I’d like to hear the sacred and theological reasoning behind the current method of CITH.
Watch the interview of Bishop Schneider (link in my sig). You will see the current method is an about face (isn’t everything changed since around '63).
I don’t think much “sacred and theological reasoning” was done when a handful at the bottom of the totem pole decided to play Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.
First of all, I receive on the tongue. I did NOT receive on the tongue for the longest time, because I did not want anyone’s hand in or near my mouth. I’ve posted on these fora for a very long time and I’ve seen the two methods argued back and forth. I finally decided that I would start to receive on the tongue, so as to be open to what was being discussed. I agreed to do so from Gaudete Sunday of one year to Gaudete Sunday of the following year. That Sunday came and went and I’ve not gone back to receiving in the hand. I do not do it because I think it more reverent. I don’t believe that it is more reverent and I haven’t seen an argument that convinces me that it is. I sin far more with my tongue than I do with my hands, ie, the things I say with my tongue are far worse than what I do with my hands. I continue to receive on the tongue as a reparation to Our Lord for the divisions in the Church, some of them quite silly divisions.
Communion on the hand cannot be categorized as ontologically wrong, since it may have been an Apostolic practice and certainly was a Patristic practice. There are those who like to say, “yes, but the Apostles were bishops/priests and so could receive in the hand.” There is no evidence that that was a part of the Church’s thinking and that the laity also received in the hand seems clear. How widespread that practice was (or how widespread the practice of receiving on the tongue was) we can’t reliably say. Communion in the hand was, however, practiced by parts of the Church for centuries, just as was Communion under both of the Sacred Species (indeed, we communicated under Both Species for far longer than we have not). What is clear is that the Church has the authority to govern the disciplines that surround the Sacraments, so she was not wrong when she permitted communion in the hand, nor wrong when she forbade it, nor wrong again when she permitted it again (even if the bishops of Holland did it irregularly before the Indult was estblished, that Indult granting permission for it is still firmly grounded on the supreme power of the Pope to enact a sacramental discipline), just as she was not wrong in allowing the laity to receive from the Chalice, nor wrong when she suspended that practice, nor wrong again when she reinstituted it. So there wasn’t really “an about face,” if one takes the context of the long history of the Church.
Pope Benedict has said, in “Light of the World,” the following: “I am not opposed in principle to communion in the hand; I have both administered and received communion in this way myself. The idea behind my current practice of having people kneel to receive communion on the tongue was to send a signal and to underscore the real presence with an exclamation point. One very important reason is that there is a great danger of superficiality precisely in the kinds of mass events we hold at Saint Peter’s, both in the Basilica and in the Square. I have heard of people who, after receiving communion, stick the Host in their wallet to take home as a kind of souvenir. In this context, where people think that everyone is just automatically supposed to receive communion-everyone is going up, so I will, too-I wanted to send a clear signal. I wanted it to be clear: Something quite special is going on here!
He is here, the One before whom we fall on our knees! Pay attention! This is not just some social ritual in which we can take part if we want to.”
I think the word “signal” is the most telling part of what the Holy Father is saying here. A signal is an outward sign. In the developing devotion that is and would be natural in our Eucharistic theology, to receive on the tongue while kneeling would be the clearest descriptor of what we profess to believe: we are receiving the Body and Blood, the Soul and Divinity, of GOD. It would be the most “telling” indicator. And, if outward signs can effect inward disposition (as is often asserted), it would also, beyond the reverence due to the Holy One, be “useful.” Of course, an outward sign can also easily mask an inward indifference or an inward hostility (I’m fairly sure that the spiriting away of the Most Sacred Body for nefarious purposes happened before CITH was reintroduced). The most important issue is the inward disposition.
At this point, all that can be said is that both methods are approved by the Church (again, even at the papal masses, the only ones who rec. kneeling and perforce on the tongue are the Holy Father’s personal communicants; the rest are receiving in procession with the option of on the tongue or in the hand) and that the legitimate exercise of the freedom to choose afforded by the Church is not sinful. We should not make people feel bad or feel less than Catholic when they avail themself of the choice (and if anyone attacked a communicant’s right to kneel or to recieve on the tongue, I would defend that communicant as well).
