At least three readers sent me this, and I guess it’s gone viral. I also can’t vouch that it’s real, but maybe it is. It looks real, and there’s a reddit thread on it that started yesterday. But I can’t give it the Professor Ceiling Cat Seal of Authenticity™.
Well, a bit of Googling lends support to its authenticity, for here is another version from the Celebrate Communion website:
500 of these for only $94.95. That’s less than 20¢ per dose of our Lord’s body and blood!
What I don’t understand is why, if this is real, it exists. Isn’t Communion supposed to be in a church, with the priest handing out the crackers and wine (or grape juice)? Under what circumstances would you use one of these? In the front lines of the military on Sunday?
Since there already exist online confessions, I suppose these are for online communions.
Most churches have lay volunteers who take communion to sick/home bound parishioners. Heck, Buzz Aldrin brought a similar set to the moon and took communion after the landing (privately).
This was exactly what my wife said when I read this to her: most churches have kits for shut-ins for just this purpose.
Not dehydrated wine and host; just add holy water?
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I guess those would also be handy for hospital and hospice chaplains who might end up having to serve deathbed communions.
And now you know what they mean when they say “I love Jesus”!
Does one first dunk the wafer into the juice or wine? Or would that not show the proper reverence? If it were mere juice I would be disappointed, and I would not go back in line for 2nds.
Well, here in California they recommend you have a three week supply of consecrated body and blood of Christ on hand in case of earthquake.
Can they not just pray that there won’t be one?
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Obviously this is for converting all those atheists in trenches.
I think there’s a movie for that.
How odd. I wonder if it has Nutrition Facts and an ingredient list (wouldn’t want any hemoglobin). I hope there is an organic variety, that wafer is probably sawdust and Elmer’s glue.
Overheard in a church somewhere, a half-century ago: “Mommy, if it tastes like sawdust, why did you eat it?”
I wonder if whoever is manufacturing these things is actually making money on them. Could be a pretty good niche market.
I’m waiting for the organic gluten-free version, or the kiddie edition, with a skull-embossed SweetTart and some gummi corpuscles.
The ultimate niche product!
more plastic to throw away, all in his name…
Naw, Chuy’ll be back to fly us all to heaven before any of our pollution becomes a problem! Now let’s go roll some coal!
Exactly what I was thinkin’.
How funny. Since these things are apparently mass-produced, I imagine giant bulk containers of Jesus blood and… whatever kind of flesh could yield such pale, white wafers, all being worked over by a machine or minimum-wage worker, with a rent-a-priest standing next to the conveyor belt repeating the same line over to mass-consecrate them. Ahh, capitalism.
“mass-produced”
Well, quite.
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The fruit and veg market near my house sells bags of the bits of wafer that remain after the rounds are cut out of the sheet. I know next to nothing of Catholicism, but my French Canadian friends have childhood memories of eating these perforated bits of wafer. I wonder what the theological ramifications of eating left overs are.
Insofar as those bits have not undergone the ritual and blessing that supposedly transform them into the flesh of Christ while still remaining wafers, there are no ramifications nor consequences.
What they don’t claim is that they’ve been consecrated. As such, as far as the Churches are concerned, they’re just individually-packaged servings of juice and crackers.
In order for them to “really” become “really really” the body and blood of Christ, a shaman has to cast a spell over them and compel the zombie to come to life. Once done, then they’d be communion wafers and wine.
But they’d still be a bloody waste and a worthless burden on our landfills….
b&
As a quick analogy — you could go down to the grocery store and buy a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine. That’s just bread and wine. The local parish priest could be next to you in the checkout line with the exact same bread and wine in his basket; that’s also just bread and wine.
You go home and eat your bread and drink your wine, and enjoy them both for what they are, and you’re a normal rational human being.
The priest takes the bread and wine with him to church, chants his incantations, and then has a play-pretend zombie vampire cannibalism party with his friends, some point in the middle of which the bread and wine become the flesh and blood of their bestest friend whom they later descend upon like a ravenous shuffling horde out of a Romero flick. Needless, these are not the actions of normal rational human beings….
b&
What is frustrating about this whole process is that people insist that those are the actions of normal rational human beings. Which bring to mind the phrase “gaslight”, from the movie of the same name: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslight_%281944_film%29
Your comment made me think of the hymn “Sons of God”, which includes:
“Eat His Body, drink His Blood / And we’ll sing a song of love”.
…and who says there’s no blatant homoeroticism in Christianity? (And, of course, an awful lot of zombie vampire cannibalism, too….)
b&
I like it – sounds very zombie-esque.
Mr. Goren, you are too funny!
Before I realized what this was, I thought the wafer was gum or some kind of breath freshener!
I’m waiting until someone posts a picture of a still-sealed one of these with a Jeebus-shaped cockroach turd embedded in the cracker.
I’m almost tempted to get some, a scalpel, and a friend with art skills and some Burnt Umber watercolour paint.
This prepackaged communion is a realistic way of avoiding the hygiene problems of passing round the shared communion cup given that there is probably no real cosmic God to physically protect the congregation from germs. Maybe it is a subconscious admission of there being no supernatural protection?
Now all that is needed is for the priest to correct Matt 15v3 by saying something like, ” I know our Lord sneered at the idea of washing your hands before eating but for Christs sake wash your fucking hands before touching the Lord’s sacred bits. How was he supposed to know about germ theory before microscopes were invented ? Do you think he is all seeing or something ? “
Altar wine is nearly like sherry in alcohol content
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I can’t imagine a Roman Catholic or other liturgical church using these pre-packed communion elements. I can imagine evangelical megachurches using them; their theology doesn’t include any transformation of the elements into the body and blood of Christ (they don’t teach the ‘real presence’ of Jesus, much less transubstantiation; they believe the communion is only a memorial, and that the equation of the grape juice and wafers with the body and blood of Jesus is not literal in any way). The Louisville, Kentucky megachurch Southeast Christian Church patented a device for filling dozens of little communion cups at once, to serve the thousands of congregants who worship there every weekend (they have 20,000 a week worshiping at their four campuses).
You’re correct. The RCC would not use these under any circumstances.
MRE, meet CRP (Communion Ready to Partake).
Shouldn’t there be an “a” in there somewhere?
b&
Such things are also used for large festivals or revivals when you want to be able to give one to everybody in a large outdoor crowd.
I think the most important question here is that at what point in the digestive process does it no longer have the substance of Jesus? I would imagine that it must at least retain its sanctity until excreted. Holy shit.
Since you asked…
According to the RCC, when they no longer have the appearance of bread and/or wine, which is almost certainly well before they leave the stomach and probably even before they even reach the stomach — so no, there won’t be any sacred little Mr Hankis floating around. As kids we were instructed to let Jesus melt in our mouths — like M&Ms.
The word “substance” in Catholic theology, as might be expected, does not have the same meaning as it usually does in English. Substance in Catholic theology, as per Aristotle, is quite the opposite of something tangible.
That’s interesting, I don’t recall ever being taught about the “un-transubstantiation”, but I suppose it makes as much sense as anything else could when we’re talking about outdated and unproven philosophies to begin with.
I’m aware of the distinction they have between substance and accidents. It simply makes no sense. On what basis could excrement not have the substance of Christ and the accidents of waste? After all, the argument starts with claiming the bread and wine simply changed substance but retained the outward appearance of bread and wine. Who gets to make up whether it was the accident or substance that actually changed? Still smells like holy (bull)shit to me…
Do they come with a Best Before or Expiry Date?!
I wonder if people could take this to work where alcohol is prohibited? The crazies can always argue it is blood…but then most places that prohibit alcohol, prohibit biological contaminants. Lose, lose.
Nice idea…but the grape juice in these abominations is unfermented….
b&
Reminds me of airline meals. I can just see some enterprising airline offering the “RC Option” on its menu…
This just amused me on so many levels. First “Jesus snack pack” ha! A multiple week’s supply in case of earthquake? That one took me to a whole other amusement level. Let’s hope someone’s faith is strong enough to get Jesus to multiply his snack packs and if it doesn’t happen, we’ll victim blame the believe for not have strong enough faith. First, let fill some of these puppies with some agave tequila!
Were I a Catholic, I’d lobby the Pope to replace the wafers with Popeyes biscuits.
You mean sea biscuits? What have these poor catlicks done that they deserve to break their teeth?
As someone said, these would be primarily for home bound or hospitalized folks. They would have to be consecrated during a mass before being used by the priest or church member to take to someone. The wine just adds what is done during a mass. Not sure if just anyone would be allowed to buy these.
Perfect for those Satanists you mentioned the other week!
Or do they have to be a particular denomination?
Twenties and larger, I should think. Not worth messing with that piddling small change.
b&
Looks like an “airline pack”. (I have no idea if such things exist, of course.)