Communion is clearly a ritual. Again, the Roman Catholic Church insists that the wine actually becomes Jesus' blood, and the communion wafers actually become his flesh, and this is a MIRACLE that occurs in every mass. It is part of Church dogma. I did not say I believed it, because I do not. But I am a heretic. If you do not believe in the Miracle of Transubstantiation, so are you. Or so the Holy Mother Church has decided.
The idea that blood must be shed to get God to pay attention seems rather primitive. It used to have a useful purpose: you donated a sheep and got divine favors, and the priests, for their assistance, got dinner. That is why all the sacrificed animals had to be kosher. No one could sacrifice a fox, or a rat, or a croc, squirrel, toad, bat or armadillo, because that would be unacceptable as dinner for the priests. Not even a Great Wooly Mammoth would be adequate, due to a problem with its toes, which are not cloven.
The evangelical Christians and the ultra orthodox have joined forces to build the Third Temple, and have been trying to breed the sacrificial heifer for a long time: it must be a completely red haired heifer, without a single hair of a different color, that must be used as a sacrifice to dedicate or consecrate the temple.
The Book of Revelation claims that when Jesus returns, the Temple will be destroyed according to prophesy, but the problem is that there is no temple. All the Jews must return to Israel, so as to give Jesus one last shot at doing the Messiah thing before he admits the good Jews to Heaven and sends the bad ones who disbelieve off to Hell. But the Temple must be rebuilt or the prophesy cannot happen, they believe.
I would deem that this is unlikely, being as the Muslim Dome of the Rock is currently standing on that specific place. God may be everywhere at once, but apparently he is rather territorial about this as well as extremely picky in his choice of sacrificial livestock. The Rock, inside the Dome of the Rock, is allegedly the same rock where Abraham was told to sacrifice Isaac, until Jehovah said "sorry, Abe, I was just testing you: now go fetch yonder sheep". Luckily, Jehovah did not ask for a special red heifer, or perhaps Abe would have had to forget the whole thing, wandering about, scrutinizing cattle all over the place.
