Missing things at mass

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ProVobis said:
Was there a paten under your chin? I think that was the point.
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When someone pointed out that there was virtually no chance of the Host dropping when receiving in the hand the poster posted this:
Not true. For one thing, Communion on the tongue is the universal norm, and it has only fallen into disuse where errant priests have tried to discourage or forbid it. I have seen people drop the Host from their hands before. I’ve seen people try to receive with one hand while holding a baby.
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And yet, when I received in my hand, I never dropped a Host.

But when I received on the tongue, I have dropped it.

You and I agree. There is definitely a bigger chance of dropping the Host when receiving on the tongue.

Cavaille-Coll on the other hand disagrees.
 
maryjk said:
You and I agree. There is definitely a bigger chance of dropping the Host when receiving on the tongue.
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I didn’t say that either. There has to be co-ordination between two people either way. Football players fumble the ball, baseball players miss simple plays, and people drop things all the time. And that happens a lot when only one person is involved.
 
ProVobis said:
I didn’t say that either. There has to be co-ordination between two people either way. Football players fumble the ball, baseball players miss simple plays, and people drop things all the time. And that happens a lot when only one person is involved.
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Okay, so no one here agrees with me.

But I must be on to something, since most parishes that I have attended, don’t use a paten.
 
ProVobis said:
I have seen entire hosts dropped, whether it was CITH or COTT, but again, if it’s an accident, it’s not a desecration, although a paten would, yes, prevent most from reaching the floor.
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I was using the word “desecration” wrong, sorry about that. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia it means “losing the quality of sacredness,” and a disrespected host is still very sacred!

Does anyone know what the term is to say mistreating something holy?
 
I remember as an altar server before Vatican II, when I held the patten, it wasn’t that infrequent that I saw particles of the Eucharist on the patten. But at that time everyone received it kneeling and on the tongue.

I still receive it on the tongue because the priest’s hands are consecrated and I feel ackward about my hands. And there is an extra step receiving using the hands for something else to happen.

I wonder how Jesus gave it to his apostles at the last supper.

The eastern catholic priests use a golden spoon, and dip the Eucharist into the precious blood before giving it to the communicant in the mouth.

Just some thoughts.
 
maryjk said:
Okay, so no one here agrees with me.

But I must be on to something, since most parishes that I have attended, don’t use a paten.
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I don’t know how it fell into disuse. Perhaps it’s difficult for the server to knoew exactly where to hold the paten? Perhaps he needs a larger paten to be effective? My understanding is the communicant is supposed to stand to the side and consume. But maybe they changed the instructions. I don’t watch it anymore.
 
i have one question that i am not getting a very good answer to: why do some catholic churches serve the blood of Christ and others not. I don’t know why this bothers me so much. I am newly back to the catholic faith and I do not understand this practice. I love the communion so much in fact this was the Main reason for coming back to the faith. I love to go to the non denominational for other reasons but i can not be fed with the body and blood of Christ. Please i do hope and pray someone can give me an answer. One priest told me it should not matter that the body has the blood however Christ knew that and still had us getting both the blood and body separately. The priest also told me that the church has to pay special training and care for the blood. I know this and I have become an Extraordinary Minister. Anyway, i do hope someone can give me a better answer.
 
Wojo42 said:
Hi everyone.
When I was an altar boy back in the 1980’s at the church I belonged to we had to stand next to the lectern holding candles while the Priest read the gospels, and more particularly at communion we altar boys stood next to the priest and deacon and held patens below the chins or hands of people depending on how they received communion.

I have not seen either of these things in my diocese at all. They seem to have disappeared. The only place I have seen these things is at mass at the EWTN chapel. One reason for the disuse of patens at communion, I think, seems to be the design of the new churches, churches in the “half round” as I call them, which have multiple aisles leading down toward the alter and make it inevitable that many extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist need to be used to distribute communion.

I always felt that alter boys using patens at communion in a sense added to the belief that what we were receiving was holy and sacred and since these are no longer used there is a loss of sacredness toward the host. I see many people at mass go up and just kind of take the host and pop it into their mouths and walk back down to their seats.

I was just wondering if anyone felt the same way or had thoughts about these things?
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I miss that, too.
 
rnliz7 said:
i have one question that i am not getting a very good answer to: why do some catholic churches serve the blood of Christ and others not. I don’t know why this bothers me so much. I am newly back to the catholic faith and I do not understand this practice. I love the communion so much in fact this was the Main reason for coming back to the faith. I love to go to the non denominational for other reasons but i can not be fed with the body and blood of Christ. Please i do hope and pray someone can give me an answer. One priest told me it should not matter that the body has the blood however Christ knew that and still had us getting both the blood and body separately. The priest also told me that the church has to pay special training and care for the blood. I know this and I have become an Extraordinary Minister. Anyway, i do hope someone can give me a better answer.
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I hope that someone can answer better than me but I’ll give it a shot. I think that the answer that you were given pretty much covers it, but I’ll try to detail it. I don’t know enough about liturgy to tell you for sure, but here is my reasoning.

I think that the sacrifice of both Jesus’ body and blood is necessary for the mass to be complete, according to Jesus’ instructions. This must be why both are done at masses. Yet, He told us to eat both of them, but He did not say separately or together. He most definitely told the apostles to offer each one separately, but I just looked over Matthew chapter 26, Luke 22, and Mark 14 and He does not tell them to eat them separately, the important thing seems to be to simply eat them. So as your priest told you, since the blood of Christ is contained in the body of Christ, we can fulfill his commandment by solely eating this.

So in the Catholic mass, Jesus’ instructions to sacrifice both his body and blood are followed. This is probably important because there is a different and complimentary meaning to each of these, and both are needed as part of the sacrifice. Then we fulfill His instructions to commune with His both body and blood either just in the host, or with the host and the cup.

Since strictly speaking the cup is not necessary for the communion part, I think that some parishes have been authorized to use it if it is a matter of preference, but that in a general sense it is only needed as part of the sacrifice and so is generally only used for that.

I hope that this helps! Please let me know. If you want, I can ask someone who is knowledgeable in this for a more educated answer if something is unclear.
 
I appreciate your answer. I really wish this did not bother me so much. I think its because of the Eucharist this I came back to the church and since the" man"have decided to change the rules that bothers me. My brother who is devout Catholic has tried to explain that it doesn’t matterbut i can not get over jJesus called us to take the bread/body and wine/blood, both. How can man change that command.
 
@cat- when I was an alter boy we never practiced catching hosts, we held the paten so that as the priests hands left the cup holding the hosts we followed under his hands with the paten and the either placed the paten under the persons hands or their chin. We held the very close to the hands or chin, the point being if a host fell it would hopefully fall onto the paten and then recovered by the priest.
 
@rnliz7- its up to the church. The Church is the protector and explainer of the faith on earth. when you receive the host you get body and blood but also when you receive the blood you get body and blood. but the church can decide to give one or the other or both. often only the host was given because in times of disease sharing a cup would spread the disease, contrary to what some people think receiving communion does not protect you from disease. But either way whether you receive the host alone or the wine alone or both together you get Jesus one and whole and entire the blood and the body contain the same Jesus body blood soul and divinity.

You’re not lacking anything if you only receive one. The separate consecrations of bread and then wine is meant to show the sacrifice of the cross. That Jesus on the cross was Pierced by a spear and his blood poured out of his body. This is meant to bring to your ,mind that the mass is a memorial of the sacrifice on the cross.
 
Wojo42 said:
Hi everyone.
When I was an altar boy back in the 1980’s at the church I belonged to we had to stand next to the lectern holding candles while the Priest read the gospels,
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This I see at my church in South Africa.
Wojo42 said:
When I was an altar boy back in the 1980’s at the church I belonged … at communion we altar boys stood next to the priest and deacon and held patens below the chins or hands of people depending on how they received communion.

inevitable that many extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist need to be used to distribute communion.
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This happens at every Mass at my parish here in Arabia. And we have between 2 and 4 priests distributing communion, supplemented by 10 EMHC’s. We do not have that number of altar boys/girls, so as the EMHC’s make their way down to the part of the church where they will be, youngsters ‘volunteer’ to join them as they pass, if they reach their station and there has been no volunteer get up, they will nod to a nearby person who takes the patten from them and holds it as you describe.
Wojo42 said:
I always felt that alter boys using patens at communion in a sense added to the belief that what we were receiving was holy and sacred and since these are no longer used there is a loss of sacredness toward the host. I see many people at mass go up and just kind of take the host and pop it into their mouths and walk back down to their seats.

I was just wondering if anyone felt the same way or had thoughts about these things?
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I can see how using a patten could make it look as though there is a greater sense of the sacredness of communion, but I don’t really notice a difference in the attitude of the people at the two Masses I regularly attend.
 
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