My preferred way for the laity to receive both the Host and Precious Blood and clearly a legitimate option in the General Instruction of the Roman Missal:
This is forbidden but allowed by renegade parishes or defiant communicants:
The most common way to receive from the common chalice enabling epidemics and pandemics:
As everyone knows, who reads my blog, from the beginning I have been prophetic about the possibility of the common chalice creating or exacerbating an epidemic or worldwide pandemic. What I predicted came true with Covid-19!
I predicted it! It came true! I am clairvoyant!
In some places the epidemic/pandemic exacerbating common chalice is making a return. This is happening in the south where we are also seeing an uptick of Covid-19, although much more mild than what was experienced during the pandemic exacerbated by the common chalice.
In fact, I think I had covid-19 a couple of weeks ago while Hurricane Debby was shutting down my island.
At St. Gregory the Great Church in Bluffton, SC, where I assist as a senior priest, the common chalice has returned to two of their many Sunday Masses.
People go. The laity who want the common chalice love it. I am not sure, though, about the poor souls who must do the ablutions if this is done properly, meaning, drinking the dregs, think about all the diseases they could be subject to while drinking the dregs and abultions.
Apart from exacerbating a contagion, possibly leading to an epidemic or pandemic, the chaos created with so many ministers of Holy Communion coming to the altar at the time of distribution is visually disconcerting. It is the opposite of choreography. It’s a mess.
Is the common chalice worth risking the exacerbation of an epidemic or pandemic. Is the common chalice worth the chaos at the altar during the giving of Holy Communion and chalices to hoards of Communion Ministers??????
And the poor drinkers of the ablutions! Is there a law suit looming?
19 comments:
It is time to end the indult granted to the US bishops. Another NO aberration.
Use of the Common Cup is not a dangerous, epidemic exacerbating practice. Doorknobs/doorhandles, too, CAN be vectors for disease, but we don't ban those. And heaven knows what awful filth one might encounter while lying face down on a filthy carpet in the aisle of a church.
Our bishop during flu season and especially during the pandemic asked that we no longer distribute the pandemic exacerbating common chalice. I know you complied 100% and intincted your Host at concelebrations. However, our bishop did not ask us to remove doorknobs and handles and filthy carpet. For the latter, I am in favor of removing these!
How do the Eastern Churches do the common spoon? Do they touch the spoon to the mouth or is it in? Do they make changes during flu season or Covid?
Only the priest distributes using a spoon. He is careful not to touch the spoon to flesh and communicants know not to lick the spoon or close the mouth as the spoon is removed.
Bravo, Fr. McDonald! Carpeting as well as pianos should be be expunged from places of Catholic worship; they attract unhealthy detritus.
Yes, Fr. ALLAN McDonald, during COVID and when there are other exceptional outbreaks of flu, we suspended the use of the Common Cup. That is common sense. That the bishop did not require the removal of doorknobs and/or doorhandles doesn't alter the fact that these items, too, can be significant vectors of disease.
Thank you for endorsing my post;
In the East, one definitely closes the mouth on the spoon, just as one would do when eating normally from a spoon.
Marc - Closing one's mouth on the spoon is an Orthodox practice. In the Byzantine Churches that commune thusly, the mouth is open, the head tilted back and as Fr. AJM correctly noted, the holy elements are tipped into the communicants mouth without the gold spoon coming into contact with flesh.
The consecrated elements are pure, the implements used to contain/commune the faithful are not. If the option remains to receive the body, blood via the host, and where one is uncomfortable, simply avail oneself of that option. Agree regarding consumption/purification.
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ByzRus - I see. That's an interesting difference!
Father,
Some clarification regarding Byz Rus's comments. Being a Ukrainian Greek Catholic of the Eparchy of Stamford, who serves in a Byzantine (Ruthenian) Catholic parish in the eparchy of Passaic, the Pandemic caused a change in our behavior that our BIshops approved. Many Ukrainians adopted the use of wooden spoons, everyone receiving their own spoon that were, after use, burned in a blessed fire. IN my particular parish, we all commune with our own spoon. One subdeacon holds the spoon, the priests gives communion to the communicant, and then places it in a large chalice filled with water held by the other subdeacon. The chalice/receptacle of the spoons then will be drunk during the post liturgical purification.
Both Bishop Paul and Bishop Kurt are aware of these practices. Since they are substantially in accord with our tradition, they are approved.
The elderly tend to clamp their mouths down on the spoon. Back when only one spoon was used, I remember a Ukrainian priest who would "catapult" the body and blood into a person mouth to avoid them clamping down on the spoon.
I have been serving the Divine Liturgy since November 2012, and I do not mind this change. When we used one spoon, it seemed like I was always picking up colds from attending Church. Now, I do not. It has been my experience that the laity also like receiving communion with their own spoon.
Our practice is to close the mouth on the spoon. Not a fan of the multiple spoons. In some parishes the bird drop method is used (This is mostly an Eastern Catholic Ruthenian/Ukranian Practice)....Whether intinction returns to the Roman Rite or whether the common chalice returns...it's a not my monkeys, not my circus thing. If what we are doing is not leading us to love God and neighbor more, it is pointless.
I am not a fan of multiple spoons either. At my parish, we've returned to the tradition of the single gold spoon, with wooden spoons available for those who are uncomfortable. For better or worse, the "bird drop" method has become normative for us. I haven't much insight into its origins. Suffice it to say, reception via the gold spoon has never concerned me.
Thank you for the additional color which I had initially avoided for the sake of simplicity. I too served on the altar into pre-COVID and into COVID. Was quite the time.
ByzRus, I can also say that receiving from the same golden spoon has never been a major concern for me either...As far as I can remember, the bird drop came later...unsure of exactly when it developed..., but I don't really care to find out. I have zero problem with either method....This is not the hill that I'm willing to die on so to speak.
Joe, You might find this to be interesting, the gold spoon really is an innovation of the last millennium. Our Church adapts as necessary it would seem.
If I had to take a guess, the bird drop method might have originated around/during the influenza pandemic.
https://orthodoxtimes.com/a-note-on-the-common-communion-spoon/
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