Denied reception on the tongue

[mommy_k]

When did the EMHC tell them that they only distribute in hand…while they were distributing during communion to the line of people?

They actually said all of this while distributing the Holy Eucharist?

I would go to the EMHC director on Monday with both things if this is the case.

 

[7_Sorrows]

Parish secretary: NO

Pastor: YES

Tell the pastor what happened and make sure he addresses it with the EMHCs immediately. It would be helpful if you knew specifically who it was so you could tell the pastor, but I am sure your children had no idea who the person was. The pastor needs to ensure EMHC are properly trained both on how to give communion on the tongue and that they may NOT refuse communion to a communicant who wants to receive on the tongue.

If and when the pastor fails to address the situation and you find yourself or your family members denied again in the future.

I agree.

 

[Upgrade25]

I’ve never had a problem with receiving that way. I’d cordially bring it up, but… wow. I mean, both ways are acceptable, but neither is to be forced in the Novus Ordo. Imagine the uproar if someone said one had to receive kneeling on the tongue… as is done at Papal Masses at St. Peter’s Basilica

 

[esieffe]

They were most certainly denied their rights under Canon Law, which includes the right to receive on the tongue. You make it sound as if the family is denying the Real Presence, which they most certainly were not.

 

[Neofight]

No. it is a violation of our rights as Catholics.

It is not acceptable. It is not a “small inconvenience”. Nor should it be treated as if it were.

Yes, let’s make completely unrelated comparisons to try to shame this mother into foregoing her rights as a Catholic and her children’s rights.

Nobody tried to “shame” anyone. Before continuing with your extremely offensive and uncharitable rant, you may want to go back and read the whole post, instead of taking it out of context to suit your own needs.

 

[Don_Ruggero]

As for kneeling, while that is your preference, I can understand that in a server role it may not be the best option given logistics of the sanctuary, serve albs or vesture, and their role during the distribution of communion, etc. You may need to roll with that one.

I think this needs clarification as to what you understand and what is perceived as “the best option.”

As parish priest, decisions concerning the conduct and compartment of liturgical ministers relative to the implementation of the norms for the parish’s liturgy was mine – and mine alone under the bishop whose liturgist I was and whom I briefed on my decisions so he would not be caught in cross-fire.

What gestures servers could make and not make…what postures they could assume or not assume were my decisions…not theirs. If they were not able to conform themselves, in complete submission, to the directives I issued, there were two options: they could remove themselves from their ministry or I would resolve the issue for them by removing them…permanently.

 

[Don_Ruggero]

We just moved and are new parishioners to our church. Today, the Eucharistic Minister denied my children reception of the Holy Eucharist on the tongue (I attended a later Mass). The EM told them he only offers the communion in the hand and made them receive in the hand. My children have always and everywhere received on the tongue.

What is my recourse as I’m quite livid they would EVER be denied the Holy Eucharist? I’m going to address it first thing Monday morning, but need to know if I should speak to the parish secretary, the pastor, and/or the director of EMs. And at what point, if any, do I contact our Diocese.

Peace.

+JMJ+

I am happy for you that, from your subsequent post, you seem to have regained some of your self-composure from your previously “quite livid” state.

You are, of course, free to proceed in any fashion that you wish. I think you would do quite well to understand that the manner in which you proceed will reflect on you AND upon your family. There is great truth in the maxim that an action provokes an equal and opposite reaction…only some times, the reaction is not equal; it can be disproportionate

If you wish to labeled as a troublemaker and as someone to be put on the parish’s watchlist, by all means begin making allegations such as that you children were denied Communion when, in fact, they were not.

Contact immediately the diocese rather than first entering into a dialogue with the parish priest, if you wish, and you will see the result after the diocese contacts the parish priest and he informs them that you did not extend to him the courtesy of addressing the matter to him… As a now retired diocesan official, I will happily tell you, in detail, how such people who acted in such way were regarded and acted toward by me and by others in the chancery.

On the other hand, since you are new to the parish, this gives you an opportunity to make either a very good or a very bad impression upon your new parish priest, who will presumably have responsibility for shepherding you for even years to come. A very good first oppression, I never forgot. On the other hand, a very bad first impression, I never forgot either.

You should address your concern, in a calm and non-livid manner, to the parish priest.

Someone who wished to understand what happened, I was normally always very accommodating toward. Someone who called me at 9:01 a.m. on Monday morning, livid and hostile, demanding their rights, would receive their answer from me.

But Heaven help them if they ever came to me with any situation however small that was in the least within my discretion as parish priest that asked for even the tiniest variance of the law…they found the parish would not bend in their favour under any circumstance, in the slightest manner. They experienced the parish equivalent of the edict of the Lord: “with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

Personally, I would not advise you to set yourself on a collision course with the shepherd of yourself and your children.

As for your specific question, I was not there. Neither were you. Neither was any one else on this board. I cannot make any discernment as to why whatever it was that really happened actually happened. Perhaps the minister erred. Perhaps s/he did not.

I famously remember one case in which the young people were making a solemn communion…they had made their first communion months before but the First Communion class was reconstituted to take part in a eucharistic procession. The organisers had the boys and girls wear gloves…which precluded them from receiving Communion in the hand. Whether they wanted to or not was immaterial…they had to receive on the tongue. Otherwise, their gloves would become sacred linen for having touched the Sacred Species.

Of course, none of them understood that but that did not matter.

Similarly, once a person commits to receiving Communion by intinction, they must receive by one means only.

Without knowing the specifics, it is beyond fruitless for me as a priest to offer commentary on something of which I am completely uninformed in any meaningful way.

 

[Neofight]

I think this needs clarification as to what you understand and what is perceived as “the best option.”

As parish priest, decisions concerning the conduct and compartment of liturgical ministers relative to the implementation of the norms for the parish’s liturgy was mine – and mine alone under the bishop whose liturgist I was and whom I briefed on my decisions so he would not be caught in cross-fire.

What gestures servers could make and not make…what postures they could assume or not assume were my decisions…not theirs. If they were not able to conform themselves, in complete submission, to the directives I issued, there were two options: they could remove themselves from their ministry or I would resolve the issue for them by removing them…permanently.

Agreed. Too often, in a haste to make every issue black and white, and neatly answered by the Code of Canon Law, legalists forget the authority and responsibilities of the parish priest and pastor in administration of the parish, including liturgy and sacraments.

 

[Reuben_J]

Agreed. Too often, in a haste to make every issue black and white, and neatly answered by the Code of Canon Law, legalists forget the authority and responsibilities of the parish priest and pastor in administration of the parish, including liturgy and sacraments.

Perhaps, it is more of a cherry picking. It also says that it makes no difference to the grace we receive by receiving one way or another.

Physically probably it still taste the same.

Why would we want to fight on an issue and forget the other equally valid one? It perhaps shows the stubbornness and the worst that is in us.

 

[1ke]

I think this needs clarification as to what you understand and what is perceived as “the best option.”

I think you read into my comment a whole lot that wasn’t there.

I’ve been in a lot of different churches (as you have no doubt also) and seen a lot of different configurations for where servers are when they receive communion, what they are doing during communion, and how the sanctuary is actually configured.

Some priests have the servers receive prior to the congregation and then either go to their seats, hold candles, hold patens, or stand in a certain place. Some have them receive in the communion line (my mom’s church does this).

Some sanctuaries are equipped with prie dieu, some aren’t. Some are configured so servers are in the sanctuary, some where they are sitting elsewhere.

I simply meant that taken all together, those variables would influence what the priest wants servers to do or not do.

 

[Don_Ruggero]

I’ve never had a problem with receiving that way. I’d cordially bring it up, but… wow. I mean, both ways are acceptable, but neither is to be forced in the Novus Ordo. Imagine the uproar if someone said one had to receive kneeling on the tongue… as is done at Papal Masses at St. Peter’s Basilica

In fact, it is not the case that people receive at Papal Masses kneeling and on the tongue.

During the papacy of Pope Benedict, he made provision that for those who were given the privilege of received from him personally, they would receive while kneeling at a prie-dieu and on the tongue. Every other priest and deacon distributing the Eucharist was giving Communion to people who were standing and who received either on the tongue or in the hand, as they preferred.

 

[Don_Ruggero]

I think you read into my comment a whole lot that wasn’t there.

I’ve been in a lot of different churches (as you have no doubt also) and seen a lot of different configurations for where servers are when they receive communion, what they are doing during communion, and how the sanctuary is actually configured.

Some priests have the servers receive prior to the congregation and then either go to their seats, hold candles, hold patens, or stand in a certain place. Some have them receive in the communion line (my mom’s church does this).

Some sanctuaries are equipped with prie dieu, some aren’t. Some are configured so servers are in the sanctuary, some where they are sitting elsewhere.

I simply meant that taken all together, those variables would influence what the priest wants servers to do or not do.

I understood exactly what you wrote, as I read each of your posts.

I have not only been in many churches across my decades, I have held jurisdiction over various churches in various parts of the world, just as I have been a professor of liturgy and sacraments.

I find the talk of “rights” here to be unbalanced, when it is presented unqualified and in ways that it sometimes is.

The evocation of liturgical ministers and their role in this thread – and their subjection to the component ecclesiastical authority in those roles, governing their comportment, their every movement, as well as their gestures and their postures – gave a welcomed opportunity to strike an urgently needed balance.

Liturgical service is a very great privilege and if someone can not fully and enthusiastically fully embrace the directives of the clergy, that privilege needs to be taken from them and given to others who will appreciate it and embrace it.

 

[1ke]

I understood exactly what you wrote, as I read each of your posts.

I have not only been in many churches across my decades, I have held jurisdiction over various churches in various parts of the world, just as I have been a professor of liturgy and sacraments.

I find the talk of “rights” here to be unbalanced, when it is presented unqualified and in ways that it sometimes is.

The evocation of liturgical ministers and their role in this thread – and their subjection to the component ecclesiastical authority in those roles, governing their comportment, their every movement, as well as their gestures and their postures – gave a welcomed opportunity to strike an urgently needed balance.

Liturgical service is a very great privilege and if someone can not fully and enthusiastically fully embrace the directives of the clergy, that privilege needs to be taken from them and given to others who will appreciate it and embrace it.

I believe the thread has gotten confused. The original post was about her child in the communion line, a regular ‘person in the pew’ not a server.

Subsequently, she added an aside about a child serving at mass.

These are two different instances.

 

[alphomega]

There isn’t much doubt where Cardinal Arinze comes down on this. I’m unaware of any documents from Rome since 2011 that would change this. If you know of any please post them.

youtube.com/watch?v=QFG1Crf1gQU

 

[Oneofthewomen]

I believe the thread has gotten confused. The original post was about her child in the communion line, a regular ‘person in the pew’ not a server.

Subsequently, she added an aside about a child serving at mass.

These are two different instances.

I disagree that anyone here, especially Don Ruggero, is confused, except maybe the OP.

The OP was not, by their own admission at the Mass where this happened, and then was filled with vitriol.

I agree wholeheartedly with his assessment that the people on this board are way to concerned about their rights and not at all concerned with the rights of clergy and their obligation to the whole flock, not just one family/person.

The only advice this person should have received was to calm down and talk with the Pastor and make sure the stroy they heard from their children was indeed how it happened. Then, and only then, should a discussion be had as to what can change to prevent something like this from happening again.

 

[pianistclare]

I disagree that anyone here, especially Don Ruggero, is confused, except maybe the OP.

The OP was not, by their own admission at the Mass where this happened, and then was filled with vitriol.

I agree wholeheartedly with his assessment that the people on this board are way to concerned about their rights and not at all concerned with the rights of clergy and their obligation to the whole flock, not just one family/person.

The only advice this person should have received was to calm down and talk with the Pastor and make sure the stroy they heard from their children was indeed how it happened. Then, and only then, should a discussion be had as to what can change to prevent something like this from happening again.

Yup. Lots of talk about norms and rubrics, documents, and other legalities.
Not so much about Pastoral decisions.
Whether or not we agree with them is beside the point. After working in parishes nearly all my life, I’ve never encountered a priest who didn’t have the final say.
On everything.
People like to give out to others, but they can seldom hear the other viewpoint very well.
:coffeeread:
The good Father makes excellent points.

 

[Don_Ruggero]

I believe the thread has gotten confused. The original post was about her child in the communion line, a regular ‘person in the pew’ not a server.

Subsequently, she added an aside about a child serving at mass.

These are two different instances.

Let us be crystal clear.

If anything or anyone has gotten confused, it is not me.

This “quite livid” person came to the forum with the incident with her children – not her child, as you relate. So you are wrong to write “her child.”.

This poster wrote: ***Today, the Eucharistic Minister denied my children reception of the Holy Eucharist on the tongue (I attended a later Mass). The EM told them he only offers the communion in the hand and made them receive in the hand. ***

However, the post first contends the children were denied Communion then declares, in the very same sentence, that they were forced to receive Communion in the hand. Both are serious allegations – but both cannot be true. One must be a falsehood. That is point number one.

Point number two is the subsequent post wherein the poster relates: I’ve already accepted that my son, who just finished the church’s altar server training, was told he would not be allowed to receive communion on the tongue while serving and much less receiving kneeling, which he has done up till now.

By the formulation, the poster has chosen to link this thought back to the original post and hence my statement that the solution is quite simple…the child should not serve, if the child or parent is unable to enthusiastically embrace this norm for liturgical service that receiving Communion standing and in the hand is in every way equal to receiving Communion kneeling and upon the tongue. This type of decision can properly be made for liturgical ministers by the one in charge of the liturgy, who have been granted the privilege of serving at the liturgy in the sanctuary.

You are the one who chose to put this into very strong language, when you wrote: ***No. it is a violation of our rights as Catholics.

It is not acceptable. It is not a “small inconvenience”. Nor should it be treated as if it were.***

As a priest, my counsel was, and is, to initiate a dialogue with the pastor – and also to understand that how the original poster acts, as for example, expressing positions that are “livid” and that falsely relate the events or that deviate from a sober account of the facts – as but three examples – can have very long term implications for the original poster in this new parish…and that the original poster does well to reflect upon that before taking action. Because once the action is taken, there is no undoing it…

In fact, I offered my counsel because the advice in certain posts on this thread was so singularly ill-advised as to be potentially disastrous – in my pastoral experience as a priest.

Has this, I hope, clarified the confusion from which you suffer?

 

[Don_Ruggero]

I disagree that anyone here, especially Don Ruggero, is confused, except maybe the OP.

The OP was not, by their own admission at the Mass where this happened, and then was filled with vitriol.

I agree wholeheartedly with his assessment that the people on this board are way to concerned about their rights and not at all concerned with the rights of clergy and their obligation to the whole flock, not just one family/person.

The only advice this person should have received was to calm down and talk with the Pastor and make sure the stroy they heard from their children was indeed how it happened. Then, and only then, should a discussion be had as to what can change to prevent something like this from happening again.

Precisely.

Yours is a balanced approach and to be commended.

I had so many people who would have some issue that arose. They would come to speak to me very calmly and my response would invariably be…well, “let us put our heads together and we’ll find a good solution.”

The person who called – or often enough came to the rectory door – at 9:01 (as the original poster said, "first thing Monday morning) in a livid state, making demands and threats, did not get the same warm reception from me. In fact, they found themselves put to the margin of the parish. Their every request to become involved was met with a very firm “No,” even by the other lay volunteers.

And they actually wondered that they were held at distance by everyone, especially the parish priest and the parish staff…

 

[Peebo]

At our church people receive the Blessed Sacrament in the hand…on the tongue…or kneeling and on the tongue…and everyone is happy…as they should be

 

[jmj777]

I thank everyone who advised to calmly and charitably speak with the pastor regarding this. I will approach it as if it was a mistake or an oversight.

The title of this post is accurate in that the EM **refused **to place the Holy Eucharist **on my younger daughter’s tongue **and told her “I only give in the hand…otherwise I’m blessing you.” He even went so far as to separate her “praying hands” in order to put the Host into her hands; even though her mouth was open the whole time to receive on the tongue.

He also told my older daughter, who was right behind her, “The Body of Christ” and seeing that her hands were in praying form and not receiving form he said, “You too,” and he proceeded to place the Host in her hands and not her mouth. All on the communion line…

This was not meant to be an argument about whether it was better to receive on the tongue vs. receiving in the hand. Everyone is entitled to receive either way. However, the Church holds we have a God-given right to receive on the tongue if we desire, despite the objections / personal preferences of the EM.

Peace.

+JMJ+