Proper way to receive His Blood

  • Thread starter Thread starter JaredR
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
J

JaredR

Guest
At the Easter Vigil Mass tonight I received His Precious Blood, but I’m not sure if I did so properly. I was having trouble “inhaling” it like we were instructed, and I ended up taking a sip (very strong!). I guess I don’t really know how much is meant by “inhaling.”

I am very grateful for being able to receive Christ under both species (though I know He is present fully in both) because I enjoy the added meaning, but my first reception was a little too much. Do you have any advice?
 
JaredR said:
At the Easter Vigil Mass tonight I received His Precious Blood, but I’m not sure if I did so properly. I was having trouble “inhaling” it like we were instructed, and I ended up taking a sip (very strong!). I guess I don’t really know how much is meant by “inhaling.”

I am very grateful for being able to receive Christ under both species (though I know He is present fully in both) because I enjoy the added meaning, but my first reception was a little too much. Do you have any advice?
Click to expand...
I have no clue as to what is meant by inhaling either. We just take a small sip. I don’t know of any other way to do it other than by gulping, which would be wrong. I know some people who just touch it to their lips but that is not really taking and drinking.
 
oh I didn’t know that’s how you’re supposed to do it??

I only received the Precious Blood one time, and I took a small sip too. (I also wasn’t sure, it was never explained to me!) It was actually a really overwhelming experience!

what is meant by “inhaling”?
 
I am practicing with a glass of water right now. :o I think “inhaling” and “little sipping” might be the same thing. I’m not sure!
 
You inhale with your nose. You drink or sip with your lips.

Sip.
 
I never heard anything like inhaling either (but then again German terminology is certainly different).
I’d call it a small sip (considering the fact that there should be enough left for as many as are partaking).
 
Yeah, just take a small sip as though it were hot coffee. Like everyone else, I’m not sure what’s meant by inhaling, but maybe that instruction was to get you to let only the slightest amount come up to your lips, rather than letting it wash over your lips, which you don’t want to do. Like I say, think of hot coffee: you take a small sip, and you don’t let more of it touch your lips than has to.
 
Perhaps the instructor was trying to have you let the Precious Blood appeal more to your senses by having you to “inhale” ,that is, to smell as you sip. There is nothing wrong with that. I do that, even though I was never taught to “inhale”. But we should not put our emphasis on feelings vs knowing that Christ is truly present in the Eucharist.
 
Inhaling is not drinking. This is not something that I have ever heard being taught anywhere by anyone. To consume the Precious Blood, you must actually **drink **it, even a tiny amount. You may have misunderstood your RCIA instructor. You should at least touch it to your lips, better to take a very small sip.

I attend daily Mass at a convent. Often, I am the last person in the communion line as I always let the sisters recieve first. Sometimes I am the only “civilian” (lay person). Often times, when I get to the cup, there is still a significant amount of the Precious Blood left. Once, a few months after I started attending there, the sister who was the minister of the Cup, whispered, “Please finish it.” After that, I was reminded that, unlike the Precious Body, the Precious Blood cannot be preserved in the Tabernacle and must be completely consumed. After that realization, whenever I am the last or next to last person person in line, I will consume a bit more, whatever is necessary, so that the minsters of Communion do not have to consume even more.
 
Usually when we say we’ve ‘inhaled’ food or drink it means we’ve consumed it very quickly – not the way to receive from the Chalice so like previous posters I have no idea what your instructor meant.

The previous posters are right, you take a small sip of the Precious Blood. Like a previous poster I take a larger or smaller sip depending on how many people are behind me in line and how much is left.
 
I think what may have been meant by inhaling is sipping while drawing air through your lips, sort of “slurping” without making the slurping noise. Maybe?

In any case, “a small sip” is proper.
 
JaredR said:
At the Easter Vigil Mass tonight I received His Precious Blood, but I’m not sure if I did so properly. I was having trouble “inhaling” it like we were instructed, and I ended up taking a sip (very strong!). I guess I don’t really know how much is meant by “inhaling.”

?
Click to expand...
I can’t imagine what someone meant when they instructed you to “inhale”, the usual instruction is to sip, a tiny sip for someone new to this or for a child
 
The appropriate method varies by the methodology employed; the GIRM provides for several methods.

The simplest and most common is a small sip from the cup.

The second method is from a spoon; if the priest or deacon has a spoon, tilt your head back with your mouth open and he’ may pour/drip it in from the spoon. Don’t close on the spoon.

The third is a straw or pipette. Again, open wide, tilt back, and let the priest or deacon put the precious blood into your mouth.

there is a fourth method, but it is restricted to being done by priests for the people: Intinction. The priest, in giving you the precious body, first dips it (properly called intincting it) in the blood.
 
I wish I saw or thought of this thread before Easter.

My Church is huge and we don’t do the Precious Blood. So I am not used to it.

My mom’s Church is a very small, rural Church and they do, do it.

On Easter I went to my mom’s for our traditional family brunch, egg hunts, etc. I also went to her Church with my 5-year-old daughter (mom went to Vigil, so she didn’t join us). Now I drove 3 hours to get to her church and timed things perfectly… we walked right in the door as the bells started to ring. But being Easter, the place was packed. My daughter and I sat in the only available pew, the front pew (which was great because my daughter could see everything!)

Anyway, they did the Precious Blood and I really wanted to participate too. But being in the first row meant I didn’t get to watch to see how others really do it. So I winged it. I think I did it wrong (I did take a small sip, but I think I held the cup incorrectly… I held it with the lady, not on my own). But hey, what can you do.

I am going to watch this thread so I know what to do in the future. Great topic! 🙂
 
Amazing, who teaches some of the poor people these things. Inhale wine? If RCIA is teaching this no wonder we have so many ‘confused’ Catholics today.
 
If as an EMHC I could instruct people, I would certainly use the word sip, and SLOWLY. There is nothing quite so nerve-wracking as having a kid grab the chalice, chug a mouthful, and then shove the chalice back at me. So many opportunities to spill with that kind of action! Sipping also avoids the slurping that happens if you tip it up too far and open your mouth to keep from pouring the Precious Blood up your nose. BTDT, alas, when I didn’t realize how full the chalice was.
 
mellowcalico said:
Anyway, they did the Precious Blood and I really wanted to participate too. But being in the first row meant I didn’t get to watch to see how others really do it. So I winged it. I think I did it wrong (I did take a small sip, but I think I held the cup incorrectly… I held it with the lady, not on my own). But hey, what can you do.
Click to expand...
Usually you are reverently handed the chalice and you take a small sip of the Precious Blood. You, OTOH, may well have stumbled on a parish where the EMHC never lets go of the chalice.

While it’s not the way the GIRM says to administer Communion from the cup, it is the way that EMHCs in some parishes are taught to do it. Personally, I think since my mother taught me to drink from a cup about 55 1/2 years ago, it would annoy me greatly to have someone hold the cup to my lips.
 
Y’all are going to think this as strange, but, there was something about the OP that reminded me of the film Gigi (the one with Leslie Caron and Louis Jordan). After Gigi and Gaston return from Trouville, her lessons on being a lady are sped up. One of these lessons includes how to drink wine. Gigi’s aunt Alicia makes it clear that one needs to inhale the wine while sipping it so as to enjoy the flavor.

This is what I am supposing here. Whoever was advising the Elect probably took this particular notion and, unfortunately, ran with it. Sadly, we are not being wine connisseurs when we partake of the Precious Blood. A small, simple sip is suffice. We need not “inhale” to enjoy the flavor, if you will. We are not at a wine tasting event.
 
I always recommend very carefully lifting the chalice, so that you drink only a very small sip, almost simply a little taste of the Precious Blood.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top