How do you receive the Body of Christ?

[Oneofthewomen]

Actually, it works both ways. Have you ever heard the saying: “Fake it 'til you make it”? Taking on the discipline of reverent actions is a way to foster an attitude of reverence in ourselves. We can do the actions to externally manifest an existing inner reality of reverence or we can do the actions because we hope to create the inner reality.

I wish to note a Catholic teaching that is relevant to this discussion. * It is the sin of rash judgment to assume that another is making reverent gestures out of vainglory or other bad motives. We have a moral obligation to attribute good motives to people insofar as it is possible*.

Just as it is a sin to assume that someone who does not practice the same type of piety that I find desireable and “right” is not being reverent.

The whole reason I started this thread was to find out why people do what they do, so that I could learn, and therefore grow stronger in my faith.
Not to make judgements against each other.

 

[floresco]

Just as it is a sin to assume that someone who does not practice the same type of piety that I find desireable and “right” is not being reverent.

I think that a good case can be made that COTT is an objectively better practice. It is, after all, the norm of the Church. It is possible to claim this without negatively judging the motives of people who receive CITH. There is no reason to attribute bad motives to them.

The most common reasons that I hear from people who receive CITH is that they were taught this way, they feel comfortable this way, and they do not want to draw attention to themselves by doing something different from others. None of these is a malicious motive.

But Catholic morality does not work on the principle that everything done with acceptable motives is acceptable. Actions themselves often have a moral value and judging these is not a sin. On the contrary, it may even be virtuous to make this kind of judgment. The reluctance to say that one thing is good and another bad or less good contributes to relativism

 

[Lycorth]

I think that a good case can be made that COTT is an objectively better practice. It is, after all, the norm of the Church. It is possible to claim this without negatively judging the motives of people who receive CITH. There is no reason to attribute bad motives to them.

The most common reasons that I hear from people who receive CITH is that they were taught this way, they feel comfortable this way, and they do not want to draw attention to themselves by doing something different from others. None of these is a malicious motive.

But Catholic morality does not work on the principle that everything done with acceptable motives is acceptable. Actions themselves often have a moral value and judging these is not a sin. On the contrary, it may even be virtuous to make this kind of judgment. The reluctance to say that one thing is good and another bad or less good contributes to relativism

Well-said! Bravo

We could employ a cute turn of phrase - that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. I have no doubt that many of those who introduce modernist novelties into the Mass are doing so because they want to do what they feel is right and good during liturgy. Problem is, their good intentions do not impute goodness to their actions.

Many people today, clergy and laity alike, are contributing to the de-sacralization of the Mass and the entire Catholic faith without realizing it or intending to. The fruits of these actions, seen in the low attendances at Mass, low enrollments in the religious life, and poor spiritual lives amongst many Catholics today testify to this

 

[WatchingMedia]

I am not against tradition!
It was our richness and traditions that brought me back to the Church.
**What I am trying to do is understand and learn. **
And snarky comments from you and others in these forms only helps to increase my apprehension of so called “Traditional Catholics”.

Why do I have to pick a side?
Are we not one, holy, catholic and apostolic church?!

IMHO, we need to get away from either/or and start becoming both/and.:newidea:

I don’t know what you (and others) mean by traditional Catholics.

Regarding religion - There should be NO liberal or conservative, or people labeling other people as traditional or non-traditional in the Catholic Church. We should be following the teachings of the Church - end of subject.
If you have a particular Priest or Bishop who does not follow the teachings of the Church after you talk to him, contact the next person up. If you have to send an email to the Pope as a last resort, there is nothing wrong with that.

For those who choose to be Catholic, the teachings of the Church are defined in the Catholic Bible, and in the “Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition” revised in accordance with the official Latin text promulgated by Pope John Paul II, and first printed in the US in March 2000.
These are available to all of us.
(For those who wish to delve into Canon Law, that is also available for study.)

 

[ProVobis]

And snarky comments from you and others in these forms only helps to increase my apprehension of so called “Traditional Catholics”.

Please don’t jump to conclusions like that. I don’t consider myself a traditionalist. I feel if you’re sincere in your beliefs, be it liturgical dancing or clapping the entire Mass or condoning abusive practices (not that you do), then more power to you. However, when someone starts high-fiving another over a Pharisee call against a group that wants to preserve its traditions and customs, I consider that a little unfair.

 

[MarkThompson]

Really? Well, here’s what I know this morning. I’m sure you’ll attempt to correct me if you believe I’m wrong. After spending some time Googling this subject there does not seem to be a consensus on whether Mother Theresa actually said the words attributed to her.

From the Sisters of Charity site (bold font mine):

*"Mother Teresa would not have contradicted the Church. On the mode of receiving Holy Communion, she wrote to her sisters: “This is like the permission of the Bishops given some years ago for receiving Holy Communion in the hand. It is allowed, but not an order, … as M.C.s, we have chosen to receive Holy Communion on the tongue. If questioned about [it], do not enter into discussion – “let every spirit praise the Lord” – but let us pray that all be done for the greater glory of God and the good of the Church.”

You quoted “Wherever I go in the whole world, the thing that makes me the saddest is watching people receive Communion in the hand.” This statement does not seem authentic to us*. We have never heard Mother Teresa saying these words nor read them in her writings."

motherteresa.org/08_info/ReceivingC.html

So what does this tell us? Anonymously, someone speaking on behalf of the entire order claims the quote “does not seem authentic” and because she never heard Mother Teresa make such a statement it must be false.

Not exactly a definitive proof, would you agree?

Then there is the origin of the quote itself. One Father George William Rutler gave a sermon on Good Friday, 1989 in St. Agnes Church, New York City where he said Mother Teresa in answer to the question, ‘what makes you the saddest’ said: ‘Wherever I go in the whole world, the thing that makes me the saddest is watching people receive Communion in the hand.’"

There are many sites that post this quote as authentic but I’ve yet to find something official such as a transcript from the church’s archives.

So apparently we’ve moved on from the “hearsay” charge to complaining that it can’t be “definitively” proven what Mother Teresa’s opinion was. Of course, there’s no such thing as “definitive proof” that a person never made a statement. You’ll never, for instance, be able to offer definitive proof that Pius V never privately said he wanted to impose CITH in his missal but that Catholics were too clumsy to handle it.

And from what I’ve seen after only about 2 minutes of checking, Fr. Rutler has said:
This has been misquoted. Mother Teresa told me she thought the greatest sadness to her was how people receive communion unworthily. She made clear to me that she was not condemning communion in the hand per se and instructed me to make this very clear. I told her that I’d pray about it and write a clarification to which she responded, “We need it right away. I pray. You write.” I have published this statement many times and people willfully ignore it. This is bad faith. Mother preferred communion on the tongue, as do I, but her point was that the disposition of the heart is what matters, not whether one received on the tongue or in the ancient manner of in the hand. There are fanatics abroad who twist her words.

At this point it’s interesting to note that although Mother Teresa may not have made this quote she did make COTT the norm for her order. Combine that with our current pontiff doing the same when he distributes Holy Communion and I think every Catholic should ask themselves who’s example they’d rather follow: Mother Teresa or someone like Bishop Weakland.

Really? What a fun game. Let’s make sure we investigate how Fr. Marcial Maciel and Pope Alexander VI Borgia received communion too.

 

[Ockham]

And from what I’ve seen after only about 2 minutes of checking, Fr. Rutler has said:

Once again I’ll ask for your source. A link perhaps. I spent more than two minutes searching and did not find this quote.

 

[Ockham]

Really? What a fun game. Let’s make sure we investigate how Fr. Marcial Maciel and Pope Alexander VI Borgia received communion too.

If investigating is your thing then how about informing us how CITH came about recently.

 

[choy]

Actually, it works both ways. Have you ever heard the saying: “Fake it 'til you make it”? Taking on the discipline of reverent actions is a way to foster an attitude of reverence in ourselves. We can do the actions to externally manifest an existing inner reality of reverence or we can do the actions because we hope to create the inner reality.

I wish to note a Catholic teaching that is relevant to this discussion. It is the sin of rash judgment to assume that another is making reverent gestures out of vainglory or other bad motives. We have a moral obligation to attribute good motives to people insofar as it is possible.

but if you never know why the actions are as such, then how will reverence grow?

and didn’t Jesus even abolish traditions which He saw has lost its meaning? people keep doing it for the sake of tradition without understanding why. they just do it, thats the way they were taught and thats the way it was always done. reverence never grew out of it, simply because they already have forgotten the entire reason why they do it in the first place.

and the greatest threat here, is if a new kind of understanding comes out that is completely different from the purpose of the practice. if one makes their own interpretation of the practice, because they never knew what the practice was for, then the teaching has been compromised and the faith has been compromised. and now the tradition, the practice, breed heresy instead of reverence.

 

[MarkThompson]

Once again I’ll ask for your source. A link perhaps. I spent more than two minutes searching and did not find this quote.

See here, for instance. Is it “hearsay”? No doubt, but, of course, no more so than someone alleging that they once heard this priest make such a claim twenty years ago.

If investigating is your thing then how about informing us how CITH came about recently.

Because I don’t care, and it’s irrelevant. The causes why something happened are generally a bad way of judging whether the result is good and should be kept up. It’s like the people who say that Archbishop Lefebvre was a great guy and will be canonized because without him we wouldn’t have the TLM around today. Wrong analysis. Lefebvre was disobedient and guilty of schismatic acts, and he died outside the Church (and extra ecclesiam, remember, there’s nulla salus). It’s pure consequentialism to judge his personal merits on the basis of their outcome. The converse problem applies to the constant claims that go, “Oh, Cranmer [or Luther, or Calvin, or Zwingli, or someone; people can never decide] introduced communion in the hand, so that pretty much speaks for itself about the merits of that practice.”

Your arguments are all just forms of ad hominem, appeal to irrelevant authority, and opinion. “CITH was introduced by awful Protestants and practiced by homosexuals like Archbishop Weakland! It made Mother Teresa cry! It’s irreverent!” All this effort to avoid having to defend your position with any logical argument or empirical evidence? You’ll defend to the death the dubious authenticity of a Mother Teresa quote before spending five minutes promoting the merits of COTT itself? Heck, I favor COTT. I just don’t bother pretending that people on the other side of the question are evil and out to Protestantize the Church, or that my own personal opinion of what’s “reverent” matters two bits to anyone else.

 

[Ockham]

See here, for instance. Is it “hearsay”? No doubt, but, of course, no more so than someone alleging that they once heard this priest make such a claim twenty years ago.

Because I don’t care, and it’s irrelevant. The causes why something happened are generally a bad way of judging whether the result is good and should be kept up. It’s like the people who say that Archbishop Lefebvre was a great guy and will be canonized because without him we wouldn’t have the TLM around today. Wrong analysis. Lefebvre was disobedient and guilty of schismatic acts, and he died outside the Church (and extra ecclesiam, remember, there’s nulla salus). It’s pure consequentialism to judge his personal merits on the basis of their outcome. The converse problem applies to the constant claims that go, “Oh, Cranmer [or Luther, or Calvin, or Zwingli, or someone; people can never decide] introduced communion in the hand, so that pretty much speaks for itself about the merits of that practice.”

Your arguments are all just forms of ad hominem, appeal to irrelevant authority, and opinion. “CITH was introduced by awful Protestants and practiced by homosexuals like Archbishop Weakland! It made Mother Teresa cry! It’s irreverent!” All this effort to avoid having to defend your position with any logical argument or empirical evidence? You’ll defend to the death the dubious authenticity of a Mother Teresa quote before spending five minutes promoting the merits of COTT itself? Heck, I favor COTT. I just don’t bother pretending that people on the other side of the question are evil and out to Protestantize the Church, or that my own personal opinion of what’s “reverent” matters two bits to anyone else.

You have spent a great deal of time insinuating points I’ve never asserted.

Try again on the history of CITH. I know you are a clever chap so it shouldn’t be a difficult task.

I don’t know whether Mother Teresa made that quote or not. It doesn’t matter to my argument. Let’s take it off the table shall we?

 

[choy]

Communion in the hand should show, as much as communion on the tongue, due respect towards the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. For this reason emphasis should be laid, as was done by the Fathers of the Church, upon the dignity of the gesture of the communicant. Thus, the newly baptized at the end of the fourth century were directed to stretch out both hands making ‘the left hand a throne for the right hand, which receives the King’ (Fifth mystagogical catechesis of Cyril of Jerusalem, n. 21: PG 33. col 1125, or Sources chretiennes, 126, p 171; Saint John Chrysostom, Homily 47: PG 63, col. 898. etc.).*

"* In practice the opposite direction has to be given to the faithful: the left hand is to be placed upon the right hand, so that the sacred host can be conveyed to the mouth with the right hand.

learned this from my parish priest’s homily today. the instructions for receiving in the hand were given by St. John Chrysostom

 

[ProVobis]

the newly baptized at the end of the fourth century were directed to stretch out both hands making ‘the left hand a throne for the right hand, which receives the King’ (Fifth mystagogical catechesis of Cyril of Jerusalem, n. 21: PG 33. col 1125, or Sources chretiennes, 126, p 171; Saint John Chrysostom, Homily 47: PG 63, col. 898. etc.).*

"* In practice the opposite direction has to be given to the faithful: the left hand is to be placed upon the right hand, so that the sacred host can be conveyed to the mouth with the right hand.

That story may not be true or may be misleading:

franciscan-archive.org/apologetica/tongue.html

 

[choy]

that writeup was waken from EWTN

 

[ProVobis]

or that my own personal opinion of what’s “reverent” matters two bits to anyone else.

But is it just reverence we should be concerned about? Take, for example, a newly married couple exchanging pieces of cake with each other. Isn’t there a reason why they put it directly in each other’s mouth, with the reason being that it is symbolic of acknowledging dependency on each other? What would be the significance if they just eat from their own plates? Far different, I would think. In a similar way, not implying that the inverse is true, but don’t we show more dependency on Christ if we receive on the tongue?

PS. This isn’t Church theology. I’m just trying to make a point.

 

[floresco]

but if you never know why the actions are as such, then how will reverence grow?

I think that some actions are so instinctively reverent for us, that they foster reverence even without conscious understanding. I would put kneeling and COTH in this category.

and didn’t Jesus even abolish traditions which He saw has lost its meaning? people keep doing it for the sake of tradition without understanding why. they just do it, thats the way they were taught and thats the way it was always done. reverence never grew out of it, simply because they already have forgotten the entire reason why they do it in the first place.

I can think of one example where there was a tradition that was contrary to the Law and He criticized people for following it. I can not, however, think of examples of Jesus abolishing traditions that lost their meaning. Rather, He attempted to restore the meaning to the tradition. He did not, for example, tell people to stop praying or to stop fasting. He told them to do these things in a way that would be more meaningful.

There is always a danger of rituals becoming meaningless, but that does mean that the solution is to never have any rituals.

and the greatest threat here, is if a new kind of understanding comes out that is completely different from the purpose of the practice. if one makes their own interpretation of the practice, because they never knew what the practice was for, then the teaching has been compromised and the faith has been compromised. and now the tradition, the practice, breed heresy instead of reverence.

I am not aware of any heresies that came about this way. I cannot think of any example of what you are talking about. If it were really so great a danger, I would expect it to have happened frequently.

 

[CDNowak]

I am not aware of any heresies that came about this way. I cannot think of any example of what you are talking about. If it were really so great a danger, I would expect it to have happened frequently.

The modern resurgence of Utraquism is one.

 

[Ockham]

learned this from my parish priest’s homily today. the instructions for receiving in the hand were given by St. John Chrysostom

The Church ruled against St. John and St. Cyril’s appeal for CITH making COTT the norm (still today). Pope Paul VI wrote that the method of COTT must be retained. The bishops were surveyed and voted against CITH. Strange that the CITH proponents appeal for odedience towards it when its indult status was only granted after much disobedience.

It is relevant to learn and understand the history of this latest infatuation with CITH. During the sixties Holland was a bastion of rebellion and CITH became a symbol of their disobedience towards the Vatican. The bishops there were in favour of female ordination and married priests too.

Can anyone provide any theological or dogmatic support for CITH beyond the “make your palm a throne” quote or the good ol ‘it’s in the GIRM!’?

 

[choy]

I am not aware of any heresies that came about this way. I cannot think of any example of what you are talking about. If it were really so great a danger, I would expect it to have happened frequently.

correct me if i’m wrong, but didn’t Martin Luther receive kneeling, on the tongue, in a TLM, before the Reformation?

 

[Rachel_1]

First thing, I didn’t read all the replies to this so this is only a reply to the OP’s first post.
I prefer COTT but depending on where I am (I attend two parishes) I may have CITH so as to not cause others to be ‘distracted’ I guess.
Pretty much, I go along with what the Church says, the Church says either way is good… ok then