Literary Discussions

How strange you should mention this, since I was thinking of that during my cheerios and kool-aid homily.

Simple-minded answer. I went with a Greek priest monk once to an emergency ward where an old man was in minutes of death. The doctors and nurses parted like waves in the wake of so huge ship as this black robbed priest-monk with a long beard approached with a chalice (containing both wine and bread, body and blood, whatever)  .... the old man had all these tubes in his nose, mouth, arm.... his eyes OPENED WIDE cause he knew this was it, the end of the trail... the priest dipped his index finger in the chalice, perhaps a drop, and placed it in his mouth next to the tube. Ten minutes later, the man was dead.   Now back to your friend. SINCE the RC Church says that the wafer is sufficient, the wine is not necessary... she can go and sip from the chalice. By the way their are a few alcoholic priests I know who use grape juice.   Now let us imagine the situation of someone who has their mouth sewn shut (or perhaps has no mouth or jaw) and lives on intravenous. What to do, what to do?  In the vision of Prophet Daniel (I think it was Daniel) he was feeling faint and an angel took a burning coal, touched it to Daniel's mouth, and said "this has touched your lips and taken away your inequity."  Consider the life of St. Mary of Egypt who was one of the greatest harlots, even forcing sailors to do things which embarrassed them. When she went into the desert for 40 years, she had no priest, no communion, and only just before her death did a priest find her in the wilderness and give her communion.  To an alcoholic I say, eat the wafer, to a celiac, I say, sip the wine. To Donovan's brain living in a glass jar, I say, Believe and ye have already eaten.  And what of the several children born with TWO HEADS. Suppose one wanted to convert to Islam and the other wanted to chant Hare Krishna... what to do?? what to do???  What is impossible for humans is possible for God (if there is a God, and no one can prove that there is or there isnt.)  There are people who take communion ever day and are not Christians. There are Christians who can never take communion once in their life. And then there is the rest of us.