When it comes to receiving Holy Communion, it is not either standing or kneeling, on the tongue or in the hand, but both. Both are options for the communicant and both have guidelines directing the communicant on how to receive properly.
Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Westminster, London tells it like it is.
YOU CAN READ HIS PASTORAL LETTER BY PRESSING HERE! IT IS EXCELLENT!
4 comments:
I am inclined to prefer the position of Cardinal Canizares. It is certain to help us focus more fully on what we receive, and is clearly a more worshipful posture.
Standing at communion, and being nearly overrun with EMHCs, it all seems much too much like McDonald's when it was new: truly fast food.
We're not at Mass to get in and get out. We're there to worship, something best done with focus, quiet reflection, and an absence of Haugen and Haas.
Amen, Meyer!
Our country has a MacDonald's mentality...we want it hot and we want it now...never mind that it is killing us...Haugen and Hass and all of "das..."
I can see both postures as appropriate when they are manifestations of sincere gratitude and humility and as the letter said quite well, "the utmost reverence and aware of what is taking place." That is actually quite difficult. I focus on the Mass and strive to be 'aware' as the moment approaches, and almost always fall short of complete awareness.
There is a risk, I think, of the posture becoming a proclamation and bid for attention for the individual especially if done contrary to the local norm. That is why I would rather follow the local norms as long as they are reverently executed. Yet I still enjoy going to the Latin Mass and kneeling. I enjoy, and need, the humility.
rcg
None of us can judge the interior disposition of the communicant, so clearly one can make the assertion that standing or kneeling can both be done reverently. However, I prefer to judge it more by how it would appear to someone not of the One True Faith, someone who wanders into, or gets invited into, your Mass but is not Catholic. Which posture better conveys the message? Which posture is a better witness to The Faith? Clearly, as well as stained glass and marble statues, Kneeling for Communion provides a type of silent Catechism.
There is not comparison, and while I have the ability to kneel for communion may God strike me to the ground if I ever neglect to do so. Not for my sake, but for the sake of someone else who may be watching.
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