Any catholics on here who can answer a question for me?

[TrySleepingWithABrokenHeart]

I go to church every Sunday and although I take communion, I don’t have the wine.

Is this disrespectful of me? Or is this optional?

I feel like I have a strange fear of it for some reason. I also struggle to share cups etc with other people so the combination of these two things is the reason why.

I definitely don’t want to be disrespectful so I’d be really grateful for your opinions on this. Thanks.

As a Catholic and Eucharistic Minister (a lay person trained to assist the priest with dispensing communion) please can I reiterate what PP have written - that once the wine has been consecrated it is no longer wine but becomes the blood of Christ. Equally once a communion wafer is consecrated it is no longer bread but the body of Christ. You can take the body of Christ OR the blood at communion OR both. It doesn’t matter whether you do one or the other or both, what’s important is that you receive Christ’s body in some form .

Occasionally non-Catholic’s make a mistake and will take communion (of either kind) even though only Catholics who have had Holy Communion instruction are supposed to receive. IMO it really doesn’t matter much. If there is any truth in what we believe I don’t think a non Catholic receiving will undermine God or the church in anyway and it might be beneficial to them. If what we believe is all bollocks (and I’ll only know for 100% sure when I die) then it absolutely doesn’t matter at all who takes what or when.

NB. The first paragraph of this is proper catholic doctrine, the second one is my personal opinion and I think a lot of the church hierarchy would disagree in the strongest possible terms.

It's certainly not only Catholics who believe in transubstantiation! The Orthodox Church does, too, and so do some Anglicans. As in all things Anglican, uniformity of belief is optional.

The issue with the bread being more recoverable than the wine is a real thing - in medieval Catholicism (and for all I know, later too) manuals for priests have really complicated instructions about what to do if you accidentally spill wine or drop bread crumbs, because you must make sure it's eaten. If you spill wine on a cloth, you must cut out that portion of cloth and swallow it; if you drop crumbs, you must sweep them up and eat them. If a spider or fly falls into the chalice, you must eat it (and if that makes you feel sick, you must burn it and eat the ash).

Luckily for me, I'm Anglican, since my toddler daughter sometimes does altar service, and I'm pretty sure she has dropped the odd bit at times.

(And btw, the doctrine of Eucharist has been clarified and re-clarified over and over, but I think the council you're thinking of is the fourth Lateran of 1215, @hiddenmnetter? That's also the one where the rule that the laity should make regular confession and receive communion regularly - ie., a few times a year - came in).

@SarahAndQuack I'm an altar server and Eucharistic minister. We have to cover the spilt precious blood with a cloth. Then Scrub the floor with hot water. I've done it once. No cutting or eating of cloths required. The host just has to be picked up and consumed straight away.

I had assumed some progress had been made since medieval times, but good to know for sure!

Gluten free hosts?! Wow.

I'm baptised Catholic and take neither bread or wine.
I wait in line, stand in front of my priest and he blesses me on the forehead.

Anyone who visits the church can do this baptised Catholic or not.

Church of Scotland here, ours is a loaf from Tesco and Croft Original sherry. Everyone gets a square of bread and sherry in their own individual glasses. Sherry every time, but we only have communion 3 or 4 times a year. I was very disappointed when I first saw them slicing up an ordinary loaf.

That’s an interesting point gravy. Whilst attending mass on Sunday is an obligation, receiving communion weekly isn’t. For most Sundays there isn’t an obligation to receive either species let alone both.

Re. @Radardodgingninga’s point, when I was preparing for confirmation as an adult (I had individual preparation) my spiritual director told me that, even though the Body and Blood are and remain holy, the sacrament of communion also becomes effective when the person taking it consents to do so freely and with the full knowledge of what it means. So, by my understanding, someone taking Communion because of a well-meaning mistake wouldn’t hurt anyone. And, frankly, I don’t believe in a God who would judge it.

@LaBarbera I think that’s a really interesting point you made about ‘full knowledge’ of what the sacrament means. A distant relative wasn’t allowed to make his first Holy Communion because he had learning difficulties (amongst many other complex physical and mental disabilities) and the parish priest said he couldn’t be aware of what he was doing. He was as active in the church as he could be and it was a sadness to his parents that he could not receive.

Many years later his mum met the local bishop at a charity function and they fell into talk about this. The bishop’s very difference stance was that hardly anyone in the world could truly understand the full spiritual implications of the sacrament including the bishop himself and it was unfair to exclude our relation on this basis and shortly afterwards the young man in question made his first confession and received holy communion for the first time. His understanding of what he was doing certainly wasn’t as deep as other people’s might be but he was obviously thrilled and proud to be included in this important part of church life. He died not long afterwards and it was a great comfort to his parents that he died in a state of grace.

That’s a painful story, @Radardodgingninga, and I am glad it was ultimately resolved — but how terrible that there was even a question in the first place. I agree with the bishop and I think my spiritual director would have agreed too (I mean, without speaking for him here, but he is a very humane and intelligent priest). But it’s so easy to say things like “full knowledge” without thinking about all the ways those terms can be abused.