Can one take communion while on medicine that forbids drinking alcohol?

No, one should not. That is why communion with the Eucharist is completely sufficient.

Sacramental wine in the Catholic Church isn’t that good. It is almost like a sherry.

Because of the flu epidemic, many churches have stopped offering communion wine to the congregation.

You are unlikely to get enough wine from communion for this to matter. The forbidden amount of alcohol means don’t have ab actual glass of wine or a beer.

Some churches use grape juice instead of wine.

From a medical/biological point of view, the amount of wine taken in at Communion is far too small to make any difference with one’s medicine.

@RedDeerGuy1 Taking the body/bread is considered complete communion. I don’t take the blood/wine since I got a flu shortly after one year. Many alcoholics do this also.

Communion wine is grape juice. Or it’s water.

@kritiper Communion wine is wine in the Roman Catholic Church.

@si3tech It is water that is supposedly turned into wine, by the priest during communion, if I remember my catechism correctly… like the Bible story of Christ turning water into wine…

@kritiper The conversion of water into wine was a miracle at the wedding at Cana, when Jesus was just starting his ministry.

Communion is a replication of The Last Supper, when Jesus held up a cup of Passover wine and said, “this is my blood, the blood of a new covenant”.

The belief is that the sacrament of The Eucharist causes transubstatiation, where the wine becomes the blood of Christ.

@zenvelo – yeah, I knew that… But in Catholic school we were taught that the liquid in the chalice became wine, signifying the blood of Christ. I don’t believe priests actually use wine in communion, just grape juice or water, and I don’t believe any actual chemical changes take place. It’s the thought that something takes place magically that counts.

@kritiper I think you might have paid a bit more attention in religion class. Sacramental wine is really wine. Ask any old altar boy and they’ll tell you.

@zenvelo It must not have much of an alcohol content, otherwise priests I’ve seen would get really snockered drinking that much of it during mass; and then be at the back door wishing everybody a nice day without falling down??

Sacramental wine may or may not be alcoholic.
“wine… 2. The fermented, or, loosely, the unfermented, juice of any fruit or plant used as a beverage; ...” -from Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, 1960 ed.
Also “wine… 1… b: wine or a substitute used in Christian communion services.” -from Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th. ed.