As Rome burns and the bishops fiddle with reinventing the Catholic Church for the millionth time since Vatican II, the debacle that is the reception of Holy Communion (the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of the Crucified and Risen Lord) escalates unabated and bishops seem unconcerned.
I heard one priest complaining about the variety of ways people receive Holy Communion today (in the Ordinary Form). He wasn’t sure if one person was even Catholic as she didn’t seem to know what to do. He ask if she was a Catholic and her response was, “no, I’m Asian.”
Be that as it may, this is what I experience in my parish every Sunday despite the fact that I have given proper catechesis at Mass on a regular basis: Some kneel on the hard floor and receive on the tongue, others stand and receive on the tongue. Som grab the host and run. Others receive in the hand and leave before placing the host in their mouth. Others cup their hands or hold both palms out leaving it to me to determine which palm to use. Others put forward their thumb and index finger which they expect me to place the Host between. Some simply open their mouth without extending their tongue expecting me to throw the Host in as though I was throwing a frisbee. I could go on.
And then there is the health hazard of the Precious Blood where people with Hepatitis A, B or C commune and could spread contagion, not to mention colds, flu viruses, herpes of the lips and mouth and well, I won’t go on with more disgusting and distressing scenarios about communicable diseases.
I had a Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion ask me what to do with chewing gum that had fallen into the cup. What about all the saliva that accumulates in the cup toward the end?
And profanation of the Most Blessed Sacrament, like finding Hosts on the floor, in hymnals or for sale on eBay. A few Sundays ago after Holy Communion as I sat on my throne, I mean, Presidential Chair, I noticed a glistening on the floor in front of me only to realize that it had to be Precious Blood spilled by an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion as the fluid could not have been anything else. Consecrated Blood that I could easily step on if I had not seen it. I asked the adult server to get a purificator and clean it.
The only Mass where I do not see these outrages against our Lord in Holy Communion is at the Extraordinary Form.
If bishops were more concerned about the source and summit of our Catholic Faith rather than all the superfluous other stuff, the problem could be solved over night by returning to kneeling at the altar railing and receiving on the tongue at the Ordinary Form Mass poorly or wonderfully celebrated. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure this out.
31 comments:
Father,
Certainly communion in the mouth reduces the risk of profanation and sacrilege. I would note three things/
First, receiving in the hand WHILE KNEELING forces the communicant to receive in order to get up - recall in your experience how many people push themselves up from the kneeler with one or both hands.
Second, remember the "re-education of the laity and priests done in the late 1970 early 1980s? There was that quote of Cyril of Jerusalem bandied about. The quote, a proof text, was correct, but the context and understanding was not. It failed to take into account the context and understanding of Cyril, to wit, the role of the subdeacon, who held a houseling cloth (cloth napkin) so that when the deacon gave the communicant the body of Our Lord, no crumbs were lost, as well as the acolyte who stood by with a lit candle. Nor did those who put the practice (of communion in the hand) remember the concept of the Ecclesial hierarchy, and how it reflects the Celestial hierarchy, as discussed by Pseudo-Dionysius. Cyril never would have tolerated “eucharistic ministers,” as this was not in accord with the known practices of the Church of Jerusalem at that time.
Finally, the late Father Robert Taft SJ, memory eternal, no friend of traditionalists, thought it absurd that adherents of the Roman Rite had to find their justification for their praxis from the Church of Jerusalem.
Can’t wit to hear from FRMJK...
The Holy Mass and Eucharist, we are always told, faithfully re-creates the Last Supper, but I’ve never been told that Jesus fed the Disciples by hand, to mouth.
Fr AJM
Where there is an altar rail people will receive kneeling in any case. In my experience most will receive on the tongue and those who receive in the hand consume the Host before getting to their feet. The minister carrying the Communion plate has no difficulty in discerning who wish to receive in the hand and positions the plate accordingly.
The offering of the Chalice to the congregation should not be routine and should apply in particular circumstances and where the number of communicants is not overly large. Thus problems with EMs who cannot refuse Communion to someone who is chewing gum and overlook spillages will not arise.
Should there be routine sacrilege regarding the Body of Christ when it is received in the hand then the pastor (parish priest) is not merely entitled, but also obliged, to insist on the universal norm of reception on the tongue. Of course, someone who receives on the tongue can spit it out into his hand if he has a nefarious intent. Yet this would be rare, since most examples of sacrilege result from ignorance rather than malice.
The bishops are not going to mandate kneeling and reception on the tongue. Not now, not ever. In fact, they have no desire to interfere in what happens in parishes since they don't want to appear divisive, or to lose attendees and their money.
So the buck, unfortunately, stops with you.
I groan every time I attend a Mass that has First Communicants because, inevitably, without fail, those children will go up and receive Holy Communion in the hand.
THE WORLDWIDE NORM FOR RECEIVING HOLY COMMUNION IS ON THE TONGUE. PERIOD.
The ONLY reason U.S. Catholics and Catholics elsewhere receive in the hand is because their countries were granted INDULTS (a type of extraordinary special permission) after the bishops conferences voted to allow it under the pretense of LYING to the Vatican and fabricating the story that it had already been a longstanding tradition in their country--when Fr. McDonald and many other Catholics here who lived in the Pre-1970's Church know full well that this was not a "tradition" ANYWHERE before it was imposed upon us by the U.S. Bishops' Conference under the very questionable leadership of one Joseph Cardinal Bernardin.
(http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2014/03/truth-about-communion-in-hand-while.html#.XTMkjpNKiV4)
So why get upset at First Communion Masses when these poor kids are doing the modernist shuffle? Because NO ONE TOLD THEM THAT RECEIVING IN THE HAND WAS THE AN OPTION AND NO ONE TOLD THEM THAT RECEIVING ON THE TONGUE WAS THE TRUE NORM. If you didn't know any better, you'd think there was a conspiracy to eliminate all piety and reverence. Wait--I'm not so sure that I DO know any better!
Nope. The DRE's and pastors just told them to put their paws out as if THAT was the norm, knowing full well that it is not.
Further, any catechized Catholic should know that the Body AND the Blood of Christ are BOTH present in the HOST, making Communion under both Species for the laity superfluous and unnecessary. All of the problems with gum in the chalices and concerns about disease could be put to rest if priests would actually have the "all too ordinary" Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion fulfill their true role instead of parading 10 or more of them behind the altar at every Mass to perform an unnecessary "service" that only slows down the Communion line and invites profanation.
At my own parish, your former associate Fr. Dawid, is leaving. My children, who were all trained to receive Communion correctly are lamenting his departure, and one of the reasons is quite telling. "Fr. Dawid knows how to give us Communion. When we open our mouths for our pastor, Fr.--------, he glares at us.
And that is the reality of it. ANY traditionalist action earns you pariah status and our leaders still insist that we obey disobedience. What a mess.
Ogle Thorpe:
The apostles were (are) the first priests; really the first bishops.
Like all priests, they partook and received communion themselves and were not "fed"
as are the laity.
Good point.
The notion that the Mass 'faithfully re-creates the Last Supper' is both facile and misleading. By eating the Pasch with his disciples, Our Lord was fulfilling the prescriptions of the Old Law: 'Observata lege plene, cibis in legalibus'. Only then did he institute the new Covenant: 'Cibum turbae duodenae se dat suis manibus.'
His Passion, death and Resurrection were yet to happen; the sacrifice was as yet incomplete. So the Last Supper was not a Mass per se.
St John relates how Our Lord intincted a morsel of bread and placed it in Judas's mouth, so it is not inconceivable he did the same to other disciples. In any case it is totally irrelevant to the way we receive Communion at Mass. The Last Supper analogy would mean that we would have no altars, vestments, or crucifixes; and that the words of institution would have to be in Aramaic or Hebrew (or possibly Greek, which was the lingua franca of the middle east in the first century).
By the way, Owen Oglethorpe was the Bishop of Carlisle who crowned Elizabeth I in January 1559 according to Catholic rites. It was said that the Protestant queen withdrew before the Elevations.
Bee here:
Anonymous at July 20, 2019 at 10:45 AM said, "So why get upset at First Communion Masses when these poor kids are doing the modernist shuffle? Because NO ONE TOLD THEM THAT RECEIVING IN THE HAND WAS THE AN OPTION AND NO ONE TOLD THEM THAT RECEIVING ON THE TONGUE WAS THE TRUE NORM."
This calls to mind a story I know I have written here before. I hope those of you who have seen it before will bear with me. This happened in Chicago in the late 1980's.
I was teaching CCD to a class of 4th graders. The parish had recently hired a nun as DRE two years after we had begun the program ourselves, just a group of parishioners as catechists led by a fellow parishioner who volunteered to head the program. Well, this new DRE was a real modernist and she was outraged at the way most of us catechists transmitted the Faith, mostly as we had learned it prior to Vatican II. But we were not rad-Trads. We were simply telling the children the Faith as we practiced and understood it. We didn't know we were not in goose-step with the post-Vatican II Church.
Well, in order to scrutinize us, the DRE would come into our classrooms each week during the class to check up what we were saying. So one a week when the chapter was about the Eucharist, me, being the innocent naive lamb that I was at the time, began to tell the children about the "olden days," and what the altar rail was and how we used to kneel and receive communion on the tongue. I described how in addition to a server with a paten, there was an cloth put over the railing to catch any fragments of the host should they fall. (What I was going for was to emphasize to the children the need for reverence when receiving the Sacred Body of Christ or His Precious Blood, even though we no longer kneel and we receive His Body in the hand.)
I glanced over at the DRE and she was nearly apoplectic!!! Her face was beet red, and she was sputtering with rage. I am not kidding. She blurted out, "THE BISHOPS IN THE UNITED STATES HAVE MANDATED COMMUNION IS TO BE RECEIVED STANDING AND IN THE HAND!!! THIS IS THE MANDATE!!!"
Even all caps with exclamation points can't convey her outrage and fury. The kids looked at her, and then looked at me, dumbfounded. I was shocked too. I said something like, "Oh, yes, I know. I was only telling them how we used to do it." At the time I did not know what Anonymous has stated; that the norm had always been on the tongue, but the US Bishops, through deception, had mandated standing, and in the hand. Not until around 2005 or so did I know we had a choice to receive kneeling and on the tongue.
The point of the story was that the DRE must have known full well the truth about how reception in the hand had come about and the true norm from the Vatican, and she thought I was telling the children the truth; that they did not have to receive in the hand, or standing.
Such are the false teachers who roamed and still roam around in our Church, seeking the ruin of souls.
God bless.
Bee
P.S. It only took this DRE about two years to destroy the program. First she demanded we sign a paper that allowed a full and entire background check without any limits, including permission to look into our financial information. If we didn't sign we could not be catechists. This drove out about half of the people who had been teaching. From those remaining she demanded lesson plans for each week and would review these with us, telling us what to say where and what to emphasize. Most of the rest left after that. The next year the whole program ended because no one would step forward given those conditions. Nice demonic work that.
Bee,
I was hoping your ps would say she left the convent and the Church so she could do no further damage to souls. Just another lying, violent lefty
I received Communion in the hand exactly ONCE in my life.
It was back in 1978, the very week that we were told the option to "take it in the hand", as it was to inelegantly and mechanistically put to us, went into effect.
Afterwards, as I returned to my pew, every fiber of me being just sort of collectively said, "Oh man...that just ain't right!"
I've never done it again in the succeeding 41 years.
Gaudete in Domino Semper!
In my travels I have noticed fewer priest and EMHC are upset with receiving on the tongue than even a short while ago. They are still not happy if I also kneel. So I genuflect before approaching the kiosk so they can tell that one of THOSE people have arrived then receive on the tongue. You can see a look of satisfaction on the face of the EMHC that they successfully completed their job.
Like Richard, I only received Communion in the hand once. It was 1967, and as a 16-year-old was on an exchange visit to Germany.
I thought it was a local custom - andere Länder, andere Sitten - but later I learned that it was an abuse (retrospectively legitimized).
The English bishops authorized it in 1976 despite its never having been the practice in this country.
The Last Supper is also known as the Lord's Supper. It is the Paschal meal of the New Covenant. The first inaugural Mass (although different from the developed liturgy we have today).
Matthew:
"Jesus took bread, said the blessing, broke it and giving it to his disciples said, "Take and eat; this is my body." Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins."
Mark:
"While they were eating, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it and gave it to them, and said, "Take it; this is my body." Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, and they all drank from it. He said to them "This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many...
"
Luke:
Then he took, gave thanks and said, "Take this and share it among yourselves..." Then he took the bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them saying, "This is my body which will be given for you; do this in memory of me."
So just like priests have done since that time, they partook of the species of their own hand.
FWIW, I consider myself fairly traditional and conservative but this is a good examination of Traddies like me:
https://youtu.be/6hvS5C6XOSc
Father: Your closing sentence captures the issue lock, stock, and barrel. Everything flows simply from this. Thank you for nailing it. Dare I ask? Where is your Bishop on all this?
It is rather interesting that the justification for the church of Rome's present practise of Holy Communion in the hand comes from the Patriarch of the church in Jerusalem. (not Rome)
In Eastern circles, we, of course, use the golden spoon.
In the case where you see abuses of the Sacrament, you, of course, are of zero obligation to give Holy Communion in the Hand. A Roman priest friend of mine ended Communion in the Hand at his parish after finding the Host in the pews. (Of course, he received the dreaded 3 am phone call from the chancery office ;) under an extremely liberal archbishop who wasn't a fan of this move)
It seems to me rather simple when things are ordered towards God, all else falls in place. Right now at least in the west, everything is in major disorder.
'So just like priests have done since that time, they partook of the species of (sic) their own hand.'
No-one is suggesting otherwise. Catholics also believe that Our Lord instituted the Eucharist and the priesthood at the Last Supper.
The term 'Lord's Supper' is problematical in that it was (and is) the term used by Protestants to describe the Eucharist after they had rejected the Catholic theology of the Mass as a sacrifice, and the real presence. Bugnini, in the 1969 preamble to the Novus Ordo uses it, and although this was withdrawn and replaced, GIRM 17 still suggests that the 'Lord's Supper' is coterminous with the Mass.
Yet, on Maundy Thursday there is the 'Mass of the Lord's Supper' (Missa in Cena Domini), and it makes no sense to talk of 'the Lord's Supper of the Lord's Supper'. Furthermore, when the liturgy refers to those who are called to 'the supper of the Lamb' (ad cenam Agni), this refers to the marriage-feast of the Lamb (Christ) in heaven, and not what occurred in the Upper Room.
Not that most poorly-catechized pew-sitters will appreciate the distinction.
John:
I agree; sacrifice, and not meal or supper should be emphasized.
I remember first we were told that we would receive communion while standing in line. Within a couple of weeks we were told we would receive communion in the hand. Receiving both species was discussed as marvelous in the classroom. Altar rails were quietly removed according to the progressive new vision. It was the beginning of the famous wreck-o-vation's How nice it would be to see those rails returned, and everything else put back into place.
It would seem intinction is the way to go. Dip the Host in the Precious Blood and place it on the communicant's tongue. Those who want to receive under both species could, and it would solve the problems with Communion in the hand and from the cup.
I'll have to go back tonight and read the section about communion in "The Orthodox Church: 455 Questions and Answers." I am pretty sure it mentioned that in the early Church (undivided, before the unpleasant events of 1054), communion was received in the hand and by drinking out of the chalice. Obviously things have changed since then in both the Catholic and Orthodox Churches with regard to reception of communion, but that is small "t" tradition, not "big" T tradition (the latter being teachings essential to the faith, like the Virginia birth, resurrection, Christ's ascension into heaven, etc.). Small "t" tradition would include among other things how many candles are on or near the altar, the liturgical colors of the vestments, which prayers are used at the consecration and whether the baptismal font is at the front or the back of the sanctuary).
There is no question that the Church has the authority to allow Communion in the hand.
Given abuses, some question if it should have done so. What is currently allowed is what is though, and so here we are.
Well, maybe a more serious issue is abortion. Heck, according to the Atlanta paper today, the pastor of Dr. King's old church. Ebernezer Baptist, can't even liken the ongoing debate about right to life ("personhood") to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. He opines Georgia needs to expand Medicaid as people die from not having access to health care---but if you lack the right to life, what good does Medicaid expansion do? Furthermore, what exactly are churches and others in the private sector doing about health care. Why is every problem supposed to involve a government solution?
The answer, anonymous, is confusion over “who is God?” ala St Micheal’s cry. Another frequent poster laments excess individuality as the problem with society. Your anecdote seems to indicate the opposite.
From "The Orthodox Church: 455 Questions and Answers", regarding differences in the East and West when it comes to distribution of communion:
Excerpts: "These varying ways of administering Holy Communion are not based on doctrine, but rather on practical considerations. It is clear from numerous historic sources, that the earliest way the Christians received Holy Communion, was the reception of the Blood of our Lord by directly drinking from the chalice, and receiving the Body of our Lord in the hand, just as the priests receive Holy Communion today during the Divine Liturgy...It appears that subsequently the Body was dipped in the chalice and immersed in the Blood of our Lord, and then placed in the hand of the communicant...perhaps during the 10th or 11th century, the communion spoon was introduced...By the middle ages in the Western Church, the laity was denied access to the chalice and it became the custom to administer only the consecrated unleavened bread (wafer) by placing it on the tongue of the communicant.. In the post-Vatican 2 period, with its strong concern with liturgical reform, an effort was made to return to more ancient practices, including the reception of Holy Communion in the hand.
"As we see, the Church has used various methods for administering Holy Communion over the centuries, in both the East and in the West. In every case, it seems to have been moved by practical considerations to adopt these methods. The major theological difference between East and West on this issue has not been the particular means of administration, but rather the denial of both elements to the laity, as practiced in the past by the Roman Catholic Church." (pages 84-86 of that book).
The preceding question in that book is interesting, why wine and not grape juice is used at communion? Of course, Jesus used wine and the Jews did in various feasts. "The use of wine in the Eucharist has been universal in the Church, from the beginning." The response concludes with a question: "Why do these Christians (certain Protestants) ignore the 20-century tradition of using win in the Eucharist?"
St. Michael's cry is "Who is like God?"
"Michael is a masculine given name that comes from Hebrew: מִיכָאֵל / מיכאל derived from the question מי כאל mī kāʼēl, meaning "Who is like God?"."
Anon, thanks. Hit send with out proof reading, AGAIN.
With regard to the excerpts from Fr Harakas's book (quoted above).
We have evidence that in certain Christian communities in the first millennium the Body of Christ was placed into the hand of the communicant. A famous passage from St Cyril of Jerusalem gives instructions as to how it was to be done - received in the palm of the right hand and conveyed directly to the mouth (the part about touching the eyes with the Body and then with the Blood after receiving from the Chalice is rarely mentioned and puts the authorship of the passage in doubt).
However, picking up the Host with the fingers (the modern practice) would not have been countenanced, and some sources enjoin women to cover their hands with a cloth.
However, there is no evidence that that CITH was a universal practice at that time (4th century) and from the 7th century Church authorities were reprobating the practice.
Despite what Fr Harakas suggests, it is highly improbable that an intincted Host would be placed in the hand of a communicant, and from the 7th century onwards the Eastern Churches adopted intinction as the norm. It was also practised in the West in various places, being condemned in the fourth century by Julius I, in the 7th by the Council of Braga, at the end of the 11th by Urban II and Pascal II, and at the beginning of the 13th by Innocent III. The objection to intinction was that it did not separate the actions of eating and drinking as mandated by Christ.
The withholding of the Chalice from the laity in the course of the 13th century was no doubt for practical reasons, and was unconnected to reception on the tongue, which had been the norm in both East and West for centuries. Fr Harakas is quite misleading here. And does the East regard the Latin custom whereby the laity receive in one kind only as invalidating the Sacrament?
The fact remains that the distribution of Holy Communion in the Catholic Church (who gives it, how it is given, how it is received, in one kind or both kinds) is an unholy mess which cannot but have damaging repercussions.
Well, John, in response to your views on communion, I figure it is good every now and then to get some perspective from the Eastern Orthodox, who have many centuries of tradition too. I would be Orthodox if not Catholic (though the former's rules on fasting are too rigorous for my tastes). There have been different traditions on communion over the centuries, and I respect the various viewpoints on the issue, keeping in mind we are dealing with small "t" tradition, not big "T" tradition.
Except for the last sentence, which was deliberately provocative, I was not airing my views; I was attempting to set the historical record straight.
Take the following sentence, which is misleading on a number of counts:
'In the post-Vatican 2 period, with its strong concern with liturgical reform, an effort was made to return to more ancient practices, including the reception of Holy Communion in the hand.'
It was never part of the liturgical reform called for by the Council. It appeared in the Netherlands and Germany as an illicit practice and was reluctantly allowed under indult in 1969 by Paul VI, who took the line of least resistance. The motive for its introduction was not a return to putative ancient practice (archaeologism) but a desire to 'empower' the laity by having them pick up the Sacred Species in their fingers, something which had previously been reserved to the priest celebrant.
The Orthodox are very strict in how they administer Communion; for example no-one under the rank of subdeacon is permitted to handle the sacred vessels. They're not about to abandon a tradition of fourteen centuries, whether capitalized or not. That's their perspective.
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