Well, much of the ritual of Holy Communion is about faith. While some denominations believe that the bread (usually in the form of wafers) and wine (some churches use non-alcoholic wine or grape juice) are just representative of the body and blood of Jesus, other churches believe that the bread and wine are transformed into Jesus' actual body and blood during the rite.Stephanie wrote:vbhoutex wrote:Our church hosted an area wide worship service yesterday with about 40 people in attendance. Instead of people taking a piece of bread from the loaf and dipping it in the wine, we served it the usual way with our small wafers and individaul small cups. It is much more intimate and meaningful when we do it by "intinction", but due to the H1N1 concerns we did not do it that way as had been initially planned.
It's better to be safe than sorry. I'm sure that the church will be able to go back to that next time around.
With this in mind, some people strongly believe that they can never get sick by sharing a communion cup with others. That belief alone may be powerful enough to keep them from becoming ill from bacteria or viruses that might be present on the cup.
Even with this pending pandemic, I myself have no qualms about drinking from the same cup of others but respect those who would not do it.
