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May 30, 2011
Dog getting communion
An Anglican church in Canada welcomed pets to attend their services and Donald Keith, a new parishioner, took his dog Trapper with him. Since he was a newcomer, the vicar singled Keith out and invited him up in person to receive what is known as Holy Communion where you receive and wafer (and sometimes some wine or other beverage) to symbolize the body and blood of Jesus. (Catholics are told that the wafer and the wine actually become transformed into the body and blood of Jesus, but I am not getting into that here.)
When Keith went up, Trapper naturally followed him and the interim vicar said a small prayer and gave communion to Trapper too.
I thought that this was a nice story about a spontaneous friendly gesture on the vicar's part. When you are handing out what seems like treats to everyone and there is a dog waiting expectantly in line, it is hard to say no. Apparently almost every member of the congregation found the gesture to be heartwarming. But one person took umbrage and went straight to the archbishop and as a result Trapper has been banned from receiving communion. And of course, the Jesus lovers are incensed. Former Watergate felon and now crazy-for-Jesus evangelical Chuck Colson says that this is the result of the dangerous trend of thinking that humans are not special in the eyes of his god.
If I believed in heaven, my guess would be that Trapper is more worthy of going there than the parishioner who complained about him.
Comments
This is rather hilarious. Communion when you come down to it, is nothing more than dehydrated or compressed bread. In short - FOOD.
Why wouldn't a dog be interested in free treats.
For people to get upset, believing that somehow giving a dog a piece of bread is disrespectful of their rituals, is nonsense. Of course, there where always be those "attention seekers" who want to make an issue of this. Let us not forget that DOG is GOD spelled backwards and often regarded as man's best friend. Some people even believe that dogs are more loyal and trustworthy than their fellow human beings so why not give them communion.
Mano,
I'm not familiar with treatment of the communion wafer in the Anglican church, but from my experience in Roman Catholic church, people can be driven to extreme lengths in their devotion to it. I have a distinct childhood memory of being at a mass when a communion wafer was accidentally dropped on the floor. A man immediately leapt from his seat, knelt in front of the wafer, picked it up and ate it.
This man was a physician, a highly respected member of the community, and his children were always at the top of their classes academically. As a child, I was impressed by this man's reverence; as an adult, I wonder at the crazy behavior that religion can lead obviously intelligent people to. For example, why would the best response be to eat the thing that has been "desecrated"?
I can only imagine the outrage in my childhood church if communion had been given to a dog.
Frank,
In the Anglican church, the wafer is considered to be just a symbol so although consecrated, it does not carry the same degree of gravity as in the Catholic church where they are supposed to believe that upon consecration the wafer and wine become the actual body and blood of Jesus.
So I don't think a Catholic priest would have done this. Even if the wafer falls on the floor, it is still considered sacred so your physician thought he was treating Jesus with the respect he deserves. Of course, the whole idea of eating human flesh is weird but that's another story.
So definitely no snacks for Trapper if he had been in a Catholic church.
Why should the Trapper be banned? It's not like the dog did anything wrong. If the priest didn't offer Trapper food, the dog wouldn't have eaten it.
Colson concludes his encyclical with the verdict that it is "scary" to forget that humans are God's special children. It is, in fact, his deranged anthropocentrism that is truly scary.
If homo sapiens saw himself as part of nature, rather than above it, we would be living in a very different world. Habitat destruction and biodiversity loss would be crimes against nature and subject to severe punishment. The air, water, and soil would all be protected from permanent degradation by sound husbandry and an attitude of leaving the next generation with as much or more as we were given by nature.
Instead, we have a veritable pestilence of arrogant, self-serving, carnivorous polluters, destroying a truly unique planet because their imaginary best friend authorized them to do so.
I am so disappointed the Rapture didn't take them all away. The planet might then have had a fighting chance.
I wonder if this is included in Holy Scripture's meaning of 'desecration' ??? No wonder our church, even with its religious trappings, is 'way out of the Christian ball park.
I, now, more fully, understand why it DOES NOT believe in Christ or any of the Sacraments- especially: Baptism, Holy Communion-the two Gospel Sacraments.
I had to take an early retirement ten years ago because I had suffered with two burn-out situations when I couldn't prevent any of those situations invading me. High Blood Pressure has now resulted in daily kidney dialysis. Several bishops and officials worked hard to ensure that I wouldn't get a disability pension; now I'm on welfare; praise be to God !
As deacons & priests, some of us knew when we baptized an individual, we were baptizing humans who were sinners and assumed that the believing parents and godparents would be bringing them up accepting the grace of God's redemption through the blood of Jesus Christ-God's Sacrifice, not their 'works'. Today, redemption is falsely taught to come through rehabilitation, fellowship, programs, etc.
Further, receiving The Holy Sacrament of Communion was a celebration of those believers who were following our Lord's Invitation & Command to be one in Him. A priest is the one chosen to speak for and present the congregation to The Almighty; he is simply the chosen Presider- a sinner, set apart from amongst the congregation to do a priestly duty; not a President or Chairman at some social gathering. On our Lord's Promise, Holy Communion is truly His Body and Blood. If administered to any who are either unbelievers or do not have enough brains or desire to live 'The New Life" , as THE PRAYER BOOK clearly states (p.89) otherwise we eat and drink "..our own condemnation..." {Perhaps, it's a major reason why so many fought to get rid of The Prayer Book !!!"
Surely, there must be at least one believer somewhere with some episcopal ecclesiastical clout on this fast "sinking ship" who is a friend to Jesus. Surely, one of you believes that God became human flesh and blood while remaining divine. "This is my Body; This is my Blood " means that we may partake off and live daily lives with Christ in our very being. IT IS NOT FOR THE DOGS !!
With these kind of practices going on with many of us having to leave and many church buildings being closed, we pray even more fervently, " COME, LORD JESUS, COME !!! "
I think it's the priest's decision to give the dog the holy communion (as they say) that is to be questioned and not the dog's decision to eat what's given to him.
People can take things too far and in my opinion people can be far too easily offended by simple endearing actions - as in this case a simple gesture to a newcomer.
If the priest continued to feed the dog every time the man attended communion then this would be overstepping the mark. Lets keep everything in perspective, life is far too short to get hung up on every little incident.