The letter below is from the Very Rev. Fr. John Lankeit, Rector of Ss. Simon & Jude Cathedral. The bishop of this rector is the Most Reverend Thomas J. Olmsted, Bishop of The Diocese of Phoenix, Arizona.
This letter is from the Cathedral's bulletin. I cannot imagine that the rector would write a letter like this without his bishop's approval. Keep in mind the rector of a Cathedral is called the rector because the bishop is the pastor. In the Episcopal Church, all pastors are called rectors as they see their bishop as the actual pastor of each parish. We do too, but have not adopted the term rector except for cathedrals. My comments follow this letter:
A Letter from Our Cathedral Rector
Dear Parishioners,
I want to thank all of you who have recently started receiving Holy Communion on the tongue, not to mention those of you who
already had been. This subject has generated a lot of buzz over the past few weeks, the vast majority of which has been
overwhelmingly positive.
While my main objective in encouraging reception on the tongue is to deepen appreciation for the Eucharist, I also have a
pastoral responsibility to eliminate abuses common to receiving in the hand. Such abuses are no doubt unintentional.
Nevertheless, what I witness troubles me. And I’m not alone.
In 2004, responding to the problem of Eucharistic profanation, the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline
of the Sacrament released an official instruction entitled REDEMPTIONIS SACRAMENTUM:
On certain matters to be
observed or to be avoided regarding the Most Holy Eucharist. Regarding Holy Communion, the document states:
“[S]pecial care should be taken to ensure that the host is consumed by the communicant in the presence of the
minister, so that no one goes away carrying the Eucharistic species in his hand. If there is a risk of profanation,
then Holy Communion should not be given in the hand to the faithful.” (Paragraph #92).
Here are just a few examples of profanation that I see all too frequently:
• Blessing oneself with the host before consuming it. (The act of blessing with the Eucharist is called “Benediction” and is
reserved to clergy).
• Receiving the host in the palm of the hand, contorting that same hand until the host is controlled by the fingers, then
consuming it (resembling a one-handed “watch-the-coin-disappear” magic trick)
• Popping the host into the mouth like a piece of popcorn.
• Attempting to receive with only one hand.
• Attempting to receive with other items in the hands, like a dirty Kleenex or a Rosary.
• Receiving the host with dirty hands.
• Receiving the host, closing the hand around it, then letting the hand fall to the side (as if carrying a suitcase) while
walking away and/or blessing oneself with the other hand.
• Walking away without consuming the host.
• Giving the host to someone else after receiving…yes, it happens!
We would never treat a piece of GOLD with such casualness—especially in this economy!! Yet many treat this Eucharistic
“piece” of GOD with casualness at best, indifference and irreverence at worst. Of course, much abuse is due to ignorance, owing
to poor catechesis, which is precisely why I have written about this issue for four consecutive weeks.
Yet we have another great incentive…
When Holy Communion is received on the tongue…every single one of these abuses is instantly eliminated!
The way we treat another person says more about our relationship with that person than any words we might say. This is
especially true of our relationship with the Divine Person, Jesus Christ. So let us continually seek to increase our reverence for
our Eucharistic Savior, and to eliminate anything that degrades the respect He deserves.
The graces we receive will surely be greater than anything we can imagine!
God’s Blessings… my prayers…
Very Rev. Fr. John Lankeit
Rector
Ss. Simon & Jude Cathedral
My comments:
The exact same problems that Fr. Lankeit points out in his letter, every Catholic pastor in America could write the same thing. Hosts are taken out of the Church; disposed of in the pew or on the floor; there is the one handed flip of the host into one's mouth; hosts are grabbed; people break off a part of the host and give it to their underage child or someone else in the pew or at home; children take it as though it is popcorn and on and on and on.
In terms of the common cup, I recently distributed it at a funeral. I watched children receive from me and their saliva slide into the chalice, one person took an almost full chalice from me so quickly that it "sloshed" from the chalice to it outside base and on my shoes and I presume the carpet. I had about 30 people drink from the same chalice. I wiped the rim each time, the purificator was stained with lipstick and I doubt that the hygiene and germlessness of the chalice after the last person drank a combination of mostly saliva mixed with Precious Blood could be verified in a clinical analysis.
Of course, I've had EMs tell me on numerous occasions that one person will consume the entire chalice which is full; that someone's chewing gum fell into the chalice as they drank from it or the host they just placed in their mouth and partially chewed fell from their mouth into the chalice. Numerous people self intinct even when the EM tried to prevent it. While holding the host in one hand and prying the hand of an EM that the EM had placed over the chalice to prevent self-intinction, the communicant called the EM a name!
What will it take for us to return to the over 1000 tradition of kneeling for Holy Communion and receiving on the tongue. I think recovering this tradition will do more for the reverence due to Holy Communion than even ad orientem worship.
32 comments:
Father, I'm a veteran of all kinds of parishes, but I don't understand why you'd say this mild letter from the rector recommending voluntary communion on the tongue is "astonishing".
What might be astonishing would for him to announce that henceforth communion on the tongue would be required (since, for not better but worse, our country has an indult from the universal norm of communion on the tongue).
What I find astonishing Henry, and this is from the seminarian in me from the 1970's and the priest in me from the early 1980's is that the rector implies in his catechesis that receiving on the tongue is better than receiving on the hand. I've always taught that you have two legitimate choices and either way is fine, not one better than the other. I know too that in some places people are told in fact that receiving on the tongue is childish while receiving in the hand is more adult.
So now I am to learn that the way I received Holy Communion from 1960 until about 1976 was better than the illegal way we were allowed to receive Holy Communion in the hand until the Bishops of America legalized an illegal procedure sometime during the mid 1970's or later.
That a rector of a cathedral would imply that receiving Holy Communion on the tongue is better than in the hand because it reduces the profanation of the sacrament is astonishing in this day and age. That statement implies that one can profane the sacrament. Have you heard much of that in any of your parishes in the last 30 years or so?
Father - I wish we would go back to tradition of kneeling for Holy Communion and receiving on the tongue. I am sure that there are many more that believe the same way. What can we do to make it happen?
Carrie
Carrie, we have to follow the norms of the bishops of the USA which is the way we do things at St. Joseph Church. Everyone though has the right to receive on the tongue. I could encourage it but I can't ban someone from receiving in the hand. I can't ban someone from kneeling, but at this point I can't encourage kneeling--it is not the established norm in the USA.
The military, like the Church, has a hierarchy and a code of justice requiring obiedence to lawful orders. It does not require the following of immoral or illict orders.
What will it take to return to the way we know to be right? ultimately one man with conviction.
Carrie dont be afraid to kneel if God is calling you to. Almost 2 years ago I swore to myself I would receive properly or not at all and I have not looked back. Not a problem at St Jo's but elsewhere much resistence. Adopt passive resistence methods and insist.
Saw this yesterday. Fr. Z gave OOH RAH's and kudos's!
The picture preceding your comment is...I dunno...priceless! What??
Give God all the reverence deserved. We know in our hearts and so does God.
Our Bishops should lead us all to Christ most reverently.
Just Do It!
That a rector of a cathedral would imply that receiving Holy Communion on the tongue is better than in the hand because it reduces the profanation of the sacrament is astonishing in this day and age.
Who could or would deny that this is self-evident? Whatever other reasons they might advocate for reception on the hand.
That statement implies that one can profane the sacrament. Have you heard much of that in any of your parishes in the last 30 years or so?
Not always, of course. But my local parish has in recent years had a number of very fine priests who have not kept secret their faithful beliefs. One of whom is now a bishop, who on his first visit as such back to his home parish as a Mass homilist served in choir dress (instead of concelebrating) and knelt to receive holy communion on the tongue. (While some of the permanent deacons present were more adult.)
I can't ban someone from kneeling, but at this point I can't encourage kneeling--it is not the established norm in the USA.
This sounds as though you think GIRM norms have the force of canon law. I recall a well-known canonist saying recently that they are more descriptive than prescriptive. At any rate, at this morning’s OF Mass in our very modern suburban round-church parish, a very rough estimate (since I wasn’t watching and counting hands or tongues) of about 40% received on the hand, about 40% on the tongue while standing, and 20% received on the tongue while kneeling at the row of about twenty kneelers across the front that have always comprised (in essence) the first pew in this church.
So, Templar, are you saying that you kneel for Communion?
About 8 years ago, when I lived in a different diocese, I was working on a news story about this topic and, as part of my story, I attended several different Masses and received Holy Communion kneeling and on the tongue (I never use my hands anyway). I deliberately went to at least two priests who had said that they would deny Holy Communion to anyone who knelt before them. For some reason they didn't deny me.
We wouldn't be facing this mess at all, were it not for the actions of the USCCB in 1977: After two failed attempts, they managed to get enough votes (two-thirds majority) to approve Holy Communion in the hand. However, that was just to apply for the INDULT. Pope Paul VI reluctantly said that would grant an indult for Holy Communion in the hand if bishops conferences could demonstrate a prevalance of contrary usage, i.e., congregants ALREADY receiving in the hand. Specifically he wrote:
"Where a contrary usage, that of placing holy communion on the hand, prevails, the Holy See—wishing to help them fulfill their task, often difficult as it is nowadays—lays on those conferences the task of weighing carefully whatever special circumstances may exist there, taking care to avoid any risk of lack of respect or of false opinions with regard to the Blessed Eucharist, and to avoid any other ill effects that may follow."
You can read more about it here.
Now Father, you and I are about the same age, and we both know darned well that there were no big pockets of Catholics in the U.S. indulging in any "contrary usage" or, in English, receiving in the hand before this was dumped on us. There's no polite way to say it, so I'll be blunt: This was a dishonest application for the indult.
Now, thanks to the indult, we have more opportunities and easier opportunities for desecration of the Eucharist. At one Easter Sunday Mass, I watched at least four people walk away with a Host in their hands.
I suppose I could jump on my soapbox about how I am not obliged to "obey the bishops in their disobedience" , but most of our bishops today weren't holding their posts when the vote was taken and they are not to blame. However, we all should pray that it becomes less of a stigma for Catholics to traditionally receive the sacraments as Catholics have for centuries. The status quo can't continue without even more disastrous results.
I think the Holy Father is modeling for bishops what the preference should be and I would hope this would encourage them to act independently and collectively to allow this option of kneeling for all. The Holy Father makes it mandatory for his Masses; I would suggest that we have a kneeler in front of the priest or EM and if a person wishes to kneel they can do so comfortably. Because I am an obedient sort of priest and do understand that the bishop is the primary liturgist of the diocese, I would consult with him before I did it and if he said no, I would not do it. However many priests know they need not even broach the subject because they know the answer. Many bishops want a strict uniformity in these things and see the norms for the USA as normative. I think kneeling would prevent people from walking off with the host, as they would have to consume the host before they stand even if they receive in the hand.
I attended my first Roman Catholic Mass in 1956 as a college student who happened to be a devoted young Methodist. One Mass was all it took. The awe and mystery and majesty were palpable with intensity that I never could previously have imagined.
Before long I was acquainted with numerous Catholic lay people of different social types. I am certain that for any of them to have touched a consecrated Host or Chalice with their own hands would have seemed simply incomprehensible. No Catholic I knew, whether devout or not, would have been physically able to remain standing when the priest raised the Host, so Holy Communion while standing would have seemed incomprehensible. If one were standing while the Tabernacle was opened, or when the priest turned and raised the Host to say Ecce Agnus Dei, he automatically fell to his knees.
I don’t recall ever hearing anyone told to do these things. No one had to be told how to act in front in the literal and physical presence of God Almighty Himself. It was wired into our genes. I believe it still is. You act as you really believe.
In a half century as a Catholic adult, I have followed liturgical matters much more deeply than most laymen, and Catholic affairs generally to an extent that is not uncommon now in the internet age, but once was. I have served as an ordinary parish leader – all sorts of committee and parish council positions as well as various liturgy roles -- in different parishes in different dioceses,
During this time, some the most outlandish things have come to seem relative normal and sane, ordinarily not even arousing serious thought.
But occasionally I somehow step out of my normal self and look at the Church with some semblance of dispassion. When I do, I simply cannot comprehend how the Church could have fallen so far from where it was that what seems normal now does not instead seem utterly sacrilegious if not blasphemous. How is it possible that the Church has fallen so far that real Catholic bishops and priests and laymen can disagree about topics like those in this thread?
My only plausible answer is that, in a certain real sense, they can’t. At bottom, I believe that our current situation has been shaped and determined largely by the class of Pope Benedict’s “professional Catholics” consisting of people who in former ages would have left the Church, but in our time have stayed behind to fight Catholicism from with the Church, even while feeding at its trough.
Henry Edwards, You nailed it!
Henry:
Though I am younger than you, that is the Church that I grew up in. That is the Church that Catholics knew for over one thousand years.
I cannot understand how and why so many others who are older than me, so many who were better instructed than I ever was so easily surrendered to the "professional Catholics" and traded in their faith and fidelity for an easy ride on the ear-tickling express.
It is especially sad that those of us who know, who remember, who cherish what the Church really IS and how it is supposed to function are treated with contempt by those who "know better" and dismiss us at "relics" of the past.
Maybe we are relics--but God is timeless and so is His Truth. As for me, I am not worthy to touch Him with my hands and I will gladly kneel before him.
Templar, you are on shakey ground in advocating that people dissent from norms that the Vatican itself has endorsed for the USA. There is nothing immoral about these norms even if misguided in terms of abuse that crops up from them. You might well disagree with these and even push for a change, but to totally disregard them and advocate others to do so is outside the boundaries of respect for the Magisterium and the Church's right to legislate liturgical practices. The bishop also can legislate liturgical practices within his own competence.
I am complete agreement with Henry & Robert's posts.
Lamb, to ans your question yes I receive kneeling and have going back 2 Holy Thursdays. I had wanted to kneel as far back as 06\07 but felt self concious. On Holy Thursday 09 I watched as our Clergy knelt to venerate the Cross, and the laity followed suit and eeither knelt or genuflected before venerating the cross. I cried because I knew the laity would kneel for the Blessed Sacrament if the clergy would just lead them there and I felt ashamed that I would allow an illict order to stand in the way of doing what was right. I knelt for communion that night and ever since. its no problem at St Jos but have gotten surprised looks elsewhere. No Priest has yet actually tried to deny me.
When I said it will take 1 man with conviction I didnt mean it necessarily had to be clergy. The martyrs died that I might have this Sacrament, how dare I treat it casually.
Thank you Father for your correction, but I hardly believe that encouraging people to kneel for Communion constitutes disrespect for the Magesterium. The USCCB and the CDW have stated no one can be denied Communion kneeling. I respectfully submit that feeling as I do about this I can do nothing else but encourage others to do what we all know is right and proper.
Respectfully.
Templar, my caution to you is that you are setting yourself up as a Magisterium and a bishop by promoting something that is not the norm in the USA. That is kind of protestant. There are some in the Church who wish to stand during the praying of the Eucharistic Prayer, which is quite common in some places and in the Church of the East. How would you like it if people started standing in front of you at St. Joseph during this part of the Mass and encouraged others to do it and how would you like it if you were the pastor?
Reading through this I noticed something that generates a question: much of the letter talks about 'risk' and what should be done to reduce or eliminate it. Fr Lankeit speaks of 'encouraging' receiving on the tongue. At no point do I see condemnation of receiving in the hand, only admonition based on advise of the risks.
Furthermore, it clearly attempting to show how the act of communion is a sacred and holy event and how a person could be helped to experience it as it should be. The risks of profanation, even willful profanation can be interdicted entirely through a simple practice.
In light of the health concerns of the common chalice, it seems reasonable and based on demonstrable science.
So the question is why do priests fly into fits when someone wants to receive by mouth or kneeling? I can see if someone is trying to gain attention, but that could happen in any situation and is unrelated to the posture.
One of my best friends was refused communion by a Priest on Easter when he tried to receive on the tongue. He is still upset about it.
Could it be a form of clericalism driving this conflict?
rcg
I've heard of priests refusing Holy Communion to those who kneel, but not to those who wish to receive on the tongue. This is clearly an option. But yes, for the priest to refuse someone to receive on the tongue is clericalism at its worst. To refuse someone who is kneeling is awful too. Why make a big deal out of it, unless the person doing it is trying to create division in the parish, then the priest should have a "come to Jesus" talk with that person after Mass.
Thank you Father, once again, for the correction. I shall henceforth refrain from doing more than offering an opinion on the subject, and will not publicly encourage it.
I can't help but point out the irony though of being accused of Protestant behavior for encouraging the reception of Communion kneeling and on the tongue.
I'm sure you are familiar, Fr. McDonald, with CDW statements containing statements like "...while this Congregation gave the recognitio to the norm desired by the Bishops' Conference of your country that people stand for Holy Communion, this was done on the condition that communicants who choose to kneel are not to be denied Holy Communion on these grounds. Indeed, the faithful should not be imposed upon nor accused of disobedience and of acting illicitly when they kneel to receive Holy Communion".
In any event, we worship God and not norms. In particular, I believe anyone would be on shaky grounds who accused me of dissent or disobedience if I personally recommended to Catholic friends a licit option---indeed, one that happens to be the universal norm of the Church---that in my diligently formed conscience represents best worship of God.
I have spent my adult life as a Catholic attempting to do what little I could to promote better worship, mainly because of plainly inadequate efforts of priests and bishops to do this job.
Of course, I understand that you, as a pastor directly responsible to your bishop, are in a quite different situation.
But recently I heard a sermon in which the priest made his personal opinion on kneeling evident by quoting not his own words but those of Pope Benedict and other Church luminaries on the subject. At that Mass, about a third of those present knelt for Holy Communion. The priest later remarked privately that he regarded this as one his happiest and most successful days as a priest in the service of the liturgy.
I once attended a Mass given by a priest who shall remain nameless--anyway, it was part of some charismatic thing and the priest said before distributing Holy Communion, "Please don't stick your tongue out at me. Just put your hands out." They were using leavened bread, which I believe is illicit, but that's about the closest I've ever come to hearing a priest insist on Holy Communion in the hand and it was way back in the 70's, when every boundary was being tested.
That may have been his preference, but he had no business telling his congregants that. Another time, I was waiting to go to Confession and the priest put this sign up saying, "You can go face to face or stay behind the screen, but I prefer that you go face to face." Again, I thought that was pretty obnoxious. I went in behind the screen and the first thing I confessed was how annoyed I was with the priest for putting that sign up!
I am tired of this.....Rome should revoke the indult and move on to something else. There are so many other problems and this can be eliminated. It started as an abuse, became a sanctioned way of receipt, and has now proven to be harmful at the least. Enough of it. Do your part and encourage those you know to stop this practice and tell your Priests and Bishops yu would like to see the say where it is ended.
I remember as well learning before First Holy Communion to kneel and receive on the tongue in Cathecism, renamed Religious Instructions. Before I received I was re-taught to receive in the hand, standing. It was not the practice of my parish before and I received Holy Communion in 1978. How can one be taught to look to Eternal Rome but then stay quiet once inside American borders? Just another face of pray, pay, and obey,,,,the new way?
I knew of a priest in the 1980's (he doesn't do it now) who would greet every penitent coming into the "room of reconciliation" which meant that he would get up and go to the door to greet the person face to face, then the person had the option of going to confession behind the screen or face to face.
In terms of obedience to the norms in the USA for receiving Holy Communion, no one is
to be forced to receive in the hand. In terms of kneeling, it cannot be encouraged at this time although it is the norm for the EF Mass, but I had someone who was the last to receive at an EF Mass recently stand and put out her hands to receive. I did not embarrass her or demand she kneel or receive on the tongue. I might be wrong, but even in the EF if someone wants to receive standing and in the hand that person can't be denied, just as a person kneeling shouldn't be denied Holy Communion in the OF Mass.
Clearly Vatican II, whatever its great intentions, has played into the hands of the de-constructionist, relativist, egalitarian rabble in the Church. Anything that has caused this much divisiveness, while not of the Devil, must certainly make him smile. We are treated to a bunch of Catholics, Priests even, acting like a gaggle of Baptists. The Pope really needs to address this decisively.
"Anything that has caused this much divisiveness, while not of the Devil, must certainly make him smile."
From the original long form of the prayer to St. Michael the Archangel, written by Pope Leo XIII after a vision in which he allegedly got a preview of what would happen to the Church in the twentieth century, and released in a 1888 motu proprio:
"This wicked dragon pours out, as a most impure flood, the venom of his malice on men, of his depraved mind, corrupt heart, spirit of lying, impiety, blasphemy, his pestilent breath of impurity, and of every vice and iniquity. These most crafty enemies have filled and inebriated with gall and bitterness the Church, the Spouse of the Immaculate Lamb, and have laid impious hands on her most sacred possessions."
Henry Edwards, Wow! Pretty sobering...
I might be wrong, but even in the EF if someone wants to receive standing and in the hand that person can't be denied, just as a person kneeling shouldn't be denied Holy Communion in the OF Mass." Look at the innuendo, in this phrasing, I am sure not intentional, just habit which in itself is bad for clarification purposes. Reread it, "Receiving standing CAN NOT BE DENIED" and then a bit lower the tone is less commanding, "Just as a person kneeling SHOULDN"T BE DENIED." As a reader it does not sound like the law is being equally presented for both sides. Verbally spoken the intonation will have different weights. Now reread it to yourself reversing the command and suggestion for each Mass. It sounds strange to command in the NO. I believe this to be its' inherent flaw. The Pauline Missal is linked to softer, less commanding instructions and rubrics. Lest the abuse and ignoring of the "suggestions"..
I receive kneeling and on the tongue. It actually never felt like a choice I consciously made, but something I felt compelled to do.
I am not a grand-stander, or attention getter. In fact, I'm actually shy ... I contemplated for a long while on why I had this compulsion. I wanted to make sure it wasn't a willfulness, or misguided gesture or some other selfish motivation to do so. I considered that other parishioners might be annoyed that I was holding up the communion line, or that my chronic back pain would make it too awkward to get up. I had so many good excuses not to kneel. ... I clearly remember praying as I entered the Communion line "Lord, if this is Your Will give me the courage and humility to kneel; and the strength to get back up."
I remember at one parish having the priest instruct the congregation on how to receive communion. He instructed the congregation to receive standing, how to receive properly in the hand, and then quite adamantly told people not to genuflect, that it was unnecessary and took up too much time. Just a quick bow or incline of the head would do.
That priest probably would not appreciate anyone kneeling to receive on the tongue. Honestly, while I attended Mass in that parish I wasn't a good Catholic at all, nor was I encouraged to be a good Catholic or admonished for choosing to not be a good Catholic.
Kneeling certainly doesn't make me a better Catholic. Perhaps kneeling is a byproduct of a good shepherd earnestly tending their flock.
Father, how are the US Bishops correct by not following the example set by the Pope? Should they not, in obedience to his authority, follow his example? And by doing so, create the most perfect strict uniformity they seek? It seems common sense that in such instances, the Pope's example would take precedent. Wouldn't that also be the answer to standing during the Eucharistic Prayer? Shouldn't we all follow his example? I am not being flippant, but in all sincerity I am confused why then the option to kneel would not naturally be offered and encouraged.
Many bishops want uniformity of posture during the Mass so that we are not a divided congregation as we worship. Personally I have no problem with the option of kneeling for Holy Communion. I'm in favor of a kneeler placed in front of the Minister so that people can make a choice to kneel or stand. We give people the option of receiving from the chalice when it is provided; some do some don't. We don't judge those who do receive as holier than those who don't, at least I don't.
Father, is there anything that the USCCB can say that is binding on the individual bishop?
Wasn't the indult (temporary permission) for communion in the hand born of disobedience and deceit?
That change plus standing for communion has, in my opinion, lessened reverence and belief.
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