Kneeling at Communion vs. Standing with hand

[babochka]

At least one bishop was convinced that in the early church the cloth was used to cover the hands. At least that’s the reason he insisted a cloth be used on the altar rail inside the EF parish in his diocese.

St. John Cantius (Chicago) also uses the cloth at the altar rail. And I’m sure there are others.

There are no specific instructions but the custom is for the communicant to receive on the tongue while his hands are placed under the cloth. This in addition to the paten used by the server.

I am familiar with the use of the cloth, as I’ve been to an SSPX parish where one is used to cover the altar rail, but I’m not sure how its current use has anything to do with receiving in the hand. I’d never heard of the idea of people receiving in the hand while covered with a cloth and the only reference I was able to find on the subject is from Fr. Z., where he said:

In early centuries, where Holy Communion was still administered to the hands of the recipients (which wasn’t as common as some claim), men sometimes received directly on their hands, while women put their hands underneath a white cloth called a domenical or houseling cloth.

Those who advocate a wholesale return to the practices of the early Church (the liturgical archeologizing against which Ven. Pius XII warned) are often selective in what practices they wish to revive. In some places, both men and women used the houseling cloth.

It seems like this was a variable custom.

I’m not really a fan of receiving in the hand, but I just hate to see these statements thrown out there, that “this is the way it was done” without any sort of qualifications or references. The truth is, in antiquity there was a great deal of variety as to how things were done.

At any rate, I don’t wish to derail this thread into yet another debate about Communion in the hand. I just had never heard of the cloth being used in the way described.

 

[fin]

It would be well to give your rector a copy of Dominus Est, a booklet about Holy Communion.

ewtnreligiouscatalogue.com/Home+Page/BOOKS/Mass+Eucharist/DOMINUS+EST±+IT+IS+THE+LORD.axd

 

[ProVobis]

I am familiar with the use of the cloth, as I’ve been to an SSPX parish where one is used to cover the altar rail, but I’m not sure how its current use has anything to do with receiving in the hand. I’d never heard of the idea of people receiving in the hand while covered with a cloth and the only reference I was able to find on the subject is from Fr. Z., where he said:

It seems like this was a variable custom.

Variable custom was most likely. The form of the bread was probably different as well. (The round tongue-sized wafer was developed in the 11th(?) century. Vatican II encouraged a larger host.) I think the important part is where precaution is/was taken against profanity and/or sacrilege…Simply saying that people did things one way or another in the early centuries as a norm of some kind misses the point IMO.