Nun wanting to give NPO patient wafer - page 2

Thank you, elkpark. Your post is very informative! I didn't know how the different liturgical churches view the sacrament; all I know is the Catholic tradition, and I'm always surprised when I see communicants chewing the Host because we believe in transubstantiation. It makes sense to do it differently if your belief system is that the Host represents Christ's Body.

I did know that about Biblical churches using bits of unflavored bread and grape juice to commemorate the Last Supper, and in fact used to participate before I converted to Catholicism some 25 years ago.

This is partially correct. Transub is held by Rome as the teaching of Aquinas. It holds that though the bread and wine hold the outward appearance of bread and wine they are in reality the physical body and blood of Christ. It's more complex than that, but that's the basic jist.

However, the word consubstantiation is typically used to describe the Lutheran position (though they prefer the term "sacramental union"). In this view the body and blood of Christ are also physically present, though through a mystery of being hidden with, in, and under the material elements. EOs hold a somewhat similar view, in that the bread and wine are both bread and wine as well as the physical body and blood of Christ through a mysterious operation of the Spirit. Some Anglicans hold to this also.

The view you are describing as consub is the view of Calvin and many Reformed, and is known as pneumatic presence. That is Christ is present by the power of the Holy Spirit rather than physically. The Reformed would say they do believe in real presence, but not in physical presence. Many of the more reformed Anglicans held to some type of pneumatic presence, but Anglicanism has on the whole tried to kind of pretend they're not there being embarrassing.

Memorialism is the most common protestant view (especially since the term "protestant" is distasteful to modern Lutherans and Anglicans). This view is more along the lines of what we would today understand as "representational", though it isn't necessarily wrong to say the other views are also representational by medieaval standards.

Yeah yeah I know: old thread and not to the point. But I'm a nerd. I would say to the op that like all things, this is really dependent on the way the patient perceives what he or she believes. And the only way to know that is to ask. Some would have a problem with chewing but wouldn't have a problem with the officiant breaking the wafer. There are a few ways to get around it, as have been mentioned.

I haven't accepted communion in probably ten years because I do not believe that the Host is the body of Jesus. I was, however, raised Catholic and took communion (because I was forced to) every Sunday for ten years. I was never taught not to chew it and probably always did.