JKirkLVNV:
Communion in the hand was the practice of the patristic Church for a ALL, lay and ordained.
Agreed, and then it was disallowed due to abuses…
And now it is permitted again. For the centuries that It was given on the tongue alone, there were abuses as well, occultists still hived off with It and did what they intended to do.
It isn’t clear that the context states that Holy Father was teaching that only consecrated hands could handle the Sacred Species.
Absolutely, he was only reminding us of the special character of the priesthood, which followed his statements regarding his concern about the lack of respect for the Eucharist that followed the reintroduction of reception in the hand --not by all, but by some who receive that way. Let’s say it enables those who are apt to be disrespectful. I’ve witnessed several priests who take the sanctity of the sacrament seriously have to run after parishioners who did not appear to be consuming the host after receiving in the hand. I doubt that they had Satanic rituals in mind,
but some do think of it as a “take away” meal.
**I rather doubt the above emphasized. I think it’s probably people who shouldn’t have been receiving anyway, either Protestants or the completely unchurched, by and large. A catechized Catholic would know what to do. **
No, Pope John Paul II didn’t care for it, but for whatever reason, he did not reach the point of disallowing it. ( A great man with a great legacy, but in his last book, he conceded that he felt he had some weaknesses in the area of management.)
And we would disagree that his continued allowance of communion in the hand was a sign of poor management.
I can see from most of your posts that you’re a bit put off by some of the more traditional manifestations of the Church or perhaps, by the people who manifest them. I’m sorry if the latter is the case. It is possible, though, that under the current Pope, more parishes will start to adhere more faithfully to the preferences stated in Sacrosantum Concilium re: Latin in the ordinary parts of the Mass and Gregorian Chant having pride of place, so hopefully you’re open to that as well.
**It’s a good rule of thumb to never to leap to a conclusion. I’m not put off by traditional manifestations nor the people who practice them. I’m put off by bad history being used to grind a liturgical or ecclesiastical axe (many “traditionalists” cry “antiquarianism” when anyone appeals to the patristic period, which is a manifestation of ignorance given their “antiquarianism” in assuming that everything was ashes and sawdust until Trent and nothing will be right again until we get back to Trent, as though it was the only Council and Saint Pius V the only pope or the old saw that “well, of course the apostles rec. in the hand, but they were bishops and no one else received that way,” all historical evidence to the contrary). I’m put off by assertions that communion in the hand is irreverent (no one has any idea of what is in my heart when I go to receive Him), that the laity should never approach the Most Sacred Blood in the Chalice (patent absurdity), that an altar isn’t really an altar unless it’s stuck up against a wall and looks like a Gothic side board (an altar is what the Church says an altar is), that ad populum is just plain stupid and any sane person would recognize that (most of my life as an Anglican was spent in a parish where the “Eucharist” was celebrated ad orientum and it makes not a whit’s worth of difference. If our priest turned his back to us tomorrow, I wouldn’t care a toss, but I’m sick of people going on as though the Anti-Christ has slithered up onto the altar just because the priest faces the people). I don’t mind people who simply prefer those disciplines or ways of celebrating the liturgy, I mind those who anathematize the rest of us or who assume a “more Catholic than the Pope” attitude toward the rest of us. I consider myself an orthodox Catholic, rotten sinner though I may be, in that I submit to and believe in the Church’s teachings, on everything, and obey Her disciplines. **
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AND if you will read my first post to the OP, you’ll see where I defended his right to receive on the tongue. Why? Because that’s the way the Church has said it should be…he or she should have the freedom to rec. that way.
