Are we not supposed to receive the host on our hands?

[R_H_Benson]

One of the past popes however had conditions to communion on the hand. Like, you must check you hands upon receiving. I believe it is immoral to receive on the hand, since many precious particles are lost, and this is an abuse. Just the other day, my brother found part of a host on the floor, which he rightfully consumed.

Also, thousands of hosts are on the ground at papal masses. And what did they do to these hosts. They put them in trash bags, and burned them! That is not the right way to go about it. Communion on the hand leads to these abuses.

I would receive on the tongue, and push the host to the top of you mouth, so the host is dissolved, then swallowed. This makes it so you don’t get the host in your teeth. The church did this for years, and rightfully so.

I hope you adopt this practice.

I agree with everything you have said in this post. Reverence for Our Lord in the Eucharist could be fostered by revoking the indults for Communion in the hand. In time, such an action could be a cornerstone for rebuilding belief in the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Host. Lex orandi, lex credendi.

The risk of profanation of the Blessed Sacrament is so great at outdoor Masses with large congregations prudence dictates that Communion should not be distributed. The footage from the Papal Mass in the Philippines a few months back is truly disturbing and drives home this point. There, the Blessed Sacrament was profaned by communicants passing Our Lord’s Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity around to one another as if He was a common wafer.

 

[angell1]

as others have pointed out, it’s allowed in certain countries.

and it’s irrelevant if it actually was approved at Vatican II or not, there is now a rubrick which allows it.

also, receiving on the tongue was not a uniform or long-lasting tradition that some people make out to be.

remember what communion actually is, and don’t be devisive about it. do whichever helps you worship God better.

the real problem is that people who prefer a certain way tend to make others feel like less of a catholic or irreverent if they choose a different way

just for the record, I tend to alternate between the two, depending on the position of the priest, what type of church we’re in, whether or not there is a place to kneet, and other factors. and believe me, I have priests shove hosts in my mouth unceremoniously or else just drop it on the tongue where is almost falls off, that scares me more than the hand, honestly, at least, if I’m holding it, I can control what happens to it

 

[R_H_Benson]

and believe me, I have priests shove hosts in my mouth unceremoniously or else just drop it on the tongue where is almost falls off, that scares me more than the hand, honestly, at least, if I’m holding it, I can control what happens to it

That’s why there should always be an altar server holding a paten under your chin!

 

[ProVobis]

The rule may or may not be the same in other countries.

RIght. The more universal IGMR mentions this:

1. Si Communio sub specie tantum panis fit, sacerdos hostiam parum elevatam
   unicuique ostendit dicens: Corpus Christi. Communicandus respondet:
   Amen, et Sacramentum recipit, ore vel, ubi concessum sit, manu, pro libitu
   suo. Communicandus statim ac sacram hostiam recipit, eam ex integro consumit.
   Si vero Communio fit sub utraque specie, servetur ritus suo loco descriptus.

“…by mouth, or where it may be conceded, by hand…” (literal translation of red)

Note the subjunctive.

 

[Scott_D]

I work with a guy who received his religious instruction before Vatican II. He said that a priest told him that anyone who takes the host in their hands who is not a priest is committing a sacrilege. I told him that Rome approved communion in the hand in the U.S. but he says that Rome is wrong. He said that truth is truth and doesn’t change, even if he was taught that over 50 years ago. I’m not sure how to get through to him.

 

[edwest2]

I work with a guy who received his religious instruction before Vatican II. He said that a priest told him that anyone who takes the host in their hands who is not a priest is committing a sacrilege. I told him that Rome approved communion in the hand in the U.S. but he says that Rome is wrong. He said that truth is truth and doesn’t change, even if he was taught that over 50 years ago. I’m not sure how to get through to him.

Get through to him about what?

Ed

 

[otjm]

I work with a guy who received his religious instruction before Vatican II. He said that a priest told him that anyone who takes the host in their hands who is not a priest is committing a sacrilege. I told him that Rome approved communion in the hand in the U.S. but he says that Rome is wrong. He said that truth is truth and doesn’t change, even if he was taught that over 50 years ago. I’m not sure how to get through to him.

The likelihood is that you are not going to get through to him.

But if you wish to keep trying, for starters, it was and is a disciplinary rule; so Rome is not “wrong”; Rome changed the discipline.

Your problem is likely to be that your friend cannot distinguish between what is a discipline, and what is doctrine. Doctrine cannot be changed; but there is no doctrine about how Communion is received. There never has been; in the early Church, Communion was received in the hand (with or without a cloth), and likely after some time, on the tongue also. This went on for centuries, until the rule (discipline) was changed.

According to Br. JR, some time in the 1200’s, the Franciscans received permission to receive in the hand, and (according to him) that continued on to this day, as I understand him.

Then there is the whole issue of this starting in Europe as an “abuse” (again, according to Bro. JR, it was not). If your friend is of the mindset that it was an abuse, you might as well find something else to talk about, as your friend seems to have the attitude of “Don’t confuse me with the facts; I already have my mind made up”.

There are times, and people, where the better decision is to let something go as challenging it is a pure waste of time.

Your friend may be correct that prior to the time where the Church gave permission to receive in the hand, that doing so would have been a sacrilege (Bro. JR’s comment to the contrary). But since he seems to not understand the difference between doctrine and discipline, you may have an uphill battle.

Choose your battles wisely.

 

[otjm]

Vatican II did not allow communion in the hand. Communion in the hand started as an abuse after Vatican II when people thought Vatican II changed all kinds of things like getting rid of the communion rail. Given the wide spread abuse of communion in the hand, Rome issued an idult permitting communion in the hand to certain countries, under the condition that those who wished to follow the universal norm of receiving communion on the the tongue while kneeling were allowed to. It is still the universal norm to receive communion on the tongue while kneeling. No Catholic can ever be refused communion on the tongue while kneeling. On the other hand, those who wish to receive in the hand may be refused communion in the hand of there is risk of profanation of the Eucharist.

Well, actually, no. That characterization as an abuse is a figment of the imagination of those who were absolutely against it when it came about, and they keep repeating it, and like most urban legends, it just keeps popping up. Bro JR wrote a 9 paragraph post disabusing everyone of that myth; but not everyone has read it.

 

[InThePew]

 

[otjm]

May I join you?

 

[Sirach2]

May I join you?

Me too, this is getting sooooo old! The indult was granted 45 years ago, and those who have been around this forum a long time should know better.

https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/...lJsfXgaSO1m-e_sMwR8gjWQtmC8TSvLmOE4AAcPycAeIr

 

[ProVobis]

I work with a guy who received his religious instruction before Vatican II. He said that a priest told him that anyone who takes the host in their hands who is not a priest is committing a sacrilege. I told him that Rome approved communion in the hand in the U.S. but he says that Rome is wrong. He said that truth is truth and doesn’t change, even if he was taught that over 50 years ago. I’m not sure how to get through to him.

Personally I would suggest that you invite your friend to CAF to defend his position. Otherwise you have posters assuming all kinds of things, like suggesting he might be ignorant of doctrine vs discipline, for example, when that may not be the case?

And speaking of Rome, making “concessions” to bishop conferences as the Latin suggests, doesn’t sound like the Vatican initiated the reintroduction of the practice nor is it a ringing endorsement of it either. It’s still an indult and can be taken away with a little over a third of the bishops’ votes, if I understand it correctly. Just sayin…

 

[otjm]

Personally I would suggest that you invite your friend to CAF and defend his position. Otherwise you have posters assuming all kinds of things, like suggesting he might be ignorant of doctrine vs discipline, for example, when that may not be the case?

So are you now proposing that somehow it was a doctrine? Or is it just a slow day…

 

[Elizium23]

So are you now proposing that somehow it was a doctrine? Or is it just a slow day…

No, ProVobis clearly knows it is a discipline, and his answer reveals that, if you read it properly. For someone to say “The Church in the USA is wrong” implies that he thinks it is doctrine, because different disciplines aren’t necessarily “wrong”, but for doctrine, there is clear right and wrong.

 

[otjm]

One of the past popes however had conditions to communion on the hand. Like, you must check you hands upon receiving. I believe it is immoral to receive on the hand, since many precious particles are lost, and this is an abuse.

That is the equivalent of saying that the Church has approved an immoral practice. I think I would be a bit cautious before I ventured to accuse the Church of that.

Additionally, at least in the Oregon Archdiocese, we use hosts which do not produce noticeable crumbs.

And prior to Vatican 2, altar rails had a cloth hanging down the back side; at Communion, the cloth was flipped up and over, and communicants would place their hands beneath the cloth. There was no purification of the cloth; after Communion it was flipped back to hand down the backside of the rail. The point was, and still is, that if there was a crumb which was visibly from the Eucharist, it was to be consumed; if it was not large enough to be discerned as coming from the Eucharist, but rather might be dandruff or some other particle such as are present in places where a large number of people pass through, then the Church holds that Christ is no longer present. If the Church holds that a particle which cannot be discernibly determined to come from the Eucharist, then perhaps we should follow the Church.

Also, thousands of hosts are on the ground at papal masses. And what did they do to these hosts. They put them in trash bags, and burned them! That is not the right way to go about it. Communion on the hand leads to these abuses.

Citation, please. Allegedly from other posts, CITH is not allowed at Papal Masses… This has the similitude of an urban legend.

I would receive on the tongue, and push the host to the top of you mouth, so the host is dissolved, then swallowed. This makes it so you don’t get the host in your teeth. The church did this for years, and rightfully so.

My recollection is that Christ said “Take and Eat”, not “Take and dissolve”. And that aligns with John 6, where Christ is quoted in the Greek text using a word which in Greek comes closer to “gnaw”. And that is why we no longer generally have the wafer thin hosts, but hosts which actually resemble bread.

 

[Confiteor_Deo]

My recollection is that Christ said “Take and Eat”, not “Take and dissolve”. And that aligns with John 6, where Christ is quoted in the Greek text using a word which in Greek comes closer to “gnaw”. And that is why we no longer generally have the wafer thin hosts, but hosts which actually resemble bread.

Yes, I have heard this as well. My catechism says to swallow the Host as soon as possible after receiving and I remember reading somewhere (I can’t remember where, possibly in the same catechism) that if we allow the Host to dissolve completely before swallowing, we have not actually received Holy Communion. So I suppose we can allow It to dissolve some before swallowing or chew.
My parish uses wafers that are quite thin, as do all the churches in my area. I have never received a thick Host except once at a Cathedral Mass.

 

[JerryZ]

So just to add 2 more cents to the fray I personally vouch that in Italy (North and South) normally the Host is deposited in the hand of most of the communicants.
Very few mostly old people still receive in the tongue.

I can also state that AT the Vatican you get the Host on the tongue at the masses both inside the Basilica and outside in the Piazza.
I think they do this for fear of people running off with the Host and desecrate HIM.
Believe it or not there are quite a few followers of the dark one in Rome.

:twocents: duly deposited.
…

 

[ProVobis]

…that if we allow the Host to dissolve completely before swallowing, we have not actually received Holy Communion.

I would think once it enters your mouth, you’ve consumed it. The body will process it from there, even if it’s under the tongue. Saliva is an important part of this process. People and animals without teeth manage somehow (my vet told me that) so I don’t see this as an issue. Not to mention that before dentistry many more people were without teeth.

 

[Tarpeian_Rock]

I work with a guy who received his religious instruction before Vatican II. He said that a priest told him that anyone who takes the host in their hands who is not a priest is committing a sacrilege. I told him that Rome approved communion in the hand in the U.S. but he says that Rome is wrong. He said that truth is truth and doesn’t change, even if he was taught that over 50 years ago. I’m not sure how to get through to him.

The Church says that deacons are Ordinary Ministers of Holy Communion, yet their hands are not anointed at their ordination. So your friend would say that deacons are committing sacrilege when they distribute Communion?

 

[Casilda]

This reads as if it is the norm (and retained right) to receive on the tongue and an exemption or “indult” was made in some areas to receive in the hand. So both, not either/or, but both.

vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/ccdds/documents/rc_con_ccdds_doc_20040423_redemptionis-sacramentum_en.html#Chapter IV

1. The distribution of Holy Communion
   …92. Although each of the faithful always has the right to receive Holy Communion on the tongue, at his choice, if any communicant should wish to receive the Sacrament in the hand, in areas where the Bishops’ Conference with the recognitio of the Apostolic See has given permission, the sacred host is to be administered to him or her. However, special 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.
   [93.] The Communion-plate for the Communion of the faithful should be retained, so as to avoid the danger of the sacred host or some fragment of it falling.
   [94.] It is not licit for the faithful “to take . . . by themselves . . . and, still less, to hand . . . from one to another” the sacred host or the sacred chalice