I guess I'm also not clear on why non-Catholics even want to take Communion at a Catholic church. I have been a guest at many different religious ceremonies, but it would never dawn on me to be more than a guest at those services.

That is because you have common sense and common courtesy, increasing rare and wonderful qualities.

Exactly. Why do non-Catholics want to take communion if it is not something they believe in? It is a religious service, not breakfast.

They don't, really. Only a twisted few trouble-makers looking to make points onunrelated issues usually having something to do with hatred for authority.

Dd

It would never dawn on you because you're happy with your neat, but artificial, denominational lines. Rather like some people are happy with neat racial lines: let white be white and black be black, there's no place for brown. Um, news for you: neither race nor religion falls within neat lines.

Proof? History. Religion is an epic of human creativity. Religions have always borrowed from one another and loaned to one another, at the same time they are slaughtering one another. Your precious Roman Catholic church (which I know very, very well) is something of a Salvation Army store of religion; it's recycled an awful lot in its time.

Many non-Catholic people--mostly, but probably not all, Christian in belief--simply don't consider those denominational lines to be that important. They value, sometimes on occasion, sometimes regularly, being at mass, saying the prayers, feeling part of a worship service at which they believe Jesus is present (but they simply don't want to deal with the neat, but highly artificial, theology of transubstantiation). They see faith as a living, participatory thing, and their instinct is to participate. (This desire is particularly poignant for non-Catholic relatives of Catholics getting married or buried, and for non-Catholic spouses or children of Catholics.)

I suppose if the church posted signs forbidding non-Catholics to take communion, they wouldn't--but, in that case, it would be because they probably wouldn't feel any desire to join in the worship of such an unwelcoming congregation. In fact, from the strict denominational viewpoint you inhabit, it would be perfectly logical for a Catholic church to post such signs. Why don't we see this? Because the church wants to have it both ways: come in, you're welcome, we love to have you, we hope to sign you up--but don't touch our sacred sacrament till we tell you to!

There are a million other ways to argue the point, but the bottom line is that the Catholic church (i.e., its careerist hierarchy) has proprietary institutional interests here which it wants to protect. (And Catholic laypersons like yourself go along with that, because, after all, you've paid your dues.) Perfectly good business instincts. But the alleged founder of Christianity seems, from the accounts we have, to have preached a rather less proprietary view of human community and its hope of the Kingdom of Heaven.

The Tibetan Book of the Dead says that upon entering the Bardo the soul encounters demons and is attacked by them. The soul labors under the delusion that these demons come from without, whereas the truth is that all the demons as well as the fierce karmic wind is coming from within the person’s soul, your very own demons. The trick is not to fight the demons but to “wake up” to the fact that you’re in the bardo and that these demons are your own, then you can not fight them but negotiate with them until you find the right light to follow to non-birth. Maybe this forum is the bardo and we are all dead. Let’s negotiate

Actually, I do not draw firm denominational lines in my religious life. I actually go out of my way to teach my children that most religions of the world are grounded in the common principle of love one another. I also do not object if my non-Catholic friends take communion in my church. Having said that, I just do not understand why non-Catholics want to take communion so much. I've attended several bar mitzvahs in my life, and I've never been invited to read from the Torah. Rather than being offended, I never gave it a second thought.

Jews do not proselytize, do not solicit visitors to synagogues, and in some congregations are not warm even toward full converts. (I hasten to add that Jews are often very welcoming of non-Jews in certain other religious contexts, e.g., brises and bar-m celebrations.) A Christian (or person of Christian background) attending a Jewish service is inescapably aware of a greater distance, religiously and culturally, than there would be between himself and Christians of a different denomination than his. Under such circumstances, it comes more naturally to feel unsure of how to behave and to wait for cues.

I have occasionally attended Lutheran and Episcopalian services, and been amazed at their similiarity to the current (American) Catholic mass. While I myself would only observe at any type of religious service, I could see how an adherent of one of those churches might feel at home in the others, and might possibly be moved to wish to participate. Religion is not only a bond between man and God; it is a bond between man and man also. It is common, when feeling uplifted, to wish to celebrate fellow feeling with those around one.

In some more demotic Protestant congregations, a visitor is overtly encouraged ("pushed" might be a better word) to participate actively in everything the congregation does, including its version of communion. It won't do to say, "Yeah, but our communion is a sacrament and theirs is just a commemoration"--not, at least, if we start with the premise that their worship is as sacred to them as yours is to you. People from such a background may naturally assume that other Christian worship is, or at least should be, similarly welcoming.

The Stranger:

The Tibetan Book of the Dead says that upon entering the Bardo the soul encounters demons and is attacked by them. The soul labors under the delusion that these demons come from without, whereas the truth is that all the demons as well as the fierce karmic wind is coming from within the person’s soul, your very own demons. The trick is not to fight the demons but to “wake up” to the fact that you’re in the bardo and that these demons are your own, then you can not fight them but negotiate with them until you find the right light to follow to non-birth. Maybe this forum is the bardo and we are all dead. Let’s negotiate

What if I enjoy the battle?

I have no idea. I haven’t read the Book of the Dead in a while and I’m not a Tibetan. Funny how the bardo shows up in so many American films like Ghost, and Jacob’s Ladder to mention two. I sort of get the idea that if you get scared over there (Again, their ideas, not mine) you’ll run from the hot blue light and follow the dull cool red one…big mistake. Then you fight the demons for awhile afterward you hover over couples having sex until you pick out who you want as parents, jumping into the woman as the man ejaculates. (Wonderful image is it not?) You become a new life with all the karma to pay as you go. I myself as well as many of the Church of Philip here spent much time in the New Age movement before we were “asked to leave” so we heard a great deal about karma and chakras and the whole great big glowing neon cafeteria of ideas.

What a Rant!