This thing about “communion on the tongue”–really, why elevate a medieval innovation that simply makes it difficult to receive under both species?
Proper catechesis on reception in the hand is better. The teaching of St. Cyril of Jerusalem can simply be printed on a leaflet and given to everybody.
From Cyril’s “Catechetical Lecture 23”:
- After this ye hear the chanter inviting you with a sacred melody to the communion of the Holy Mysteries, and saying, O taste and see that the Lord is good. Trust not the judgment to your bodily palate no, but to faith unfaltering; for they who taste are bidden to taste, not bread and wine, but the anti-typical Body and Blood of Christ.
- In approaching therefore, come not with your wrists extended, or your fingers spread; but make your left hand a throne for the right, as for that which is to receive a King. And having hollowed your palm, receive the Body of Christ, saying over it, Amen. So then after having carefully hallowed your eyes by the touch of the Holy Body, partake of it; giving heed lest you lose any portion thereof ; for whatever you lose, is evidently a loss to you as it were from one of your own members. For tell me, if any one gave you grains of gold, would you not hold them with all carefulness, being on your guard against losing any of them, and suffering loss? Will you not then much more carefully keep watch, that not a crumb fall from you of what is more precious than gold and precious stones?
- Then after you have partaken of the Body of Christ, draw near also to the Cup of His Blood; not stretching forth your hands, but bending , and saying with an air of worship and reverence, Amen , hallow yourself by partaking also of the Blood of Christ. And while the moisture is still upon your lips, touch it with your hands, and hallow your eyes and brow and the other organs of sense. Then wait for the prayer, and give thanks unto God, who has accounted you worthy of so great mysteries.
Cyril takes for granted that this is the normal and proper way to receive, and it appears to have been the universal practice until the 9th century in the East, and the 12th century in the West (when communion on the tongue, under one species, became the norm for the laity).
Ironically, by this time, the fear of profanation was greatly reduced, anyway, since the laity had all but ceased to receive the Eucharist.
Adam Kemner Cyril simply says that, after having drunk from the Cup, we should touch our lips and then make the sign of the Cross upon our forehead.
As for infants, allowances are made, just as they are today. The baby would receive the Blood of Christ, if not on a spoon, then by having the celebrant dip a finger into the Chalice and bringing it to the baby’s lips. This was done for a millennium in the West. And infants are still communicated with the Blood alone, until the are able to swallow solid food.
Toddlers and older could probably receive just as adults do.
ZP
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There are numerous threads there on the topic of “communion in the hand.”
