Arguing about how to receive Holy Communion

[ProVobis]

The people who are being accused here of being “disobedient” have no idea about it, and they were not the ones who started it – they are simply obeying their leader.

Just a little point of order here. It’s not a matter of obedience if you’re doing what you’re doing because it’s “allowed,” just like eating meat on Friday is not obedience. It would be a matter of obedience if they gave you no choices. Or did they give you no choice? If so, that would violate one of the conditions for making CITH “allowable.”

See post #211 for the other conditions.

 

[AlanFromWichita]

Just a little point of order here. It’s not a matter of obedience if you’re doing what you’re doing because it’s “allowed,” just like eating meat on Friday is not obedience. It would be a matter of obedience if they gave you no choices. Or did they give you no choice? If so, that would violate one of the conditions for making CITH “allowable.”

I’m not sure how the meat thing works as an analogy, because with Communion it’s about how we eat, not what we eat. So we come to the table, we have two procedures to choose from. 99% of us have no clue that anybody debates whether both options are “viable” or “allowable.”

As far as this discussion, though, I don’t see where my point goes anywhere either.

See post #211 for the other conditions.

Thank you. I knew they were somewhere in this thread. I shall keep a pointer to them.

Alan

 

[choy]

CITH is an indult that shouldn’t be. That’s a fact. Your defence is disobedient and defiant.

its allowed because the Church says so
no matter what you say or do won’t change it. you just don’t have the authority, like the rest of us

 

[choy]

Figures. Run along now. Come back with some facts or stay away altogether. It would be charitable if you took digger and choy with you.

its more charitable if you’re the one to leave because you offer no arguments and always result to insults and other ad homs to try to win in a very childish way, instead of trying to prove a point

circular arguments, ad hom, you’ve really got nothing

 

[JReducation]

St. Francis of Assisi was known for his devotion to the Eucharist. It is hard to imagine him receiving CITH. His reason for not becoming a priest was that he did not feel worthy to touch the Blessed Sacrament. So it seems inaccurate to call ncjohn’s position that of a “true Franciscan”.

Actually there are a number of inaccuracies in this thread.

1. The Friars Minor and the Third Order Regular have always received communion in the hand. The reason was to diminish the difference between the ordained friars and the lay friars. In fact, our Holy Father clearly stipulated that the ordained friars not celebrate mass unless it was their appointed day . It has always been the role of the Guardian of the house to decide who celebrates mass and when, in those cases where there is more than one ordained friar in the house.
2. Our Holy Father did not become a priest not because of any sense of unworthiness, because he did not have a vocation to the priesthood. His call and that of our first brothers was to a life of obedience to the Gospel, living as itinerant brothers. If they were ordained they would be subject to a bishop and be assigned to parishes. To avoid this, our Holy Father did not choose ordination for him or oiur early brothers. The first priests in our history came to us ordained. They came from the diocese or other religious communities. Francis was very tough on them.
3. Francis was so tough on the clerics that he forbade the use of the title Father. They were to be called either Friar or Brother. This rule is still in every Franciscan constitution around the world. It is the laity that violates it, not the friars. We never use the term Father in any of our houses, except when speaking to the superior. He is always called Father, whether he is ordained or not.
4. To this day, we practice the rule set down by our Holy Father Francis, no Franciscan has the right to be a priest. After making solemn vows for life, the Provincial Minister calls forth those whom Christ tells him are called to serve as priests. However, they may never appear any different from any lay brother either in manner, dress, duties, rights, studies, ministry or even at the celebration of the mass. The only difference allowed to them at mass are those that are required by the laws passed after Vatican II and the code of 1983. Until 1978, we were bound by the rule of 1223, which did not allow any distinctioin for clerics, not even at mass, except those distinctions necessary for the confection of the Eucharist or rubrics regarding such things as vestments and so forth.
5. For 800 years we have always had superiors who are not priests, but who have the moral duty to bring communion to the sick brothers in their houses. We do not allow brothers to become permanent deacons unless they have an indult from the General Minister. This is to avoid the clericalization of the Franciscan family.
6. After 1980, the Ministers General of all the Franciscan obediences met in home to discuss the problem of the clerics. It was decided that each Provincial Minister could reduce the number of priests in his reigion, if the numbers were too high. This was done in order to bring the Franciscans back to the original mission and vision of itinerant preachers and to pull us out of parishes. Permission was granted to close as many parishes as necessary or to return them to the local bishops.

All these practices were to protect the order from becoming an order of priests. It is very clear from the rules, admonitions, and the early sources that Francis had in mind a very different way of life which did not depend on the priesthood. To this day, Francsicans say that the priesthood is accidental to us, not essential. The order can exist without priests. The early brothers attended mass and received the sacraments at the local secular parish or Benedictine abbey. Many of our houses still do so, because we do not have priests in all of our houses.

Graudally, most of us are returning to the title Friar, Frater or Brother, so that you do not know which of us is a priest or not. If you come to my house, I’m the only one called Father, because I’m the superior. But that tells you nothing about the clerical status of any of the friars in the house. It has nothing to do with not feeling worthy. It has to do with Francis’ example of a life of brotherhood. If truth be told, no oen is worthy to be either a priest or a friar. It’s always a gift of grace.

Along with this was the encouragement to found new branches of the family that have nothing to do with the clerical state or parish work. Thus new foundations came into existence. Many of them in the USA, such as:

1. 
   *]Franciscans of the Renewal
   *]Franciscans of the Eucaharist
   *]Franciscans of Peace
   *]Franciscans of Life
   *]Franciscans of the Ancient Observance
   *]Franciscans of Christ the King
   *]Franciscans of the Hoy Family
   *]Franciscan Missionaries of the Eternal Word
   *]LIttle Brothers of St. Francis
   *]Franciscans of Charity
   
   These are just in the USA alone.

 

[JReducation]

Those who are offending the Franciscan family, please stop. It is important to understand our history and our traditions. Many of them go back 800 years and have been allowed to us because they are part of our heritage. Canon Law is very clear that those customs that date 100 years or more in orders of men are to be left untouched and subject to the General Superiors of those orders and their respective General Chapters.

If you vist a Franciscan house today, you will see the mass being celebrated with the same spirit of fraternity and simplicity as it was celebrated 800 years ago. We have communion in the hand, no Gregorian chant, no communion rails, no kneelers, very few statues or other ornamentation.

When serving in a parish, we do as the local bishop mandates, because we do not own the parish. The diocese does. But in our houses, universities, colleges, schools, hospitals, shelters, and other facilities that fall under the Ordinary jurisdiction of the order, we do things very differently.

Most lay people are unfamiliar with these customs, because until the General Chapter of 1970 the laity was not allowed to witness a conventual mass. In large houses, such as shrines, there were two masses, one for the public and one for the friars. In some of the Franciscan obediences, this is still the practice.

It you visit the Franciscans of the Eternal Word, the mass for the friars is not celebrated under the eye of the camera. It’s in another chapel. The Franciscans of the Renewal do not celebrate the friars’ mass in a public church, unless it’s meant for the public. The chapel does not even have pews, never mind all the other trimmings The friars do what we did when Francis was alive. The one priest celebrates the mass and the other friars gather round him. He walks from friar to friar and gives each one the consecrated host in the hand. It was after the Council of Trent that the General Minister granted permission for the friars to receive communion on the tongue. We developed a mixed practice. To us, CITH was not a novelty. It was one of two options that we always had.

But one must understand the importance of this. To our Holy Father the importance of equality among the brothers was essential for the preservation and the growth of the order as an order of brothers, not an order of priests. If he allowed the priests to rights and privileges that were not yet in the law in 1209, he would have singled them out and the command given to him by Christ, to found a brotherhood of lay men, would have been lost.

The order was founded as a lay brotherhood in 1209 and remains a lay brotherhood to this day. Except that it is a brotherhood of religious lay men, with some clerics who although they are clerics, live as laymen in a religious order. It was in 1223 that the pope ordained our Holy Father a deacon for the purpose of voting in the Fourth Lateran Council, because only clerics could vote at the Council. Upon his return to the motherhouse, Francis never exercised the ministry of deacon again. When Bonaventure became General Minister, he banned the ordination of deacons and limited the ordination to the priesthood only to those whom Christ called through the Provincial Minister. This rule is still in place today. Bonaventure also reorganized the order and squelched the clericalism that had arisen between Francis’ tenure as General Minister and his own, to the point that when he became a bishop, he refused to wear the bishop’s gar, be called anything other than Brother Bonaventure and when he received the Cardinal’s red had he hung it up on a tree branch and never put it on. He went to the Council in his barefeet wearing the brother’s habit. When a mass was celebrated in our chapels, Bonaventure deliberately did not celebrate so as not to have to celebrate a Pontifical mass, as required of bishops and cardinals. The only time that he celebrated a Pontifical mass was at the diocesan cathedral, because it was his duty to do so.

Please understand our history and our reasons for doing certain things our way. This way has been approved by the Church since 1209.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[Michael_Francis]

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