No need for consecrated wine?

[Mrs_Sally]

Communion at my parish usually takes eight minutes or so. This is with two people distributing, and a congregation of 225 or so. The people who do bow their heads, which is the majority, do so when they are second in line. We don’t really have a class or anything on this, people just do it automatically.

At our most popular Sunday Masses we can have almost 10 times that many people. Parish of 5000+ families. So communion with two people would presumably also take 10 times as long. I think we all agree that 80 minutes, just for the congregation to receive, is too long.

We have 6-8 communion “stations”. So with 4 clergy we have 2-4 lay EMHC. That way communion takes about 10 minutes or so. About the same as 2 clergy for 200.

I have also seen the hesitation to come forward. Usually for the first in line and then towards the end as the SRO group comes forward. Our priests would be able to say if they’ve seen a change over the years or not.

 

[Brendan]

I have also seen the hesitation to come forward. Usually for the first in line and then towards the end as the SRO group comes forward. Our priests would be able to say if they’ve seen a change over the years or not.

We’ve got about 1000 families in our parish. Our parish uses the communion rail normally. This allows the priest and the deacon to distrubute very quickly, as it removes any delay due to hesitation on the part of the faithful.

 

[jilly4ski]

Indeed allowing the precious blood for every day or even every Sunday for the layity was not a Vatican II thing. I am only 25 and I clearly remember a time (after I received my first communion) when my parish did not offer the cup. It was generally reserved for “high” feasts. Christmas, Easter, Christ the King, the feast of Saint Paul (patron of the church), and a few others. (Including first communions, weddings, etc).

I wonder if it had to do with budgeting concerns? It was a rather new parish (built in 1981) and ran mostly off volunteers but maybe didn’t have a very many wealthy parishioners at first. Now that they are a wealthy suburban parish, the cup comes out for every mass even daily (well maybe not since they got a new priest).

 

[YoungTradCath]

Yes, actually, it was a Vatican II thing. There was never a requirement to do it, though.

 

[YoungTradCath]

At our most popular Sunday Masses we can have almost 10 times that many people. Parish of 5000+ families. So communion with two people would presumably also take 10 times as long. I think we all agree that 80 minutes, just for the congregation to receive, is too long.

We have 6-8 communion “stations”. So with 4 clergy we have 2-4 lay EMHC. That way communion takes about 10 minutes or so. About the same as 2 clergy for 200.

I have also seen the hesitation to come forward. Usually for the first in line and then towards the end as the SRO group comes forward. Our priests would be able to say if they’ve seen a change over the years or not.

Again, I say, I wonder what parishes that large did before Vatican II…

 

[Corki]

Again, I say, I wonder what parishes that large did before Vatican II…

I don’t remembe much before VII. But we didn’t have EMHCs until the late 70s and I didn’t see Communion under both species until I went away to college (1980).

Our parish in the 60s was quite large. I think Communion took a little longer but it wasn’t unmanageable. I remember school Masses where we sung two or three hymns during the Communion reception time.

Someone posted on CAF a while ago about a goal of making the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist about equal in time. We tend to look for ways to streamline the Communion time which results in a much longer LOTW if you have a reasonable length homily. If you look at some of the big televised Masses, such as Papal Masses, you see a much longer time spent on Communion in spite of a nearly unlimited number of available Eucharistic Ministers.

I think we have just become more impatient.

 

[Mrs_Sally]

Again, I say, I wonder what parishes that large did before Vatican II…

No idea, other than what folks who lived then say. One thing I’ve heard is that fewer people received every week. Also, many parishes were smaller. In an area the size of my parish there would probably have been 2 or 3 parishes because of cultural differences or because of transportation issues. Our building was finished in 1969. It has never had altar rails, so somehow folks managed.

I personally think my parish is very restrained in the use of EMHCs at Mass. Most of the use is taking communion to the elderly, sick or homebound.

 

[SMHW]

Again, I say, I wonder what parishes that large did before Vatican II…

When I was growing up at my large parish and we still knelt at the communion rail we would have two or three priests distributing communion. The priests (with their altar servers) would go up and down their sections of the rail distributing communion.

Depending on the priest:

1. The priest would say, “Corpus Christi or Body of Christ,” wait for you to say, “Amen,” and then place the host on your tongue. Then the priest would move on to the next person.
2. The priest would never stop walking and would say, “Body of Christ, Body of Christ, Body of Christ…” as he shovelled out hosts like he was dealing cards. If you were lucky you could choke out an, “Amen,” before the priest had his fingers in your mouth.

 

[jilly4ski]

When I was growing up at my large parish and we still knelt at the communion rail we would have two or three priests distributing communion. The priests (with their altar servers) would go up and down their sections of the rail distributing communion.

Depending on the priest:

1. The priest would say, “Corpus Christi or Body of Christ,” wait for you to say, “Amen,” and then place the host on your tongue. Then the priest would move on to the next person.
2. The priest would never stop walking and would say, “Body of Christ, Body of Christ, Body of Christ…” as he shovelled out hosts like he was dealing cards. If you were lucky you could choke out an, “Amen,” before the priest had his fingers in your mouth.

The “Amen” was not in the rubrics in the EF mass, therefore you didn’t need to choke out an Amen before the priest “shoveled” the host into your mouth.

And YoungtradCath, it was not a Vatican 2 thing. It might have been done in the “spirit” of VII, but receiving the precious blood everyday or every Sunday was granted as an indult to the US in the late 70s I believe.

 

[YoungTradCath]

The “Amen” was not in the rubrics in the EF mass, therefore you didn’t need to choke out an Amen before the priest “shoveled” the host into your mouth.

And YoungtradCath, it was not a Vatican 2 thing. It might have been done in the “spirit” of VII, but receiving the precious blood everyday or every Sunday was granted as an indult to the US in the late 70s I believe.

He’s not mentioning the EF mass. He means the OF mass, because in the EF, the priest says, “Corpus Domini nostri Jesu Christi custodiat animam meam in vitam aeternam. Amen.” In his post, he describes the priest as saying, “[The] Body of Christ,” or, “Corpus Christi.”

And whether or not the indult was granted because of Vatican II or the Spirit of it, it was still the main causative factor there.

 

[MarkThompson]

The “Amen” was not in the rubrics in the EF mass, therefore you didn’t need to choke out an Amen before the priest “shoveled” the host into your mouth.

Actually it was, from 1964 until the reformed Mass was fully implemented in the early 1970s. The formula was “V/. Corpus Christi. R/. Amen,” and then later on in the transitional period it was permitted to be said in the vernacular. See Inter Oecumenici ¶ 48(i).

 

[Digitonomy]

I’ve also noticed that the distribution of Communion itself just “takes longer”…

Nowadays, I have to stand and wait while the Communicant stands there a few paces away, finally decides to walk toward me, then I say “The Body of Christ” then the person waits, then a bow, then a long pause before the “Amen.”.

If I recall, one of the documents from 8-10 years ago (probably Redemptionis Sacramentum or the GIRM) emphasized the importance of making a sign of reverence prior to receiving communion, for which the USCCB prescribed a bow of the head as the US norm. I don’t remember ever being taught to do this prior to that time, so I suspect the choreography of bowing, stepping forward toward the priest, and receiving is a much more deliberate (and thus slower) set of motions for most of the faithful today. Before, most would probably continue to flow forward in line automatically until they actually received.

YoungTradCath:

The people who do bow their heads, which is the majority, do so when they are second in line.

This seems like the sensible way to do it, but I don’t think most people have thought it through. And unless that is the overwhelming pattern through the whole parish, as it seems to be in yours, people are likely to continue to do it in the way they feel most appropriate.

 

[Aramis]

The practice of allowing the congregation to receive Holy Communion under both kinds ceased in the 14th century and was only revived after Vatican II. It has never been compulsory. In England and Wales, it’s encouraged and it is standard practice in larger parishes where there are plenty of Eucharistic Ministers. Many smaller parishes never adopted the practice.

In Italy, it’s almost unheard of outside of Rome.

It’s been and inseparable part of the Byzantine Rite Italo-Albanian church, which has been under the Patriarchate of Rome since the 500’s, and barring the period where the Byzantine Rite was banned by an anti-pope, fully in communion with Rome.

Then again, they, like the majority of the Byzantines, after the communion of the priests and deacons, place the precious body into the precious blood, and commune the faithful using a spoon.

So it’s never been foreign to Rome’s patriarchal jurisdiction, nor even Italy. Only to the Roman rite. And, given that, since 1004, the monastery of Santa Maria di Grottaferrata, a few miles outside rome, has been a bastion of the Italo-albanian monastic life, it’s not even that alien to Rome as a city.

 

[SMHW]

The “Amen” was not in the rubrics in the EF mass, therefore you didn’t need to choke out an Amen before the priest “shoveled” the host into your mouth.

I made my First Communion in 1966 at which point, “Amen,” was a required response. I don’t think I’ve been to a Latin Mass since 1966.

I suppose a lot of the priests were not used to waiting for it. But in any case it was disconcerting because the priest often said, “Body of Christ,” while he was finishing up with the previous communicant and it was difficult to figure out when he was talking to you.

I’m afraid I don’t have very reverent recollections of Communion back then. Way too many of the priests were of the cardsharp variety.

 

[healonzo]

Phoenix diocese moves to limit distribution of Communion via the chalice

Full article…

My opinion on this matter is that YES there is a need for consecrated wine.

Read “The Eucharist: Our Sanctification” by Raniero Cantalamessa.

In short, even if people say it doesn’t bother them if they don’t receive under both species, it bothers me.

My main thing, and please don’t generalize me into ‘a group’ is that I want to stay true to the words of Jesus Christ in saying ‘take and eat’ and ‘take and drink.’

There are people who honestly yearn for receiving the ‘Blood of Christ.’ It is my hope that we’ll keep both species in my diocese. I can cite many saints and church fathers about the ‘Blood of Christ.’

But for me this is a very disheartening development.

 

[Brendan]

My opinion on this matter is that YES there is a need for consecrated wine.

To claim that there is a ‘need’ for both species to be presented to the faithful is something the Church has never claimed, in fact it refuted that as part of the heresy of Ultraquistism.

My main thing, and please don’t generalize me into ‘a group’ is that I want to stay true to the words of Jesus Christ in saying ‘take and eat’ and ‘take and drink.’

One both eats and drinks when one recieves Communiuon in a single species, since the Substance of the flowing Blood of Christ is present, the consumation of fluid orally IS drinking, and that is what we do.

Christ’s command is fulfilled even of we partake of the species of bread alone, since his Body, which we eat, and His Blood, which we drink, are equally present.

Our mouths and throat do not perciece the accidental properties of drinking, but that is what we are actually doing.

There are people who honestly yearn for receiving the ‘Blood of Christ.’ .

As do I, I just recieve in the species of bread. I think you have a faulty understanding of the doctrine of Transubstantiation

Each species is the same Substance, the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Risen Lord, Jesus Christ.

The only difference between the species is in how they appear to our senses. We do not see, nor taste, flesh and blood in each species, but both are equally present.

Likewise, all the Saints who wrote of the Blood of Christ, wrote equally in regards to the species of bread as they did that of wine.

 

[healonzo]

To claim that there is a ‘need’ for both species to be presented to the faithful is something the Church has never claimed, in fact it refuted that as part of the heresy of Ultraquistism.

One both eats and drinks when one recieves Communiuon in a single species, since the Substance of the flowing Blood of Christ is present, the consumation of fluid orally IS drinking, and that is what we do.

Christ’s command is fulfilled even of we partake of the species of bread alone, since his Body, which we eat, and His Blood, which we drink, are equally present.

Our mouths and throat do not perciece the accidental properties of drinking, but that is what we are actually doing.

As do I, I just recieve in the species of bread. I think you have a faulty understanding of the doctrine of Transubstantiation

Each species is the same Substance, the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Risen Lord, Jesus Christ.

The only difference between the species is in how they appear to our senses. We do not see, nor taste, flesh and blood in each species, but both are equally present.

Likewise, all the Saints who wrote of the Blood of Christ, wrote equally in regards to the species of bread as they did that of wine.

I understand your point. I understand transubstantiation. I should have said it is my preference and “not needed.” I don’t think you have to receive under both species. Again I understand it; I should have clarified and not wrote “need”.

 

[TheMc]

My opinion on this matter is that YES there is a need for consecrated wine.

That belief among the faithful is what brought the church to limit the precious blood to only the priest in the first place.

Do you think we need to go back to that again?

Considering the uproar it’s caused, I’m thinking we might need to.

 

[Thomas_Redd]

My opinion on this matter is that YES there is a need for consecrated wine.

Read “The Eucharist: Our Sanctification” by Raniero Cantalamessa.

In short, even if people say it doesn’t bother them if they don’t receive under both species, it bothers me.

My main thing, and please don’t generalize me into ‘a group’ is that I want to stay true to the words of Jesus Christ in saying ‘take and eat’ and ‘take and drink.’

There are people who honestly yearn for receiving the ‘Blood of Christ.’ It is my hope that we’ll keep both species in my diocese. I can cite many saints and church fathers about the ‘Blood of Christ.’

But for me this is a very disheartening development.

Thanks so much for your wonderful words. Communion under both species of course is the universal tradition of the entire Catholic Church. It was only in the Roman Rite that the practice was dropped in about the 12th century. The early Christians put great stock in receiving Jesus in both his Body and Blood. In fact, the Council Trent authorized the Pope to re-institute the practice. Unfortunately he didn’t and it wasn’t until the needed reforms of the Second Vatican Council that our ancient tradition was re-established.

In no way am I saying that Jesus is not complete under only the species of Bread or the species of Wine for that matter. I am merely saying as the Church itself says that this is the fuller sign and what a sign it is! The experience comes across so much more powerful. Imagine, we are actually standing at the foot of the Cross literally being washed in Jesus’s blood not as a symbol but in his actual Blood.

So often you hear the statement that the mass is not only a meal but also a sacrifice. What better way to participate in it than by receiving communion as the Apostles taught us in both His Body and Blood.

There is this wonderful scene at the end of Christopher Marlowe’s, Dr. Faustus. As Faustus is about to be dragged down to hell, he looks up to heaven and exclaims that he can see the Blood of Christ streaming through the firmament. Oh, he pleads, if only one drop could fall on him.

 

[Corki]

That belief among the faithful is what brought the church to limit the precious blood to only the priest in the first place.

Do you think we need to go back to that again?

Considering the uproar it’s caused, I’m thinking we might need to.

I have to agree. The many posts in thie thread and the other two about the Phoenix decision really seem to point to a gap in understanding about the Eucharist among many Catholics. CAF tends to be populated with Catholics who are more catechized than average. If even these posters have sincere beliefs that Communion under only one kind is somehow less or inferior, what must the understanding (or lack thereof) be for the less informed Catholics?