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Aelred_Minor
Guest
Let me just point out that factual historical matters (especially after Biblical times) like these are open to dispute even if a Pope takes a particular position on them (unless he does so when he actually is Pope and defines it as a matter of faith, but that’s not the case here).I am not getting into this.
But I will note for readers these quotes:
Cardinal Ratzinger (prior to being Pope Benedict XVI) notes that it was the practice of the Early Church.
He notes in God and the World “I wouldn’t be fussy about it. It was done in the early Church. A reverent manner of receiving Communion in the hand is in itself a perfectly reasonable way to receive Communion” (pg 410)
"…we know that until the ninth century Communion was received in the hand, standing. That does not of course mean that it should always do so. For what is fine, sublime, about the Church is that she is growing, maturing, understanding the mystery more profoundly. In the that sense the new development that began after the ninth century is quite justified, as an expression of reverence, and is well founded. But, on the other hand, we have to say that the Church could not possibly have been celebrating the Eucharist unworthily for nine hundred years. If we read what the Fathers say, we can see in what a spirit of reverence they received Communion…
We should be concerned only to argue in favor of what the Church’s efforts directed toward, both before and after the ninth century, that is a reverence in the heart, an inner submission before the mystery of God that puts himself into our hands…"
Cardinal Ratzinger “God Is Near Us” Ignatius Press Pg 70 2001
I also recall but have not found it at the moment-- that he gave an answer as Pope in a Q & A session with Priests that was similar…
He certainly knows of what he speaks…both as Prefect of the Cong. for the Doctrine of the Faith at the time …and now as Pope.
With intellect of this man and his scholarship…his mastery of the Early Fathers…his love and expertise in Liturgy…not to mention the resources he had at the CDF and now as Pope…(his Library is much bigger than mine)
I will go with him.
I’ve several times heard that the position, once practically universally accepted in much of the twentieth century, that communion on the hand was normative in the Early Church, is now coming increasingly into question (by whom I can’t say- I’m just passing on third-hand information).
It might be that Cardinal Ratzinger expressed a conclusion about history that was mainstream at the time but is no longer so today or will not be sometime in the future. It can be legitimate to go back to the primary historical documents and reevaluate if they really support what earlier generations of historians claimed they supported. That will not, of course, change the the facts of the current liturgical norms.
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