The question also arises, just because the Apostles received Holy Communion in the hand, as did the early Christians, does that make it a sufficient argument for Communion in the hand? Pope Pius XII wrote in his encyclical
Mediator Dei in 1947 that
“The liturgy of the early ages is worthy of veneration; but an ancient custom is not to be considered better, either in itself or in relation to later times and circumstances, just because it has the flavour of antiquity…It would be wrong, for example, to want the altar restored to its ancient form of a table; to want black excluded from the liturgical colours, and pictures and statues excluded from our churches.”
As the author Michael Davies put it, the encyclical “contained an urgent warning against those who attempt to subvert the Faith under the pretext of a return to primitive practice”.
It is also worth noting that while the Church Fathers may have referred to Communion being given in the hand, it was not
received by the communicant in the same manner as it is today. In the early Church, the Christians would have (as St Cyril says) made “the left hand a throne for the right since this hand is about to receive the King”. The similarity ends there, for they did not actually pick up the sacred host, but bowed before it and then consumed it directly from the palm of their hand. I would suggest reading
Dominus Est - it is the Lord by Bishop Athanasius Schneider if you are interested in the history of the method of receiving Holy Communion.
However, to tie the concerns of Pope Pius XII with the account of the reception of the Eucharist as given by St Cyril: the latter says after the part I quoted earlier
“Making the palm hollow, receive the Body of Christ, adding ‘Amen’. Then, carefully sanctifying the eyes by touching them with the holy Body, partake of it, ensuring that you do not mislay any of it…After you have partaken of the Body of Christ, come forward also for the cup of the Blood…Say ‘Amen’, and sanctify yourself by partaking of Christ’s Blood also. While the moisture is still on your lips, touch them with your hands and sanctify your eyes, your forehead, and all your other sensory organs…”
So, because the early Christians received Communion in the hand, should we recommend touching our eyes with the Eucharist, or touching our eyes and sensory organs with the Precious Blood? I doubt anyone would suggest that we should.
The point is that pious methods of reception of Holy Communion have developed over the centuries. Various practices have come and gone, and the practice of receiving on the tongue came from an acute awareness of the Real Presence - Communion on the tongue was the norm in some places by the end of the 6th century, and the Roman Ordo of the 9th century accepts Communion on the tongue as normal practice. In short, handling the sacred host was, as Pope John Paul II noted, a “privilege of the ordained”. The next tradition of communion in the hand began at the Protestant “reformation” where there was no problem with handling the communion since it was not believed to be the body of Christ, nor was doing so considered a privilege of the ordained. In short, to the Protestant “reformers”, placing the host on the communicant’s tongue signified that the Eucharist was not ordinary bread and it gave the impression that the priest posessed powers (i.e. the authority to touch the Eucharist) that the layman did not.
One could actually ask whether the current method of receiving Holy Communion in the hand is more in line with the customs of the “reformers” than the customs recounted by the Early Church Fathers. Either way, neither is a good enough argument for Communion in the hand.
Almost all college students you understand.