MERGED:Does your parish offer the cup to the congregation at Communion?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Michael_Mayo
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
WilT said:
Our new parish pastor decided we will be receiving, during communion, just the communion host and not provide the Cup. Is with holding the chalice/cup breaking not only Tradition of the Mass but making communion incomplete.? The priest prepares and elevates both the host and wine to be consecrated and blessed. We respond by saying ‘when we eat this bread and drink of this cup we profess…’ Perhaps it’s not incomplete because Christ remains in both species.
Click to expand...
Offering the cup to the laity at Mass is an option that the priest can exercise or not. It does not make the Communion incomplete. That idea springs from a very old heresy called Ultraquism. It’s a heresy that has raised its head again in the last 40 or so years since many people have become so accustomed to being offered Communion under both species that they lose this traditional perspective about the reality of Communion. The only person who must receive Communion under both species is the priest.

You can read more about the Ultraquist heresy and the defense against it here (if you are interested):

newadvent.org/cathen/15244b.htm
 
Perhaps the question holds the reason for Communion under one species. In our diocese, the priests are instructed to offer communion under both species, with some reasonable exceptions. I think there would be a big benefit to going to one species for a month or as a method of teaching.
 
As a person who never partakes of the Cup, I am sort of shocked by this question.
 
WilT said:
Perhaps it’s not incomplete because Christ remains in both species.
Click to expand...
👍

Unless you live in a diocese where the bishop has directed that communion must be offered under both species then it is within the perogotive of the pastor to offer the chalice or not. (I know that in my archdiocese the former archbishop directed that communion be offered to the congregation under both forms and I believe the new archbishop chose to continue the policy of his predecessor.) However such directives are matters of obedience and prudence between bishops and pastors; they do not make communion more or less complete.
 
It’s utraquist, not ultraquist, from the Latin utra + que, meaning “each of the two” or “both separately”. As has been said, the utraquist belief is that a person must receive Communion under both species in order for it to be efficacious. The Church denies that belief, owing to the doctrine of concomitance, that the whole substance of Christ is present under the form of bread, as well as under the form of wine, so that one who receives only the consecrated bread (or only the consecrated wine) receives communion completely.

The sign value of Communion is made full when receiving under both forms, but it is not necessary.
 
I do not partake of the Cup. Usually. If Ebola becomes an issue, the Cup will most likely be suspended.
 
Hoosier_Daddy said:
I do not partake of the Cup. Usually. If Ebola becomes an issue, the Cup will most likely be suspended.
Click to expand...
In our neck of the woods, those parishes that offer the Cup - not all do - routinely suspend it during flu season.
 
Tarpeian_Rock said:
In our neck of the woods, those parishes that offer the Cup - not all do - routinely suspend it during flu season.
Click to expand...
Interesting.
  1. Is there a lot of people who don’t like that or is it pretty accepted and understood?
  2. Are EMHCs also suspended or not used for that time?
 
fencersmother said:
As a person who never partakes of the Cup, I am sort of shocked by this question.
Click to expand...
Why would it be shocking? Many people have only known one way; they have been taught the “proper” way to receive, and any other seems strange. Besides, the Church kind of reinforces the belief that the body is contained under the form of bread and the blood under the form of wine. When we receive the host, the priest or EMHC says “The body of Christ.” When we receive from the chalice, the priest or EMHC says, “The bllood of Christ.” If you have not been taught explicitly otherwise, it is pretty easy to come up with a false understanding.
 
Hoosier_Daddy said:
Interesting.
  1. Is there a lot of people who don’t like that or is it pretty accepted and understood?
  2. Are EMHCs also suspended or not used for that time?
Click to expand...
  1. Very accepted. Fact is, even when the Cup is offered, no more than 1/3 of communicants partake of the Cup anyway. Not sure why this is so.
  2. The EMHC schedule contracts to only schedule those assisting with the Host.
 
WilT said:
We respond by saying ‘when we eat this bread and drink of this cup we profess…’ Perhaps it’s not incomplete because Christ remains in both species.
Click to expand...
You are correct, it is complete because each species is the full Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ

He said, “Take and eat, this is my Body” and “Take and drink, This is my Blood”

But that is accomplished in a single species. Each species is the exact same Substance, that of Christ Himself. The only difference (and I repeat, the ONLY difference) is how they appear to our senses.

The elements of wine and bread no longer exists, BOTH are replaced by the person of Christ.

Thus the species of bread is, in reality, living flesh and flowing blood. Our senses do not detect that, in the same way as they do not detect the consumption of the full, person, fully human and fully Divine.

When we consume the smallest particle of the species of bread, we eat flesh and drink blood, though we do not detect that with our senses.

Christ’s command is completely fulfilled when a person consumes the smallest crumb of the species of bread, or the tiniest sip of the species of wine. Flesh is eaten and blood is consumed, even of our senses only detect a single mode of consumption.

Does that make sense?
 
Hoosier_Daddy said:
I do not partake of the Cup. Usually. If Ebola becomes an issue, the Cup will most likely be suspended.
Click to expand...
In my neck of the woods, where they offer the Cup, about one in ten receive from the Cup. At Spanish Masses, half don’t receive of either species.
 
babochka said:
It says that the sign is more complete, not that communion itself is more complete.
Click to expand...
RIght. Actually the Latin is “fuller sign.”
1390 Communio sub una panis specie, propter praesentiam sacramentalem Christi sub unaquaque specie, totum fructum gratiae Eucharistiae recipere permittit. Ob rationes pastorales, haec recipiendi Communionem forma, tamquam maxime habitualis, est in ritu latino legitime stabilita. « Formam ratione signi pleniorem habet sacra Communio cum fit sub utraque specie. In ea enim forma signum eucharistici convivii perfectius elucet ». 371 Talis forma recipiendi Communionem est habitualis in ritibus orientalibus.
Click to expand...
 
Brendan said:
You are correct, it is complete because each species is the full Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ

He said, “Take and eat, this is my Body” and “Take and drink, This is my Blood”

But that is accomplished in a single species. Each species is the exact same Substance, that of Christ Himself. The only difference (and I repeat, the ONLY difference) is how they appear to our senses.

The elements of wine and bread no longer exists, BOTH are replaced by the person of Christ.

Thus the species of bread is, in reality, living flesh and flowing blood. Our senses do not detect that, in the same way as they do not detect the consumption of the full, person, fully human and fully Divine.

When we consume the smallest particle of the species of bread, we eat flesh and drink blood, though we do not detect that with our senses.

Christ’s command is completely fulfilled when a person consumes the smallest crumb of the species of bread, or the tiniest sip of the species of wine. Flesh is eaten and blood is consumed, even of our senses only detect a single mode of consumption.

Does that make sense?
Click to expand...
Perfectly. 👍
 
ProVobis said:
RIght. Actually the Latin is “fuller sign.”
Click to expand...
I always thought of it as a “cooler sign.” It sounds close to “fuller” and reminds me there is nothing more substantial to both forms as opposed to one form.
 
Mine only does it for Daily Mass, but not for Sunday (Sat Night) Masses.

I don’t know about Holy Days, as I’ve never attended a Holy Day at my Parish (as I usually attend Holy Days at the Cathedral or my childhood parish).
 
Most of the time, yes. They stopped yesterday because of the Ebola threat and flu season. I’m thankful that they are proactive about the spread of illness and disease.
 
I guess Yago made the fatal mistake of disrespecting a drywaller. 😉
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top