Once Upon a Time There Was Communion in the Hand

[JKirkLVNV]

Yes there was once Communion in the hand and yes it was recognized as improper.

Mass was once celebrated underground in secret, we don’t do that anymore either.

Read the Lavabo prayer and ask yourself why you are not receiving on the tongue.

If it was not proper, then why was it practiced in the patristic Church, by the Fathers, by the disciples of the Apostles?

 

[JKirkLVNV]

however i leave you with this: “But you, son of man, hear what I say to you; be not rebellious like that rebellious house; open your mouth, and eat what I give you.” Ezekiel 2:1

But this has nothing to do with Communion in the hand! To eat, either from your hand or at another’s, with or without a fork, you have to open your mouth!

 

[Ockham]

If it was not proper, then why was it practiced in the patristic Church, by the Fathers, by the disciples of the Apostles?

Why do we make mistakes?

 

[JKirkLVNV]

Why do we make mistakes?

The Church cannot, in the establishment of her disciplines, lead the faithful into impiety. This is called “negative infallibility.” It is not an error or a mistake to receive Holy Communion in the hand, since that is an approved discipline of the Church in the governance of one of Her Sacraments.

 

[Ockham]

CITH is granted by an indult with very specific requirements. Look it up.

 

[JKirkLVNV]

CITH is granted by an indult with very specific requirements. Look it up.

Right. That indult has been extended by the Holy Father as recently as 2007 to the Church in Poland. There is nothing inherently (ontologically) wrong with it.

 

[Aramis]

CITH is granted by an indult with very specific requirements. Look it up.

For the Roman Church. For the Armenian Church and the Chaldean Church, no, it’s normative, and NOT an indult. And the Armenians are part of the Catholic Church, as are the Chaldeans.

 

[jbelokur]

For that matter, “bread” is not a chemical compound but a mixture of different things. Therefore, “molecule of bread” is meaningless, chemically speaking.

QUOTE]

I think that you understood the point I was trying to make here.

 

[Ockham]

Right. That indult has been extended by the Holy Father as recently as 2007 to the Church in Poland. There is nothing inherently (ontologically) wrong with it.

If you choose to receive our Redeemer in the Blessed Sacrament in the manner of an indult then go ahead. It goes against hundreds of years of Tradition and teaching and goes along with Luther and other Protestants.

 

[Cluny]

If you choose to receive our Redeemer in the Blessed Sacrament in the manner of an indult then go ahead. It goes against hundreds of years of Tradition and teaching and goes along with Luther and other Protestants.

Are you saying that receiving communion in the hand, as directed by the Liturgies of the Apostles Addai and Mari and the Apostle James, goes along with Luther and other Protestants?

I didn’t know these holy apostles were Protestants.

Luther himself, btw, preferred communion on the tongue.

 

[Cluny]

i do believe however, st cyril was helping st basil, since they lived so close together, on instructing how to receive communion in the hand if you were persecuted or a monk.

…

why else would st cyril have to explain in such detail how to receive communion in the if everyone for 300yrs had been doing it anyway?

St. Cyril went into such detail because he was instructing the newly baptized in how Communion was received in the Apostolic Church of Jerusalem.

Don’t forget–they had not seen this done before, as the unbaptized (and certain classes of penitents) were dismissed before the Liturgy of the Eucharist began.

 

[JKirkLVNV]

If you choose to receive our Redeemer in the Blessed Sacrament in the manner of an indult then go ahead. It goes against hundreds of years of Tradition and teaching and goes along with Luther and other Protestants.

I don’t receive Communion in the hand, I receive it on the tongue. It does NOT go against Tradition, because Tradition with a capital T is immutable and comes to us from the Apostles. Communion on the tongue clearly does not; as has been pointed out, some of the other rites have always practiced Communion in the hand. They, too, have Apostolic roots.

We have much in common with Lutherans and other Protestants for the simple reason that they did not jettison everything. Should we abandon the Apostle’s Creed or the Nicene Creed or the Our Father because Protestants make use of them?

I object to the characterizations on this thread, as I have to similar ones in the past, because it attempts to constrain the consciences of the faithful in the Name of the Church where the Church has granted a liberty. You’re quite free to say you think Communion in the hand is a bad idea. No one is free to say that it isn’t Catholic or that it is bad in and of itself (since the Church can promulgate nothing against Her Own teaching), at least not without being challenged on it and corrected. If the Holy Father ended the practice tomorrow, that would be fine with me.

It is also very bad scholarship founded on not terribly credible evidence, along the lines of the argument in the thread that St. Peter and Paul established the Latin Mass in Rome while they were there or the absurd argument that the laity may not recieve the Most Precious Blood in Its seperate Species because the Apostles alone could do so (not remotely the practice of the early Church and the lay reception of the Chalice did not completely end until about the 1400s). It’s pure fancy to support a position that is only an opinion and which has an agenda.

 

[Aramis]

The only time I’ve seen a communion rail used, it was exclusively on the tongue, followed by individual communion cups… the mass was said ad orientam, with modern chasuble and stoles, very reverent and very old songs. Just happens also to be a LCMS parish. (Lutherans.)

 

[AJV]

One should remember several things about Communion in the hand:

1. • it hasn’t been roman practice since (at most recent) the late 300’s.
   • It has been retained in the Chaldean Rite and Armenian Rite churches through the centuries, tho’ both the Assyrian and Armenian churches broke communion, both came back in part, and that part coming back into union was never required to drop communion in the hand.

1. 
   Was it with the Armenians? I know abotu the Assyrians and even in places where Communion on the tongue was introduced, they retained the prayer to 'sanctify the hands stretched forth", but I didn’t think the Armenians practised it for centuries.
   

   • it is impractical under the Byzantine and Coptic praxis of intinction to receive in the hand; the precious body is immersed in the precious blood, and then the communicant receives a piece dropped into or flicked into their mouth via a spoon.
   • St. Basil the Great was the codifier of the Byzantine Rite liturgy. His anti-communion- in-the-hand approach can be reasonably inferred to be directed at his suffragans, and not outside the Church of Constantinople.
   • St. John Chrysosstum was also Byzatnine. His opposition seems rooted in the same approach as St. Basil.

   St. Basil and St. John do not oppose it…rather, they speak of it as normative. The idea that they oppose it is a twisting of their texts. Besides, intinction in the Byzantine liturgy was introduced centuries after their lifetimes - as were many of the prayers in the Liturgies that bear their names.

 

[michaeldaniels]

I also have a question…how many saints does it take to say something before it is not acceptable?

Question: How many saints does it take to say something to make it acceptable?

 

[I_Believe]

I also have a question…how many saints does it take to say something before it is not acceptable?

 

[AJV]

Question: How many saints does it take to say something to make it acceptable?

I also have a question…how many saints does it take to say something before it is not acceptable?

I believe the exact number is 353 of which at least 3 must be Apostles, 3 Doctors of the Church, 20 must have been notable missionaries, 8 the founders of religious orders, 17 dogmatic theologians, 13 sainted pontiffs, and 25 devoted to works of charity. The remaining may be divided up in the ratio 1:1:5:3:2:2:2 among bishop confessors, bishop martyrs, martyrs, confessors, virgins, virgin martyrs and holy women .The existence of no more than 1/5 may be established on the singular basis of unreliable acta or by sermons of other saints, while for the rest it is necessary that their existence be authentically determined. More than 1/9 may not come form the same religious order and no more than 1/12 from the same geographic location, defined as 30 leagues from any major city that possess a cathedral, basilica or collegiate church. Should such edifices be lacking in the territory, then the distance is 75 leagues from any city held major by common estimation of those in the region. Monasteries are exempt from such measurements to a distance of two and a half times

The holy Virgin together with St. John the Baptist and St. Joseph refrain from interfering and thus cannot be invoked save by reliable and attested means in the deposit of public revelation. Apparitions do not count as, being private revelation, they cannot be used.

 

[JKirkLVNV]

I believe the exact number is 353 of which at least 3 must be Apostles, 3 Doctors of the Church, 20 must have been notable missionaries, 8 the founders of religious orders, 17 dogmatic theologians, 13 sainted pontiffs, and 25 devoted to works of charity. The remaining may be divided up in the ratio 1:1:5:3:2:2:2 among bishop confessors, bishop martyrs, martyrs, confessors, virgins, virgin martyrs and holy women .The existence of no more than 1/5 may be established on the singular basis of unreliable acta or by sermons of other saints, while for the rest it is necessary that their existence be authentically determined. More than 1/9 may not come form the same religious order and no more than 1/12 from the same geographic location, defined as 30 leagues from any major city that possess a cathedral, basilica or collegiate church. hould such edifices be lacking in the territory, then the distance is 75 leagues from any city held major by common estimation of those in the region.

The holy Virgin together with St. John the Baptist and St. Joseph refrain from interfering and thus cannot be invoked save by reliable and attested means in the deposit of public revelation. Apparitions do not count as, being private revelation, they cannot be used.

 

[JKirkLVNV]

I also have a question…how many saints does it take to say something before it is not acceptable?

Saints are entitled to their private opinions. Unless they are a part of the magisterium, ie, the pontiff or the bishops in union with him, their opinions may not ever make something unacceptable (I seem to recall that St. Pio didn’t like women in pants, but St. Gianna Molla wore them). Also, “hand vs. tongue” is a matter of DISCIPLINE, not FAITH AND MORALS, not **DOCTRINE and DOGMA. **Even if one saint were a pope and railed against it, his successors would not be bound to follow him and could change the discipline.

Blessed Mother Teresa supposedly said that the thing that made her saddest in her travels was to see the Lord Jesus received in the hand. She supposedly said this to a priest. The Missionaries of Charity, her order, have gone on record as saying that they never heard her say such a thing, that it didn’t sound like her at all, and they doubt she said it. I don’t believe she said it and I receive on the tongue.

 

[paperwight]

.

Read the Lavabo prayer and ask yourself why you are not receiving on the tongue.

‘Lord, wash away my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin’ you mean?

What’s that got to do with Communion on the tongue?

It’s a prayer by the priest as he prepares to confect the Blessed Sacrament, asking that he be as worthy as a sinful human being can be to do such a tremendous thing.

If he said it just before he gave himself Communion, it might be relevant to your argument, but he doesn’t, it’s related to the words of consecration, not to Communion.