Communion with clean hands

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paperwight66 said:
But that’s my point. You are asking the EMHC to judge whether any profaning will take place. How exactly can this judgment be reached in the second or so that the EMHC has sight of the hands before a decision has to be made?
The hands could be disrespectfully dirty, or they could be discoloured for another reason, with no disrespect intended. Imagine if that were you, and the EMHC stopped the line, and accused you of profaning the Eucharist?
Anyway, it is not the EMHC’s job to judge. We are told during training that we cannot refuse Holy Communion to anyone, and that the Communion line is not the place for arguments,
It isn’t a question of moral courage.
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Nonetheless someone should be responsible for the existing profanity, I would think.
 
I almost always receive on the tongue (the exception being if I’m sick and I might be contagious), but I have a routine where as soon as I get to church, I visit the men’s room and wash my hands. So my hands are clean when I enter the church, but there’s still a lot of touching things that goes on before receiving Holy Communion (think: Sign of Peace).

That said, I don’t know what the big deal is about supposed profanation by receiving in the hand. No matter how one receives, the Host winds up in the mouth, and that is the second dirtiest part of the human body. I’ll leave it to the reader’s imagination what the dirtiest part is, but under normal circumstances it’s not the hands.
 
DaveBj said:
I’ll leave it to the reader’s imagination what the dirtiest part is, but under normal circumstances it’s not the hands.
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Unless one does a lot of typing. 🙂

FWIW, when I worked for the American Dental Association, the mouth was the “laboratory of the body.” 🙂 Many of our experiments were done under those conditions. The room was actually pleasant. 😉
 
1ke said:
would you have to ask what I meant by “clean hands”:
  • cook dinner/handle food for yourself or other people
  • handle delicate, white table linens so as not to smudge them or get them dirty
  • hold a newborn baby
  • greet a dignitary or respected person with a handshake
All of these are merely human to human interactions. And yet, you know what clean hands are and why they would be important in each situation. Do you really not know what clean hands means when handling the Eucharist?
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I didn’t know you needed “clean hands” to hold a newborn baby. 🙂

For the bold, yeah, I actually might need to ask. There are some people who wash their hands every time before they eat, otherwise they are considered dirty. Some people only wash their hands before eating if they look dirty. Some people always wash their hands after touching money, some people don’t. Some people think that if they shake someone else’s hand that their hands are dirty, others don’t. Who is right?

Or is it just me who has encountered people the examples I listed describe? 🙂
 
drforjc said:
I don’t believe the pastor can forbid it. Some bishops have tried to prohibit it during outbreaks of disease, but even that has met with some criticism from canon lawyers.
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Bishops delegate authority over how people can receive to the pastors. There are some parishes that ONLY receive on the tongue and others that are more lenient. I receive both ways but prefer on the tongue.
 
ProVobis said:
Unless one does a lot of typing. 🙂

FWIW, when I worked for the American Dental Association, the mouth was the “laboratory of the body.” 🙂 Many of our experiments were done under those conditions. The room was actually pleasant. 😉
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I seem to recall there was a medical article talking about how dirty paper money can be. If anyone’s handled paper bills… you might want to disinfect when you’re done! 👍
 
808Catholic said:
I seem to recall there was a medical article talking about how dirty paper money can be. If anyone’s handled paper bills… you might want to disinfect when you’re done! 👍
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That too.

I seem to recall a finding that hotel rooms are routinely cleaned except for the remote controls, which apparently are the biggest spreaders of germs.
 
ProVobis said:
That too.

I seem to recall a finding that hotel rooms are routinely cleaned except for the remote controls, which apparently are the biggest spreaders of germs.
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LOL. My wife thinks I’m paranoid but I carry waterless disinfectant everywhere I go and use it on everything in a hotel room that I touch. I go so far as to carry my own silk sleeping bag that I climb into each night so I limit the contact I have with hotel linens!👍
 
808Catholic said:
I seem to recall there was a medical article talking about how dirty paper money can be. If anyone’s handled paper bills… you might want to disinfect when you’re done! 👍
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You think American paper money is bad; you ought to try handling Syrian liraat or Egyptian gunayhaat.

:bigyikes:
 
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