Communion in the hand with gloves

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Robinkay

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I am anticipating the reopening of our Churches, and the likelihood of still being required to receive communion in the hand. I am wondering if there is any prohibition from wearing gloves (thinking disposable latex gloves) while receiving in the hand?
 
Robinkay said:
I am wondering if there is any prohibition from wearing gloves (thinking disposable latex gloves) while receiving in the hand?
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What would that do?..lets paint the worst case picture. The person you receive from has the virus, and touched their mouth or nose or eyes at some point before they had you the host in your gloved hands…your hand will be protected, but then you are going to consume the host…so the gloves offered no protection.
 
spiritualsamurai said:
to receive on the hand is a grave misdeed to receive the Holy Eucharist in such an irreverent, careless way.
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So are you saying that the Church is encouraging irreverence? And has been for many years, beginning well before this current pandemic?
spiritualsamurai said:
Protestant reformers including Thomas Cromwell, John Calvin, and Zwingli demanded that people receive on the hand. They knew that the blatant irreverence would degrade faith in the True Presence and destroy the most sacred truth in the Catholic religion.
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Source? Actually, let me rephrase that: Reliable and unbiased source?
 
It’s not you who needs to wear the gloves it’s the ministers and extraordinary ministers.
 
Disposable gloves while handling Our Lord?!? 😫😱

The Particles of the Host can remain on the latex or vinyl gloves. Also what if the Host breaks?

Seriously, if the local Ordinary allowed gloves (which I highly doubt) then they should be cotton gloves so they can get burned.
 
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I have never understood the argument for why receiving in the hand is supposedly disrespectful or irreverent.

Jesus told us to eat His flesh and drink His blood and as Catholics we believe He meant that literally. When you keep that in mind, touching His flesh with your hand hardly seems presumptuous or over-familiar.

Also, when Christ distributed the bread at the last supper, does anyone seriously think He fed the disciples like they were baby birds? Presumably He passed the bread around and they took some using their hands.
 
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Memoriale Domini, issued by Pope Paul VI, laid down certain conditions for CITH. If all are not met, then CITH is not allowed.

Also, iirc COTT is still the law of the Latin Church.
 
When MD was written, the % was much higher.
 
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  1. When communion on the tongue was the only option, 9/11 hadn’t happened.
  2. 9/11 took place after communion in the hand became common.
  3. Eureka! Communion in the hand caused 9/11! To the Batmobile!
Correlation is not causation and all that.
 
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1ke said:
It’s not you who needs to wear the gloves it’s the ministers and extraordinary ministers.
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God willing, they will not use any extraordinary ministers. Honestly, that would be a big mistake and increase the chances of spreading the virus (esp if a EMHC didn’t know he/she had the virus).
 
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That won’t protect you against contamination from all the things you’ll touch while you’re in church. It also won’t protect you if someone else who touches the host, before or after consecration, has infected hands. Not that I think that latex gloves are the solution either.
Margaret_Ann said:
The Particles of the Host can remain on the latex or vinyl gloves. Also what if the Host breaks?
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Is there not a similar concern about the host being in contact with the skin?
Robinkay said:
I am wondering if there is any prohibition from wearing gloves (thinking disposable latex gloves) while receiving in the hand?
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It seems far from certain that latex gloves actually help. A nurse told me that outside of a clinical environment gloves are really not much use. Yes, they protect your skin, but the gloves quickly become contaminated and then contaminate everything you touch with them.
 
RolandThompsonGunner said:
I have never understood the argument for why receiving in the hand is supposedly disrespectful or irreverent.
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It’s not disrespectful. It’s really the theological principle of lex orandi lex credendi which leads people to disagree with communion in the hand. They also disagree with it because one of the reasons it was approved is because too many people were sinning by doing it without permission. So it was approved so the bishops, priests and lay faithful who were already doing it would no longer be sinning.

The reason the church adopted communion on the tongue was to limit the number of tiny particles. Placing the Host directly on the Tongue prevents the communicate from having particles of our Lord on their palm.

This is also why in the Latin mass, once the priest touches the consecrated Host with his index fingers and thumbs, he must keep them pressed together at all times.

Even when he lifts the Precious Blood, he is doing so really with just 6 fingers, as his index fingers & thumbs are pressed together to prevent any tiny particles from falling.

When the priest turns the pages of the Missal, he must do so with his middle, ring and pinky fingers only, as he can’t use his index fingers and thumbs. And when he prays with the Orans posture, his hands almost look like he’s holding up two OK signs.

So for the people who don’t like communion in the hand, that’s why.

God Bless
 
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Do “tiny particles” matter? My understanding is that once it has lost the appearance of bread and wine, the Real Presence no longer remains anyway.
 
RolandThompsonGunner said:
Do “tiny particles” matter? My understanding is that once it has lost the appearance of bread and wine, the Real Presence no longer remains anyway.
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Yes, they matter. Bread crumbs are still considered bread.

Even today. Have you ever noticed how the priests wiggles his fingers over the Precious Blood in an attempt to remove all tiny particles of Host from his fingers? You will also notice that the priest always cleans the Paten over the remaining Precious Blood in the Chalice.

As FYI - my childhood pastor used to say, “the difference between the Catholic understanding and the Episcopal understanding of the Eucharist can be easily seen when visiting the Episcopal church next door… because they throw the crumbs in the trash.”
 
If I am in a situation where I am forced either to receive CITH or not at all, my plan right now is to take a purificator with me (I think I have one around here somewhere), place it over my palm, then cup my palm and receive the Host out of my cupped palm. I have read that women in medieval times (prior to the establishment of COTT) did something similar with a houseling cloth.

The worst thing that can happen, is that the priest will say “you can’t do that”. I can’t see, though, why CITH into one’s bare hand would be OK, but receiving on a dignified linen cloth would not be OK.
 
dscath said:
It is an acceptable method for receiving the sacrament
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Only in countries that have it allowed as an exception. It is grossly irreverent to receive like that in Slovakia for example.

It is only acceptable method if your area allows it and even then it is just an exception to the rule.
 
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