When I was in the seminary, the priests never elevated the Host or the chalice. They simply showed it about stomach level. No genuflections either.
So I like the elevations when facing the crowd to be elevations.
But I think these two elevations in the EF Mass are too high and exaggerated, that of the Host and certainly of the chasuble, too much information on the second elevation!
So I like the elevations when facing the crowd to be elevations.
But I think these two elevations in the EF Mass are too high and exaggerated, that of the Host and certainly of the chasuble, too much information on the second elevation!
6 comments:
Do the rubrics offer prescriptive advice on this? Also, physically some priests probably cannot raise the Host or the Chalice very high
Yes, I quite agree. Another irritating liturgical abuse is lifting the monstrance high above the priest's head. Fortescue and O'Connell mention this as abuse, citing decrees of the Sacred Congregation of Rites.
The torchbearers should be in a line facing the altar. They only turn inwards at the Communion.
The only elevation in the Novus Ordo is at the doxology. At the Consecration the priest only 'shows' the Host and Chalice to the people. This is an example of 'Byzantinization', since in the Eastern liturgy it is the whole Eucharistic Prayer which effects transubstantiation.
Of course it can be argued that the elevations were only introduced in the second millennium. However, having the major elevation at the end was not the practice in pre-Trent Uses - the Dominican, for example, does not even have a minor elevation at this point.
Is this just for today, the first week of Easter, or all the Fridays of the Easter weeks (and Christmas and Pentecost weeks)?
Sheila
During the Middle Ages Spiritual Communion was stressed because one cannot eat beauty itself. Christ in His splendour and Beauty underlies the appearance of transubstantiated bread and wine. Christ is Spiritual nourishment for the soul which the people could see and adore with their eyes at the elevation, after which many left. Such Spiritual communion was just as good as the material consummation of the matter of the Sacrament. After the Enlightenment, the spiritual nature of the world was lost as was the spiritual sense of beauty, and the world became more and more thought of materialistically. By the early 20th century, especially with the influence of the Modernists, the faithful were expected to consume the matter of the sacrament all the time in lieu of Spiritual Communion which was downplayed. The elevation was meant to give the people the chance for Spiritual Communion through the adoration of the Beautiful Christ that underlies the matter of Bread and Wine.
In late medieval times there was a pious belief that one's life was extended by the exact time one spent gazing at the elevated Host and Chalice. Many churches has windows called 'squints' whereby those close enough to be summoned by the Sanctus bell could leave their work and observe the sacred moment.
Before dismissing this as base superstition, compare it with the casual and routine way the Sacrament is approached now.
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