Roman Catholicism
The Blessed Sacrament may be received by Catholics who have undergone the First Holy Communion (i.e., given by a priest or or Deacon or Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion to a Catholic, and immediately consumed by the communicant) as part of the Liturgy of the Eucharist during Mass. The soul of the person receiving the Eucharist should be in a "state of grace," i.e., have no mortal sin on their soul at the time of communion (Matt 5:23-24).
The Blessed Sacrament can also be exposed (displayed) on an altar in a Monstrance. Rites involving the exposure of the Blessed Sacrament include Benediction and Eucharistic adoration. According to Catholic theology, the host, after the Rite of Consecration, is no longer bread, but the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ, who is transubstantiated in it. Catholics know that Jesus is the sacrificial Lamb of God prefigured in the Old Testament Passover. Unless the flesh of that passover sacrificial lamb was consumed, the members of the household would not be saved from death. As the Passover was the Old Covenant, so the Eucharist became the New Covenant. (Matt 26:26-28), (Mark 14:22-24), (Luke 22: 19-20), and (John 6:48-58)
Read more about this topic: Blessed Sacrament
Famous quotes containing the words roman and/or catholicism:
“He wrote in prison, not a History of the World, like Raleigh, but an American book which I think will live longer than that. I do not know of such words, uttered under such circumstances, and so copiously withal, in Roman or English or any history.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“When Catholicism goes bad it becomes the world-old, world-wide religio of amulets and holy places and priestcraft. Protestantism, in its corresponding decay, becomes a vague mist of ethical platitudes. Catholicism is accused of being too much like all the other religions; Protestantism of being insufficiently like a religion at all. Hence Plato, with his transcendent Forms, is the doctor of Protestants; Aristotle, with his immanent Forms, the doctor of Catholics.”
—C.S. (Clive Staples)