L'Osservatore Romano: Catholics should kneel, receive communion on tongue

[universalindult]

This article in L’Osservatore Romano seems to be reinforcing Archbishop Ranjith’s similar statements in an interview this past fall.

Bishop says Catholics should kneel, receive communion on tongue

CNS
January 8, 2008
Cindy Wooden

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The reverence and awe of Catholics who truly believe they are receiving Jesus in the Eucharist should lead them to kneel and receive Communion on their tongues, said a bishop writing in the Vatican newspaper.

“If some nonbeliever arrived and observed such an act of adoration perhaps he, too, would ‘fall down and worship God, declaring, God is really in your midst,’” wrote Auxiliary Bishop Athanasius Schneider of Karaganda, Kazakhstan, quoting from the First Letter to the Corinthians.

In a Jan. 8 article labeled a “historical-liturgical note,” Bishop Schneider reviewed the writings of early church theologians about eucharistic reception and said the practice of laypeople receiving Communion on the tongue was the predominant custom by the sixth century.

The article in L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, appeared under the headline, “Like a nursing child in the arms of the one who nourishes him.”

Bishop Schneider said that just as a baby opens his mouth to receive nourishment from his mother, so should Catholics open their mouths to receive nourishment from Jesus.

“Christ truly nourishes us with his body and blood in holy Communion and, in the patristic era, it was compared to maternal breastfeeding,” he said.

“The awareness of the greatness of the eucharistic mystery is demonstrated in a special way by the manner in which the body of the Lord is distributed and received,” the bishop wrote.

In addition to demonstrating true adoration by kneeling, he said, receiving Communion on the tongue also avoids concerns about people receiving the body of Christ with dirty hands or of losing particles of the Eucharist, concerns that make sense if people truly believe in the sacrament.

“Wouldn’t it correspond better to the deepest reality and truth about the consecrated bread if even today the faithful would kneel on the ground to receive it, opening their mouths like the prophet receiving the word of God and allowing themselves to be nourished like a child?” Bishop Schneider asked.

In 1969 the Vatican published an instruction allowing bishops to permit the distribution of Communion in the hand. While at papal liturgies most people who receive Communion from the pope receive Communion on the tongue, they also are permitted to reverently receive the Eucharist in the hand.

 

[rien]

This is a side note:

How did a Bishop Schneider of Karaganda, Kazakhstan come about?

Is this a totally new missionary area with no local clergy? His name sure sounds Western. All I know is this a largely Muslim area with very small minorities of Orthodox and pentecostals. Just curious.

It reminds me of an old WKRP rerun episode. Where Les Nessman is covering some kind of politcal scandal in a Polish organization. He attends a dinner thrown by the group. The food is Italian I beleive, non-Polish anyway, and all he can come back to the boss with is why are Poles eating Italian food???.

Don’t mean to be flip. I think humor is allowed here - this is what I first thought of when I read of Bishop Schneider of Karaganda, Kazakhstan.

 

[belgianwaffles9]

This is a side note:

How did a Bishop Schneider of Karaganda, Kazakhstan come about?

Is this a totally new missionary area with no local clergy? His name sure sounds Western. All I know is this a largely Muslim area with very small minorities of Orthodox and pentecostals. Just curious.

It reminds me of an old WKRP rerun episode. Where Les Nessman is covering some kind of politcal scandal in a Polish organization. He attends a dinner thrown by the group. The food is Italian I beleive, non-Polish anyway, and all he can come back to the boss with is why are Poles eating Italian food???.

Don’t mean to be flip. I think humor is allowed here - this is what I first thought of when I read of Bishop Schneider of Karaganda, Kazakhstan.

I found the website, because i loved the fact that he chose the name Athanasius, and it turns out there is some Catholicism there, due to the presence of Franciscan missioaries in the 1400s and 1500s, it appears. Apparently, there is also a Greek Catholic presence.

catholic-kazakhstan.org/

 

[childofmary1143]

It reminds me of an old WKRP rerun episode. Where Les Nessman is covering some kind of politcal scandal in a Polish organization. He attends a dinner thrown by the group. The food is Italian I beleive, non-Polish anyway, and all he can come back to the boss with is why are Poles eating Italian food???.

The episode is when Mr. Carlson was running for City Council and his main rival was at an “Armenians for… Dinner” where his rival passed out on the lasagna due to being an alcoholic. Less responded saying “Why are Armenians eating Lasagna?” in a very conspiratorial tone. Very Hilarious. Sorry if this is off topic.

 

[Bonnie]

Oh, how I would love to kneel when I receive! But - we have been told not to. I even asked for special permission at the one parish in our area that still has an altar rail, but was denied.

 

[Dakota_mom]

To Bonnie. No one has the right to refuse you communion because you are kneeling. We just recently went through that question after Bishop Brown in California refused a woman Communion because she was kneeling. It is so sad that some priests and church communities are so uninformed. Pray that your church will come back to appreciate a little tradition and orthodoxy.

 

[Bonnie]

I would do that but I’m partially disabled. I can’t get back up again unless I’m holding on to something, like an altar rail. That would have put me in a different line from everyone else.

Last summer on vacation we went to a parish that didn’t have an altar rail, but the priest stood very near the first pew. As is my habit when I can grab on to a support, I genuflected. After mass we said hello to the priest & said we were from a different state. He proceeded to chew me out for “creating a dangerous situation” by genuflecting. He said he “knew” people who had been hurt by tripping over those who genuflect. Somehow, I don’t think he was being quite truthful!

Anyone ever hear of people tripping over those who genuflect or kneel?

 

[universalindult]

Good documentation here:

EUCHARISTIC PIETY: A STRONG RECOMMENDATION

…

Recovery from this piety void and from youth’s doctrinal haziness about the Real Presence will hopefully come about with the full and complete implementation of the Eucharistic doctrine of the Second Vatican Council. One document, issued on May 25, 1967, by the Sacred Congregation of Rites, which was intended to implement the Conciliar decree on the Liturgy and Worship of the Eucharist, is Eucharisticum Mysterium. In this document is found a recommendation which has since been repeated on April 3, 1980, in Inaestimabile Donum, a document by the Sacred Congregation for Sacraments and Divine Worship, the publication of which was ordered by John Paul II himself. The recommendation is:

"When the faithful communicate kneeling, no other sign of reverence towards the Blessed Sacrament is required, since kneeling is itself a sign of adoration.

"When they receive Communion standing, it is strongly recommended that, coming up in procession, they should make a sign of reverence before receiving the Blessed Sacrament. This should be done at the right time and place, so that the order of people going to and from Communion should not be disrupted."

The act of reverence strongly recommended by the Sacred Congregations here appears to be more than a mere reverential act toward holy things like bowing the head, folding of the hands, or the sign of the Cross. It seems most likely that what is being recommended here is the traditional form of worship or adoration called latria reserved to God alone. In the Latin Rite the traditional act of latria is the genuflection, and similar to it is the profound bow of the Eastern Rites. That the Congregations are recommending a genuflection can be argued from the context of the recommendation, which has previously referred to kneeling as a sign of adoration, and from the caution that this act of reverence not be done out of place or at the wrong time, to interfere with the free flow of communicants, which caution would be meaningless if a simple bow of the head, folding of the hands, or sign of the Cross were meant.

A more immediate act is desired

The interpretation of this strong recommendation as a request for a genuflection prior to the reception of Holy Communion would also receive support form both Sacred Tradition and Holy Scripture. The fifth-century Doctor of the Church, St. Augustine, clearly expressed the necessity of making an act of adoration prior to the reception of the Eucharist when he stated:

While it is true that the communal act of worship at the “Lord, I am not worthy” minimally fulfills this act of faith, there is such a great lapse between this act and the individual reception of the Eucharist due to the number of communicants, that an individual act of adoration, more personal and more immediate to the reception, is desired. It is also true that a private interior act of worship would suffice to fulfill this act of faith, but good liturgy by its very nature should be a public expression of one’s Faith.

If one grants the desire for public, individual acts of latria prior to the reception of the Eucharist, then there is no more appropriate clear symbol of adoration than the genuflection for the Latin Rite Catholic today. While powerful monarchs often welcomed kneeling in the past as a sign of fealty, I doubt whether even the Pope wants to promote this symbol of reverence to his person today. Few would deny that the traditional sign of Eucharistic adoration in the Latin Rite has been kneeling or the genuflection. However, “the bending of the knee” is also the most Scripturally appropriate gesture to be made to both God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord God, speaking through Isaiah the prophet, says: “To Me every knee must bend” (Isaiah 45:23). And St. Paul points out that “at Jesus’ name every knee must bend in the heavens, on the earth, and under the earth” (Phil. 2:10). Even when Scripture records a mockery of Christ’s divine Person, it records the act of a mock bending on the knee. “They genuflected before Him and pretended to pay Him homage” (Mark 15:19). Undoubtedly, there is no other sign today for the Latin Rite Catholic that conveys so clearly adoration toward the Eucharist or is more scripturally and Traditionally appropriate than the “bending of the knee”.

 

[universalindult]

Anyone ever hear of people tripping over those who genuflect or kneel?

Also see

[ IS GENUFLECTING AT COMMUNION DISRUPTIVE?

By KARL KEATING ](http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/1999/9910fea5.asp)

!!!

 

[universalindult]

This editorial draws a direct connection between the refusal to permit kneeling and the culture wars:

[Vatican Newspaper Article Says Catholics Should Receive Communion Kneeling and on the Tongue

Editorial by John-Henry Westen](http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2008/jan/08010904.html)

…

Although in all likelihood most Catholics are oblivious to it, the decision to receive communion on the tongue, versus in the hand and the decision to receive communion standing rather than kneeling is a significant fault line in the culture war.

Modernizers who relentlessly work to have the Catholic Church move away from so-called ‘archaic’ positions on sexuality, (forbidding contraception, pre-marital sexual activity, homosexuality etc.) also rail against ‘archaic’ piety in worship.

…

While many valiant Catholic activists who work in the pro-life and pro-family battles receive communion in the common fashion, they nonetheless respect the right of those who wish to receive communion kneeling and on the tongue.

Not so for those within the Church seeking to get the Church in line with the times.

Certain Church leaders, priests and even bishops who are zealous in their attempts to modernize the Church have gone so far as to attempt to enforce modernism by refusing communion to those who kneel for communion.

One prominent example of such was Orange County Florida Bishop Tod Brown who was caught on video last year refusing communion to a woman who was kneeling. Brown is also known for refusing in 1994 to back an Idaho measure to deny homosexuals special privileges. Explaining his actions he said the law “would contribute to attitudes of intolerance and hostility in Idaho directed at homosexual citizens and is potentially discriminatory.”

…

These types of situations caused the Vatican to react rather strongly in 2002. Jorge A. Cardinal Medina Estévez, the head of the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, which addresses liturgical matters, wrote to bishop about reports received of a priest denying communion to faithful because they were kneeling.

The Cardinal called such denial “a grave violation of one of the most basic rights of the Christian faithful,” and directed the bishop to investigate the case. The letter said that the Vatican regards such abuses of the faithful as very grave. The letter said, the Congregation, if such actions are verified, "will regard future complaints of this nature with great seriousness, and if they are verified, it intends to seek disciplinary action consonant with the gravity of the pastoral abuse."
(see the letter: adoremus.org/Notitiae-kneeling.html )

Despite this letter from the Vatican, the suppression of kneeling remains strong.

The article in the Vatican newspaper advocating kneeling however signals a sea change.

Those who kneel have a champion in Pope Benedict who prior to his elevation to the pontificate wrote of kneeling and its tie to culture in his book 'The Spirit of the Liturgy" (Ignatius Press, 2000) “There are groups, of no small influence, who are trying to talk us out of kneeling,” wrote then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

…

Cardinal Ratzinger continued: "The kneeling of Christians is not a form of inculturation into existing customs. It is quite the opposite, an expression of Christian culture, which transforms the existing culture through a new and deeper knowledge and experience of God.

Kneeling does not come from any culture – it comes from the Bible and its knowledge of God . . . The Christian Liturgy is a cosmic Liturgy precisely because it bends the knee before the crucified and exalted Lord. Here is the center of authentic culture - the culture of truth. The humble gesture by which we fall at the feet of the Lord inserts us into the true path of life of the cosmos."

 

[Dakota_mom]

To Bonnie. Hang in there, our day is coming. I hope you can find a church or priest who are sympathetic to the cause of tradition. From the other posts here, there are many points in church law and in this pope that support your right to receive communion reverently. Your priest is wrong. If anyone tripped over someone, well then they were not paying attention. We wouldn’t have this problem if people went up to the communion rails to receive our Lord. Things sure have gotten out of hand these last 35 years. God bless you and I will keep you in my prayers.

 

[Joannm]

I would do that but I’m partially disabled. I can’t get back up again unless I’m holding on to something, like an altar rail. That would have put me in a different line from everyone else.

Last summer on vacation we went to a parish that didn’t have an altar rail, but the priest stood very near the first pew. As is my habit when I can grab on to a support, I genuflected. After mass we said hello to the priest & said we were from a different state. He proceeded to chew me out for “creating a dangerous situation” by genuflecting. He said he “knew” people who had been hurt by tripping over those who genuflect. Somehow, I don’t think he was being quite truthful!

Anyone ever hear of people tripping over those who genuflect or kneel?

Actually yes, I have seen it. It happened many times, much so that the pastor asked those who wished to kneel or genuflect for communion to come up last in the line.

 

[rwoehmke]

I genuflected. After mass we said hello to the priest & said we were from a different state. He proceeded to chew me out for “creating a dangerous situation” by genuflecting. He said he “knew” people who had been hurt by tripping over those who genuflect. Somehow, I don’t think he was being quite truthful!
Anyone ever hear of people tripping over those who genuflect or kneel?

While I haven’t actually ripped, I came very close when a lady in front of me in line suddenly went down on one knee. I staggered about. but managed to recover. I know her rather well and so now if I end up behind her I give her lots of room.

I do have a curiosity about this kind of desire. Some of us are criticized because we like the “feeling” or emotional response generated by certain forms of charismatic worship and the like. Is that the same kind of “feeling” or emotional response some get by genuflecting before or kneeling to receive communion?;

 

[Brennan_Doherty]

While I haven’t actually ripped, I came very close when a lady in front of me in line suddenly went down on one knee. I staggered about. but managed to recover. I know her rather well and so now if I end up behind her I give her lots of room.

I do have a curiosity about this kind of desire. Some of us are criticized because we like the “feeling” or emotional response generated by certain forms of charismatic worship and the like. Is that the same kind of “feeling” or emotional response some get by genuflecting before or kneeling to receive communion?;

No, it is a recognition that genuflecting (or kneeling) is a more appropriate form (in Western culture) when approaching and receiving God Himself.

 

[Ignatius]

I would do that but I’m partially disabled. I can’t get back up again unless I’m holding on to something, like an altar rail. That would have put me in a different line from everyone else.

Last summer on vacation we went to a parish that didn’t have an altar rail, but the priest stood very near the first pew. As is my habit when I can grab on to a support, I genuflected. After mass we said hello to the priest & said we were from a different state. He proceeded to chew me out for “creating a dangerous situation” by genuflecting. He said he “knew” people who had been hurt by tripping over those who genuflect. Somehow, I don’t think he was being quite truthful!

Anyone ever hear of people tripping over those who genuflect or kneel?

No, it is urban legand. Also, the folks that I know who make this claim are fabricating it. I overheard a fellow parishoner who always attends the same mass as we do saying it. I know the the persons attitude is belligerant to the Latin Mass and those with more Traditional sensitivities, so I wasn’t surprised. I don’t know how these people can think any one will believe them. After all, they aren’t in Church by themselves.

Also, I don’t genuflect when receiving, but I always give the person in front of me a good 12 inches. That’s all it takes. The person steps forward about one pace and that gives a good 4 ft clearance. Anyone closer than that is trying to creat a situation.

 

[Bonnie]

Anyone closer than that is trying to create a situation.

I dunno. I suspect they’re just not noticing. I’ve noticed people following so close they’re practically touching. Once someone stepped on the back of my shoe. Let’s hope they don’t get that close when they’re driving!

I bow - & genuflect when I can - because it seems more proper. It looks odd to me to see people give a profound bow to the altar but ignore our Lord in the Tabernacle (in our church it’s to the side) & only give a brief nod, if that, to our Lord before receiving.

 

[johnstown_johnn]

Oh, how I would love to kneel when I receive! But - we have been told not to. I even asked for special permission at the one parish in our area that still has an altar rail, but was denied.

I truly believe that the altar rails will be reinstalled; Communion will be received kneeling and on the tongue. Altar boys will hold the patten as the priest lays the Communion on the tongues of the Faithful.

The Church will get smaller in number but its glory will be recognizable.