McSacrilege

I want to begin this post with an apology to the McDonald’s Company which only serves bad food in containers that reflect the quality of their product.

I was browsing on the internet recently when I came across a church supply company (it will remain nameless since further investigation showed it was not alone) which was engaged in what this protestant considers sacrilege. Were they selling “Christian rock”, designing mega churches, taking the Christ out of Christmas, or selling copies of the Piss Christ? No. They were doing something infinitely worse. What was this horror?

This firm was selling plastic, disposable, communion cups.

Let us set aside for a moment what the effect of a marginally properly consecrated minister praying a half way decently composed Eucharistic prayer over the bread and wine actually achieves. Let’s assume that the Lord’s Supper is purely symbolic.

That is to say let’s suppose that the Eucharist is to the body of Our Lord as the flag of the United States is to the USA.

What makes the United States a great country are a) the constitution, b) the defense of individual rights, c) democracy, and not least d) the people who make the forgoing a living reality. The flag is not the United States. I think it should not be against the law to treat the flag with disrespect. But the person who desecrates the flag by walking on it, spitting on it, or putting it in the trash is going to get an earful of my displeasure.

I ask those who use these disposable communion cups, what are they teaching their flock there by? If you would not put a symbol of our country in the trash, much less should you dishonor a symbol of the blood of Our Lord that was shed for the remission of our sins.

Now admittedly, I find this sacrilege the more offensive because I assume that: a) god makes perfect the imperfect and b) that Christ meant what he said. Thus I have an assumption that a minister who has received the imposition of hands in unbroken succession from minister to minister from the apostles may and even possibly just from a godly minister of the word with no succession could be, a priest. I assume that when Christ said “this is my body”, “this is my blood” he meant it.

The idea that the blood of God that was shed for the remission of my sins is being treated like a snot filled handkerchief fills me, as it should any pious Christian, with horror.

But suppose I am wrong, suppose all those who hold a high view of the Eucharist: Protestant, Catholic, or Orthodox are wrong. Suppose that the wine or (God help us) grape juice is only a symbol of the blood of Our Lord. Do you really want to have to explain treating that symbol like trash at the foot of the throne at the last judgment?