Help! I'm creeped out going to EMHCs for Communion!

[happymommy]

Yeah, it might actually take a little longer. No doubt about that. Heck it might even run past kickoff time or the close of the breakfast buffet.

Couldn’t have that happen now could we?

Not sure what you mean. We are always one of the last people to leave church, so staying longer is not a problem. Are you assuming that we race out the door? You shouldn’t do that.

 

[happymommy]

OMgosh, give it a rest. If my original feelings about EMHC were half as strong as your feelings about saying “Creeped out” there might be a problem. It’s just a figure of speech.

I’ve explained myself. Let’s all major on the major things of the faith and not pick people’s words apart. That wasn’t the focus.
Reading skill focus: Look for the main idea.
I teach that in 3rd grade.

It was a headline for goodness’ sake. So people would read my thread and give me suggestions for how to avoid the EMHC and get to the priest. It worked. That’s journalism.

Several folk have offered me suggestions, just like I asked in my OP. Good thing I’m not running for president.

I wasn’t talking to you, but the person who used the term over and over, I think the rest of what I said was on topic!

 

[graceandglory]

Perhaps you should get to know some of these people. Maybe then, it will make it easier for you. .

Perhaps the ladies I’m thinking of are my best friends. Even if my best friend is an EMHC doesn’t mean I want to receive the Eucharist on my tongue from her.

I’m just saying… …

 

[Corki]

The priest celebrant is the Eucharistic Minister. The lay people are duly commissioned to be extensions of his hands during the distribution of Holy Communion. So whether you receive from the priest, deacon, or lay person, you are still receiving from the priest, the Eucharistic Minister.

There are so many things wrong in that paragraph. The Eucharistic Minister is he who confects the Eucharist. The Ordinary Ministers of Communion are the priests, deacons and bishops regardless of whether they celebrated the Mass. You receive either from them or from another designated to distribute communion. They are not commissioned in any way to be extensions of the Priest as Eucharistic Minister. Their only commission is distribution.

The faithful don’t have a right to receive from a priest. Where in the liturgical documents does it say that? Cite a source, please.

I don’t think you need a document. It is in the nomenclature. The priest, deacon or bishop is the ordinary minister of communion. The ordinary should be preferrable to the extraordinary.

I hope that was just a rumor.

At my old parish I would always go to EMs for the ashes because the priest was old and lazy and would just put a thumbprint of ashes while the EMs made proper crosses.

When a lay person is distributing ashes he/she is not acting as an EM (or EMHC, more correctly). Anyone can be designated to distrubute ashes.

One of the priests at our church makes it a point to stand in a different place each Sunday. Occasionally, if he notices “line jumpers,” he will quietly switch with the EMHC next to him.

This priest should be reported and sent to diversity training. This is very intolerant of those communicants who might be from an Eastern tradition or from a country where receiving from lay people is not allowed. The communion line is no place to play “keep away” with the Eucharist.

The “big deal” is that if someone is distracted or made to feel uncomfortable receiveing from a EMHC, he/she should feel free to go to the priest’s line and retain his/her peace.

 

[happymommy]

Perhaps the ladies I’m thinking of are my best friends. Even if my best friend is an EMHC doesn’t mean I want to receive the Eucharist on my tongue from her.

I’m just saying… …

Please, do whatever you want, I truly don’t care. My only point was that it, and this is my opinion, shouldn’t matter who you receive the Eucharist from. No you have said that you disagree with me, fine. Once again, I don’t care.

 

[Sarabande]

But adding a doctrine about “consecrated” or “anointed” hands is going beyond human weakness or preference. We are not supposed to add our own doctrines to the Church’s dogma, right?

I don’t think anyone was adding doctrine. What you missed is that this was something people were taught over 40 years ago - it was ingrained in them as truth. When they left and came back to the Church it was still ingrained in them. It’s very hard to break old habits. I as a musician know this just from old habits in singing and I know that you know this as well as a musician yourself. Even when we are changing or improving our technique, old techniques/habits stay very strongly in our muscle and mind memory. These people has had this belief ingrained since childhood - about consecrated and anointed hands. It can disturb someone like them seeing lay people no matter how much they know conciously that it’s fine by the Church now… Just like how it can disturb us when learning a new vocal or pano technique that we know is right, but still can’t let go of the old one.

Give these reverts a break on this.

 

[MusicMan]

I don’t think you need a document. It is in the nomenclature. The priest, deacon or bishop is the ordinary minister of communion. The ordinary should be preferrable to the extraordinary.

Only in their usage. One should be so humbled to receive the Lord Jesus Christ that it should make no difference who brings him from the Holy Altar to their tongue.

 

[EasterJoy]

Perhaps the ladies I’m thinking of are my best friends. Even if my best friend is an EMHC doesn’t mean I want to receive the Eucharist on my tongue from her.

I’m just saying… …

I’m a EMHC. My feeling for you is this: go to the priest, going around to the end of his line if you have to, if you really are only comfortable with the priest. I would hope I could accept you where you are, no matter what your reasons are, but whether I accept it or not isn’t your problem. I see myself as a minister, albeit an extraordinary one, there to serve, not to push myself on you or between you and the Lord. I hope your best friend would understand, too. We all have something we’re dealing with. Who knows? Maybe your “something” that seems to me a fault, is a virtue, or a trial. (I’m speaking in the general case now, not about this case in particular.) All I know is that I would not feel comfortable making your acceptance of me on any given day an essential when it is not. That seems to me to be the tail wagging the dog.

You might consider putting yourself in a postion during Lent, though, where you will only receive Holy Communion from one of the EMsHC. I mean for you to consider whether that might be a penance for you that you could profit from, not that I know that it would be profitable for you. Eventually, one would hope we’d all be willing to receive Our Lord from a leper who had been a prostitute and who had open sores on her hands, if that somehow confronted us as the ministry Our Lord asked of us. Until you are ready to tackle it head on, though, I would want you to do what puts you at peace when you receive Our Lord, in terms of where you are today. As a EMHC, that would be the main thing, from my point of view.

I would rather, though, that you not refer to receiving Our Lord in Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity as “the full meal deal”. I can’t imagine you mean any irreverence by it, but somehow the flippancy of that way of putting it seems out of place to me. Maybe that is just my “something”, but I needed to add that. I mean no offense by it; I hope you know what I mean.

 

[RosalieM]

I don’t want to reply to each post quoting me because I’ll have too many posts here.
Someone was right in explaining my revert feelings. I came back after many changes had been made. I was shocked at first to see women not wearing head coverings. I still wear a chapel veil at weekend mass sometimes or something on my head unless I am singing in the choir. I prefer receiving communion from the priest. I love it when we have some good old Latin hymns and chants. I also deeply appreciate many of the changes from Vatican II. I’m grateful to be back and wouldn’t trade it for a pot of gold. As for deacons; yep; I’d still prefer a priest for the giving of communion. But that’s just me. As I said to a friend the other day; I’m used to being misunderstood. I’m not putting down EMHC’s or deacons. I don’t know what more I can say to explain; so God bless you.

 

[EasterJoy]

This priest should be reported and sent to diversity training. This is very intolerant of those communicants who might be from an Eastern tradition or from a country where receiving from lay people is not allowed. The communion line is no place to play “keep away” with the Eucharist.

The “big deal” is that if someone is distracted or made to feel uncomfortable receiveing from a EMHC, he/she should feel free to go to the priest’s line and retain his/her peace.

Where I would not feel comfortable as a EMHC trying to force the issue with someone intent on avoiding me, I would still accept it if the pastor insisted on that communicants not take it upon themselves to be picky about which licit minister they receive Holy Communion from. I would resist if he asked me to be his “enforcer”, but I would not take it upon myself to object if he did it himself.

But then, the way I see it, the priest is the “doctor”. As an EMHC, I’m just the orderly. With the exception of really serious violations, I don’t think I have any business telling him how to “practice medicine”. If I don’t like the kind of “spots” he puts me in, I can always let someone else take the position.

 

[PJM]

I long for the Eucharist. I am unable to be a daily communicant so I look forward to the full meal deal on Sundays.

We have one priest and loads of EHMCs. How do I know where to sit, so I can receive on the tongue from the priest, instead of in the hand by a woman wearing lavender polyester stretchy pants?

Is there a general rule for priests to always serve to one side or the other? Any clues to look for when I arrive as to which side the priest will take that day?

Just wondering. As a “revert” I never got used to the EMHCs to begin with, now it seems I have no choice.

Thanks!

Reply:

Welccome home sister

Not to change the topic, nut OMHC’s would be moaew accurate.
Every day and in “every church” is hardly Extrodinary:thumbsup:

Not sure I would have used the same discription, but I sure do agree with you.

Two suggestions:

1. Ask the Unsher when you arrive for Mass.
2. Is a bit more difficult. Sit near the main aisle and movw to the line that Father is giving Holy Communion in.

To answer your question, I know of no requirement, however most priest will regullarly distribute from the same location.

I have been in a few Church’s where the priest switches on purpose so as not to make it “habit forming” to receive from the priest.

Personaly I try always to receive from the priest, alway’s receive on my tongue, gemuflect before receiving My Lord, keep my hand folded and my head down. I only take the Blood of Jesus from a priest or deacon. And I kneel when I return to the pew.

All of these are “acceptable options” that should be available to all Catholics.

God bless,

PJM m.c.

 

[RosalieM]

PJM, thanks! I do a partial genuflect because I can’t do a full one. I’m working up the nerve to receive on the tongue – like I used to.

 

[Nuance]

When a lay person is distributing ashes he/she is not acting as an EM (or EMHC, more correctly). Anyone can be designated to distrubute ashes.

I know, but at every Mass I’ve ever been to on Ash Wednesday, when someone other than the priest was giving communion or distributing ashes the set of EMHCs was exactly the same as the set of “lay people distributing ashes.” Also, EM is easier to type than “lay people distributing ashes.”
And I omitted the HC because they were distributing ashes rather than the HC.

 

[CatsAndDogs]

I’m working up the nerve to receive on the tongue – like I used to.

Just “present mouth” and keep your hands in a praying position.

What are they going to do? Throw you bodily out of the way?

It’ll be fine, believe me. <chuckle!> You might get a slight “surprise” reaction from the extraodinary minister (or maybe even the Priest!), but just “be cool”, they’ll figure it out. And you might want to have a slight smile on your face should they be “alarmed”.

:shamrock2:

 

[JulianN]

This priest should be reported and sent to diversity training. This is very intolerant of those communicants who might be from an Eastern tradition or from a country where receiving from lay people is not allowed. The communion line is no place to play “keep away” with the Eucharist.

I’m fairly sure he would not do this if he were, in fact, in a country where receiving from lay people is not allowed. I also don’t think he is playing “keep away” – no one is being denied the Eucharist. If everyone felt they needed to exert their “right” to receive from the priest, it would affect more than coffee hour – he would be distributing Communion when the next Mass was ready to begin – or later. We’re talking hundreds of people and one priest – it is exactly the sort of situation for which EMHCs are commissioned.

 

[Nuance]

It’s not a matter of country. In the Maronite rite, only a priest can minister the Eucharist, and you must receive on the tongue. My father and grandmother are Maronite and so when we go to mass at the Roman church (about 3/4ths of Sundays) they try to receive from the priest (my father tries, my grandmother insists ) and on the tongue.

 

[quiet52]

Not to change the topic, nut OMHC’s would be moaew accurate.
Every day and in “every church” is hardly Extrodinary:thumbsup:

the lay people commissioned to help distribute Holy Communion are called “extraordinary ministers of HC” because they are “outside the ordained.” The term originates from Latin, not from the English language. The priest is the “ordinary” – the “ordained.”

 

[JulianN]

It’s not a matter of country. In the Maronite rite, only a priest can minister the Eucharist, and you must receive on the tongue. My father and grandmother are Maronite and so when we go to mass at the Roman church (about 3/4ths of Sundays) they try to receive from the priest (my father tries, my grandmother insists ) and on the tongue.

But we were talking about a Latin rite – where EMHCs are allowed.

 

[Nuance]

Yes, but that doesn’t change the belief of Maronites that the priest should be the only minister, and thus that they should only receive from a priest and on the tongue. Any person from an Eastern rite church that believed the same who visited the described priest’s church would effectually have to chase him around the church in order to properly receive Eucharist. That’s not right.

 

[MusicMan]

It is asked that when attending the Liturgy in a Particular Church other than your own, you attempt to respect their liturgical traditions whenever possible. Typically, this means bowing vs. genuflecting, crossing yourself in the order (and frequency) that Rite uses, reciting or omitting the filioque, etc.

It is also asked that we be hospitable in our Particular Churches to our Catholic brethren, regardless of Particular Church.

At all times, people should be allowed to receive on the tongue. To do otherwise is absolutely heinous. To deny a Maronite the right to receive on the tongue is not only heinous but absolutely terrible hospitality.

I can understand a priest wanting to prevent line jumping if he is properly employing lay people as emsHC. However, doing it to Eastern Rite Catholics would be poor hospitality.

If I were a Maronite who found myself attending a Latin church with regularity, I might have a chat with the pastor just to make sure that some of my traditions were able to be respected, like receiving only from a priest.

Now, in the Latin Rite and for Latin Rite Catholics, I think the notion that it is improper to receive from properly employed lay people serving as emsHC is absurd.