Receiving the Eucharist

  • Thread starter Thread starter Happy_B
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
H

Happy_B

Guest
Dear all,

I have been living in England for years now but when I first arrived here I was surprised to see people receive the Holy Communion in the hand rather than on the tongue (I come from central Europe where this is not seen at all). Many times I have seen a Holy Communion drop on the floor which is shocking! The priest’s hands are consecrated and therefore it should be received directly onto our toungue and not in our hands that are not consecrated and where there is a danger of the Holy Communion falling (like it happened many times) and a danger of people doing other things with it like putting in the pockets, etc…Why is the Holy Communion being received in the hand in England (and presumebly in the US as well?) when many popes, bishops and other religious people didn’t agree with it???

“There is an apostolic letter on the existence of a special valid permission for this [Communion in the hand]. But I tell you that I am not in favor of this practice, nor do I recommend it.” - His Holiness Pope John Paul II, responding to a reporter from Stimme des glaubens magazine, during his visit to Fulda (Germany) in November 1980.

Also Mother Teresa:

“Wherever I go in the whole world, the thing that makes me the saddest is watching people receive Communion in the hand.”- As reported by Fr. George Rutler in his 1989 Good Friday sermon at St. Agnes Church, New York. When Mother Teresa of Calcutta was asked by Fr. Rutler, “What do you think is the worst problem in the world today?” without pausing a second she gave the above reply. She stated that to her knowledge, all of her sisters receive Communion only on the tongue.

More quotes from other people here:

tldm.org/news6/holy-ones.htm
 
I agree. It was an imprudent decision to ever allow it. I hope the knowledge of the problems with this practice spreads, and so that when receiving in the hand is eventually forbidden again, that the faithful will understand why and happily receive on the tongue only.
 
While I have no opinion, one way or another on receving communion in the hand, I do not personally receive that way. I receive on the tongue.

The bigger issue to my mind is not whether to receive on the tongue or in the hand, but rather the general lack of reverence I see in most Catholics at communion. If there was a greater understanding and reverence for the Eucharist in general, I believe we would see fewer epople receiving in the hand. More importantly, with greater understanding and consequent reverence, there would be less “rush” at communion and therefore fewer accidents.

Peace
James
 
Here in the US, with the shortage of priests if only the priest’s hands were allowed to touch the sacred host, Masses would take an hour. Our parish has seven Masses each weekend and we are staffed by three priests. Most of the Masses have over 500 people so we have 9 extraordinary ministers of Communion at each Mass.

A few people do receive on the tongue, but that was discouraged last year during the swine flu epidemic.
 
Happy_B said:
Also Mother Teresa:

“Wherever I go in the whole world, the thing that makes me the saddest is watching people receive Communion in the hand.”- As reported by Fr. George Rutler in his 1989 Good Friday sermon at St. Agnes Church, New York. When Mother Teresa of Calcutta was asked by Fr. Rutler, “What do you think is the worst problem in the world today?” without pausing a second she gave the above reply. She stated that to her knowledge, all of her sisters receive Communion only on the tongue.
Click to expand...
Mother Teresa’s order, the Missionaries of Charity, deny that she ever said this. Please check your facts.
 
Happy_B said:
. . .The priest’s hands are consecrated and therefore it should be received directly onto our toungue and not in our hands that are not consecrated and where there is a danger of the Holy Communion falling (like it happened many times) and a danger of people doing other things with it like putting in the pockets, etc…%between%
Click to expand...
While my hands have not been consecrated, neither has my tongue. According to Saint James [3:5-8]
…So the tongue is a little member and boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! 6 And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is an unrighteous world among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the cycle of nature, * and set on fire by hell. * 7 For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by humankind, 8 but no human being can tame the tongue–a restless evil, full of deadly poison…
Click to expand...
the tongue is involved in more sin than the hand.
 
dconklin said:
Here in the US, with the shortage of priests if only the priest’s hands were allowed to touch the sacred host, **Masses would take an hour. ** Our parish has seven Masses each weekend and we are staffed by three priests. Most of the Masses have over 500 people so we have 9 extraordinary ministers of Communion at each Mass.

A few people do receive on the tongue, but that was discouraged last year during the swine flu epidemic.
Click to expand...
I watched a priest in his 90’s give Communion at the rail to near 250 or so. He was exhausted and believe me, he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Matthew 26:41
“So, could you not watch with me one hour?
 
Joe_Kelley said:
While my hands have not been consecrated, neither has my tongue. According to Saint James [3:5-8] the tongue is involved in more sin than the hand.
Click to expand...
Hmm, this only answers the question “should people receive on the tongue only because we sin less (or do not sin) with the tongue?” The answer is “no, not for that reason.”

The real question is “should we receive on the tongue since liturgical development led to this exclusively, since it is much less likely to lead to sacrilege involving the host, and since the communion-in-the-hand experiment has obviously failed in its vague goal of whatever-it-was-supposed-to-improve-in-the-Church since belief in and respect for the Real Presence has plummetted?” The answer is “yes.”
 
newyorkcatholic said:
Hmm, this only answers the question “should people receive on the tongue only because we sin less (or do not sin) with the tongue?” The answer is “no, not for that reason.”

The real question is “should we receive on the tongue since liturgical development led to this exclusively, since it is much less likely to lead to sacrilege involving the host, and since **the communion-in-the-hand experiment has obviously failed **in its vague goal of whatever-it-was-supposed-to-improve-in-the-Church since belief in and respect for the Real Presence has plummetted?” The answer is “yes.”
Click to expand...
👍👍

Peace
James
 
baltobetsy said:
Mother Teresa’s order, the Missionaries of Charity, deny that she ever said this. Please check your facts.
Click to expand...
How would they know? I mean, if Fr. Rutler says this was told him by Mother Teresa, and we know they knew each other, it’s very possibly true. Were the Missionaries of Charity in question there at that very moment?

What if I, now, deny that the Missionaries of Charity ever denied that Mother Teresa maid the statement in question? I wasn’t there during the supposed denial, so what would I know?

Also the poster who mentioned Mother Teresa’s statement gave a source (Fr. Rutler, even a specific time and place, and it was a public homily, and a report of a personal encounter). Can you tell us who in the Missionaries denied Mother Teresa’s statement, when, and how they knew?
 
Receiving communion in the hand was the universal practice of the Church in the first centuries in both east and west.
To say it was a failed experiment is to say that the Christians of the first centuries got it wrong.

catholicsensibility.wordpress.com/2007/11/12/byzantine-liturgy-and-holy-communion/
  1. Fr Taft (with the aid of an extraordinarily long footnote referring to Greek, Syriac, Latin, and secondary sources) discusses the practice of lay communion in the hand:
    As for lay communion, occasional attempts by self-styled “traditionalist” Catholics to undermine the force of the historical evidence because of dissatisfaction with the return in the Roman rite to the practice of giving the laity communion in the hand in the wake of the liturgical reforms of Vatican II are in vain. The proof that throughout the Late Antique period, and in some areas well into the Middle Ages, the laity in East and West once received both species separately, and in their own hands, is overwhelming. From these accounts it is evident that the minister of the sacrament placed a piece of the Sacred Body in the communicants’ right hand. After consuming the host, the communicants then drank of the Precious Blood directly from the chalice offered by another minister.
At the end of the patristic period, St John Damascene (ca. 675-ca. 753/4), sometimes called “the last of the Greek Fathers,” still witnesses to the continuance of the same practice, when he admonishes: “Let us approach him [the minister of communion] with ardent longing, and with palms touching the eyes, the lips, and the brow, let us receive the divine coal …”

Prior to the eleventh century, sources for the rite of Constantinople continue uniformly to reflect this old tradition of communion under both species separately, and in the communicant’s uncovered hands. And when communion of the two sacred species together, via intinction using a spoon, was eventually introduced into Orthodox usage around the turn of the first millennium, it was condemned as an unheard of innovation – which indeed it was. For the ancient tradition – and here goes another cliché – was not communion under both species, as one heard so often repeated, but communion under both species separately, as I have already shown elsewhere. As late as the first half of the twelfth century, communion via a spoon was apparently still viewed as an innovation in need of defense, if one can trust the letter attributed to Constantinopolitan Patriarch Michael II Kourkouas (1143-1146).

For anyone who is unaware, the Rt. Rev. Archimandrite Robert F. Taft, S.J. was Professor of Oriental Liturgy at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome (1970-2002), where he also served as Prefect of the Library (1981-85), and Vice-Rector of the Institute (1995-2001). He has written and edited thirty-five books.
He also holds degrees from Fordham University and Weston College (Mass.), the doctorate in Eastern Christian Studies from the Pontifical Oriental Institute, Rome and postdoctoral studies at the University of Louvain, Belgium
 
  1. A Deacon’s hands are not consecrated. Yet he is the Ordinary Minister of Communion Explain to me how this reconciles with your comment about a Priest’s hands being consecrated.
  2. Her Order denies it, yet you do not believe them. What do they have to gain from lying about this? Who benefits? By saying her Order is lying, do you deem Mother Teresa’s legacy to be one of lies?
  3. I’ve been going to “CITH parishes” for years, and I’ve never seen anyone drop the Eucharist during Mass. That includes Masses being said by the BLIND (as in he seriously can’t see; he uses braille texts) priest who is the Pastor at one of the Churches here.
The BLIND priest has no issues and doesn’t drop the Eucharist. So I’m not sure what everyone else is doing. Of course, it is always COTT advocates who say “I’ve seen everyone dropping Jesus!!”
  1. The transfer from hand to tongue could still result in Jesus being dropped. If people saw it happen while someone was receiving on the tongue, I wonder if there would be a mad rush to the Internet Forums to post about it.
EDIT: A nice find Dan, but you quoted a Jesuit so people will probably ignore it.
 
Dan-Man916 said:
Receiving communion in the hand was the universal practice of the Church in the first centuries in both east and west.
To say it was a failed experiment is to say that the Christians of the first centuries got it wrong.
Click to expand...
You’re right, it wasn’t an experiment but two councils and several Popes condemned the practice nevertheless. To revive a practice which has been specifically condemned amounts to antiquarianism and also has been condemned by Popes.
 
ProVobis said:
That’s why we use patens and that’s why we train servers on how to use them.
Click to expand...
And you don’t suppose those who receive by their hands can not use the patens either? Pretty sure they can.
 
Melchior said:
And you don’t suppose those who receive by their hands can not use the patens either? Pretty sure they can.
Click to expand...
Yes, but they’d have to be much larger patens to be effective 100% of time. Why take that risk? What have you gained?
 
ProVobis said:
Yes, but they’d have to be much larger patens to be effective 100% of time. Why take that risk? What have you gained?
Click to expand...
They’ll need larger patens? Probably not.

As far as dropping Jesus is concerned, risk is risk. And if “risk” is an issue, every time Father Blind distributes Communion there’s a risk, so does that mean Father Blind should never give out the Eucharist? And anytime someone who is physically or mentally disabled receives there’s an increased risk, so they shouldn’t receive either?
 
ewtn.com/library/curia/cdwmemor.htm

This method of distributing holy communion must be retained, taking the present situation of the Church in the entire world into account, not merely because it has many centuries of-tradition behind it, but especially because it expresses the faithful’s reverence for the Eucharist. The custom does not detract in any way from the personal dignity of those who approach this great sacrament: it is part of that preparation that is needed for the most fruitful reception of the Body of the Lord.[6]

This reverence shows that it is not a sharing in “ordinary bread and wine”[7] that is involved, but in the Body and Blood of the Lord, through which “The people of God share the benefits of the Paschal Sacrifice, renew the New Covenant which God has made with man once for all through the Blood of Christ, and in faith and hope foreshadow and anticipate the eschatological banquet in the kingdom of the Father.”[8]

Further, the practice which must be considered traditional ensures, more effectively, that holy communion is distributed with the proper respect, decorum and dignity. It removes the danger of profanation of the sacred species, in which “in a unique way, Christ, God and man, is present whole and entire, substantially and continually.”[9] Lastly, it ensures that diligent carefulness about the fragments of consecrated bread which the Church has always recommended: “What you have allowed to drop, think of it as though you had lost one of your own members.”[10]

MEMORIALE DOMINI
Instruction on the Manner of Distributing Holy Communion
Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top