Allergic to Jesus

Mus Zibii · 09-08-2004, 10:23 AM

This is an OOOOOOOOOOLD story, but I'm bored. Also, I thought nothing of it until I happened upon a rather big Catholic forum that slammed this poor little girl for not following their insane dogma. Truth be told, she could've just been given a drop of wine and been done with it and her mother probably set this story up to be a provocateur (grandiose term), but.. c'mon. How utterly awful that a symbolic supper can be turned into a holy deal breaker due to the assumed content of a cookie. As Jesus would surely say, get thee behind me Satan.

Canon I. If any one denieth, that, in the sacrament of the most holy Eucharist, are contained truly, really, and substantially, the body and blood together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and consequently the whole Christ; but saith that he is only therein as in a sign, or in a figure, or virtue; let him be anathema.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/08/19/communion.denied.ap/

I, Brian · 09-08-2004, 10:54 AM

As an outsider, it all does all look distinctly odd. The Last Supper always seemed a symbol, and the act of Communion more akin to Ceremonial Magick than any physical association with the spirituality of it all.

Mus Zibii · 09-09-2004, 02:17 AM

Its not just that. The fact it's a rite that stands on falls on gluten. LOL Surely even Baal overlooked the blood of a virgin who got to second base. And I'm not just bashing Catholics here. I've defended Catholicism before. I just really hate dogmatic ritual.

joseftu · 09-09-2004, 03:25 AM

As an outsider, I hate to condemn--not really understanding the core of the matter myself, and thinking of the general Jewish proscription against ritual or religious activities which would threaten the life or health of a human being.

But as I read this particular story, I couldn't help feeling a certain degree of suspicion. It's really hard to judge from the outside, but something about this mother, and the way she's dealing with the attention here, and refusing to compromise, makes some alarm bells go off for me. I wonder if there's not a degree of Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome going on here. When the little girl has been taught to say things like "I could die," I feel very, very concerned.

Celiac sprue is not an allergy--it's not like a peanut allergy or bee sting allergy where a person can have a sudden, dramatic reaction (anaphylatic shock). It's true that if a person with this disease has a diet of gluten over a long period of time, there will be nutritional consequences which would be harmful and (very eventually) possibly fatal. But it's not true that one bite of a gluten-containing cracker, even once a week, would be anything like fatal. At most it might cause a bout of diarrhea.

Now, I certainly don't think that it would be right to subject the little girl to a bout of diarrhea every week, but the over-the-topness of the mother's reaction (and the way she's taught the girl), really troubles me. Especially when the church has offered quite reasonable compromises which have been refused.

Mus Zibii · 09-09-2004, 06:32 AM

Yeah, I agree. It cuts both ways, I feel. The criteria of the ritual is loopy and the mother's motivation is screwy. Like I said before, I read in another article about numerous diocese (I think that's the right word) that offered communion with a drop of wine, single drop. But she preferred the anonymous church that offered a rice wafer - which sounds fine to me, but clearly (juding by the creeds) in opposition of Catholic dogma, but I'm betting she knew that beforehand.

I thought nothing of it until I read a Catholic forum and they were everything but willing to discuss the ins and outs of the creed itself. Which I appreciate on one level, but bothers me as well.

littlemissattitude · 09-09-2004, 08:48 AM

Okay. I've sort of followed this story, and I too wonder about the mother's role in the whole controversy.

However, I also think it's really sad that the authorities of the church would be more concerned at following tradition (and that's all it is, as far as I can see from my non-Catholic perspective) than making sure that all of the faithful - and certainly seems from the reports that I've seen that the girl is faithful - are able to participate fully in the central rite of the church. I mean, do they really and truly believe that because the biblical quote refers to "bread", that means it has to have this one substance in it (gluten) or it doesn't count? That is, in fact, the argument of a church official in one of the articles I read (sorry it's been awhile and I don't have the link). And if so, do they really believe that God is that unforgiving, or that he is not powerful enough to effect the transubstantiation that they believe occurs in any medium he chooses? That seems to me to be a case of humans putting limits on God more than anything else.

Mus Zibii · 09-09-2004, 09:01 AM

I read a Jewish blog and the guy said jestfully that maybe it'd be better if the church went by the kosher laws in developing criteria for the host.

But anyway, that's the thing about ritual. It starts out as a means of affirming faith and becomes a stumbling block.

On a related note, there was a big debate in America over the church refusing to give communion to John Kerry because he supports abortion as a birth control. I can understand the Catholic objection to that (even though most Catholics will end up voting Kerry soon), but since when did Jesus die just for the few.

Ben57 · 09-10-2004, 09:30 AM

Hi every one,

Well I could start another topic on this one.

Like some of the previous posters i am an outsider when it comes to communion but my personal view is that the "partacking of the last supper" is not open to all christians anyway, and not to be done every week and that the bread and wine were mearly symbles of what Jesus gave up his life here on earth.

Sorry I just had to put my 2 bits worth in

Mus Zibii · 09-11-2004, 02:04 AM

To me, the Last Supper was a one time thing, something approaching a literary device to symbolically explain the context. I can appreciate that the eucharist and communion could be a beautiful way of reaffirming faith in that symbolism, but once you start regulating ritual... pffft. I think legalism is the worst idol among all the religions.