Greetings in Christ

Last weekend, I was at a local vendor's show with my Catholic books. It was a washout and I barely covered my costs.

One of my first visitors, however, was a fellow from another booth. He seemed to know what he was looking at and we began to chat.

It turns out, he is the Anglican husband of a Lutheran minister. He was pleasant, but began to talk about the Catholic parish near his wife's church. He made some mildly disparaging remarks about the priest, recently retired, from the village.

What really got me irritated though, was his cavalier mention that the church did not collapse when he and his wife received (took?) Communion at the Mass celebrating the Catholic priest's retirement. He said that the sister who gave him Communion was not struck by lightening for doing so.

I decided I didn't like this fellow much, even if he was a bibliophile.

I do not tend to be quick with a reply to commentary such as this fellow provided. Later, it occurred to me that telling him that the gates of Hell would not prevail against the Church, so it is entirely reasonable that their illicit reception of Communion would not cause thunderbolts or earthquakes. It does not mean that their illicit reception was of no consequence.

As for the Sister who was a minister of Holy Communion...it is not her place to say who is or is not eligible to receive.

To me, this man's attitude, and I suppose that of his wife, is simply bad manners. Imposing his beliefs, which apparently are that intercommunion is right and good, on the Catholic Church which clearly teaches otherwise while he is present at Mass, is just not nice!

Maybe next time something like this happens, I will be faster off the mark to respond.

God Bless