point of this study to deal with any of those issues. The point is to reexamine the value and place the Lord’s Supper has in our worship by studying some of the many aspects found in it. And therein is benefit for all.

©FH 2012



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