Quote:
Originally posted by AGDee
Also, Catholics repeat the ritual with water each time they enter the church. There are fountains or bowls of Holy Water and we "cross ourselves" with the water each time to remind us of our Baptisms. There are also other times during the year, particularly at Easter where the Priest dips a broom type thing into Holy Water and shakes it over each row in the church to remind us of our Baptism.
There were several people in my RCIA (Ritual for Christian Initiation of Adults.. the Catholic conversion process) who were baptized into other faiths and the Catholic church recognizes those Baptisms. The reason that others cannot take Communion in the Catholic church is because most other denominations (all?) take Communion as symbolic whereas Catholics believe that the bread and wine are transfigured into the body and blood of Christ during the mass. They feel it is important that the recipient of the Eucharist understands and believes this.
Dee
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Firstly, I can't believe I forgot about the holy water. D'oh!
And secondly, that's also why Catholics are discouraged from taking communion in other churches - because it doesn't mean the same thing to them as it does to us.