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LilyM
Guest
I’ve done that too
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jessecd
Guest
In followup to my own post:
After perusing various documents concerning communion on the tongue as opposed to the hand, I once again came upon Memoriale Domini of 1969 that specifically addressed the issue put forth concerning the changing of the traditional norms of reception.
“This method of distributing holy communion must be retained (on the tongue -jd), 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”
and,
"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.”
Even with these statements, supported by the Council of Trent and the history of the Church, and of the great saints including St. Thomas, the question of allowing communion in the hand was put to the bishops with the majority 67% against communion in the hand.
The pressure continued, apparently, from a vocal minority and for whatever reason an indult was granted. Now, against the history of the church, communion in the hand becomes common as proper respect for the blessed sacrament becomes rare.
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stinkcat_14
Guest
Personally, I believe Jesus is really present in the blessed sacrament. I usually receive communion in the hand, and this practice has had no impact my belief in the real presence. The way I see it, this is an issue that the Church has jurisdiction over. If they want to stop it, they can. If they do, I will obey. If people want to receive on the tongue that is their business, but they are not my magisterium, so they can’t tell me how I should receive.
Just my 2 cents.
Just my 2 cents.
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Eliza10
Guest
This is the same decision I made for my first, in 2000. I had wanted to know the “best” way, since I saw people taking it on EWTN on the tongue, and in the church, almost everyone took by hand. I asked the priest, and he would only tell me that both ways were approved by the Church. So I had to decide. I didn’t want to draw attention to myself, and also taking it on my tongue seemed so humiliating and undignified. I decided the latter wasn’t a good enough reason against it. Also, I could call “humiliating” “humbling” instead). It came down to communion on the tongue seeming the most respectful.
Although I wished the priest had told me what was the best choice, I had to think and choose for myself what was best.
In contrast, last year I went to our Tabernacle to pray, not expecting anyone to be there. But a deacon was giving instruction to some RCIA candidates, and telling them at that moment how to recieve Our Lord in the Eucharist (only he didn’t make any reference to it being Our Lord, or holy, or important - not anything like that) and he told them that 95% of the people recieve it on the tongue, and (I am paraphrasing from memory) that this was the best way, that it was kind of gross or unsanitary to recieve it on the tongue. His strong bias against the tongue was loud and clear, and in his position of authority he seemed to be presenting the proper way to do things.
What contrast to how I was told! I thought of those candidates, and how it would take a huge act of will for them to take it on the tongue now that that option had been presented as the great social gaff.
I wish I had interrupted at that moment. I did have an impulse to. But I decided the most charitable thing to do was address this deacon directly, and I did, later. But I do not think it was so fruitful, I think he has his mind made up about things and the door is shut tight.
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maurin
Guest
Dear Eliza,
I believe you made, at that moment in time, the most prudent choice. Speaking to the Deacon directly took some courage, and I am sure that you were “filled with the Holy Spirit” when you spoke with him, so you only needed “to open your mouth while He provided the words.”
In response to your last sentence “…I do not think it was so fruitful…” I would like to share the prayer of Oscar Romero with you:
It helps, now and then, to step back and take the long view. The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is beyond our vision. We accomplish in our lifetime only a a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work. Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the kingdom of God always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said. No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession brings perfection. No pastoral visit brings wholeness. No program accomplishes the Church’s mission. No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about: We plant seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold futyure promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our abilities.
**
We cannot do everything, and realizing that gives us a sense of liberation. This enables us to do something and to do it very well. It may be incomplete but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for God’s grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the differnce between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not messiahs. We ar prophets of a future not our own.**
Amen.
Such lessons for all of us, especially when presenting the case for Traditionalism!
J
jessecd
Guest
Yes, but the magesterium has spoken throughout history. I cited the council of trent, for example, earlier. Our last two popes have also made it explicitly clear that the prefered method is on the tongue. the current indult is an exception to the rule (although it often seems the exception becomes the rule).
Certainly it does seem awkward to receive on the tongue when no one else is, but in the current climate of unbeleif we do have a responsibility to err on the side of caution; showing Christ the humility and reverence that is due to him. I would also encourage kneeling to receive; I guarantee the saints in heaven that are celebrating mass with us also kneel before their Lord.
Jesse
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Cristiano
Guest
Receiving the Host in the hand is an indult for several regions. Does anyone have a list of where there is no indult for such a practice?
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Eliza10
Guest
Maurin, Thank you so much for your kind words and also the inspired ones of Oscar Romero! Eliza10
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JesuXPIPassio
Guest
Sure, you’re right. It is what it is.
The Host was given on the tongue in part because they needed to be sure that people who came to Mass would consume the Host then and there. They might go home and do improper things with it. People who practise occult often try to get a real Host for their little creepy rituals. The Host was the most precious thing we had, and we couldn’t allow that.
But, this is a matter of practise and discipline. It isn’t a matter of doctrine or dogma. They simply just changed the rules to allow people to receive the Eucharist by the hand. The practise changed, the discipline changed, but it still is what it is.
Before Vatican II, priests wore cassocks. Today, priests hardly ever do. Are they any less priests? Of course not. It’s just practise and discipline, and it can be changed at any time to suit the circumstances.
A parish building may have had purple exterior walls in the past, but let’s say that the colour purple culturally becomes bad. Maybe everyone begins to associate it too much with Barney the purple dinosaur or something.
So the circumstances changed, and they might want to change the building to white or some other colour. It’s still a parish. It isn’t any more or less Catholic than it was when it was purple.Besides, people are still welcome to receive ont he tongue. I do, and I prefer it that way.
The circumstances and practise can change again. People might begin to become satanists in large numbers. The satanist rituals might call for a real Host, so again the Church would want to put it on the tongue so people couldn’t take the Host home and give it to Anton LaVey or Madeleine Murray O’Hare, who both would abuse it. The hypothetical rule change could happen at any time. For all we know, the Vatican could be ruling on it as we speak. But whatever the rules become, it doesn’t change the basic reality that it is the Body and Blood of Christ. So, yeah, you were right.
You know, with Vatican II, it really wasn’t just out of nowhere that this was allowed. In the early Church, people were able to receive the Host on their hands too. But, the practise just changed and different rules were outlined. It’s the same thing.
J
JesuXPIPassio
Guest
One more thing. Here’s a little bitty you might like to see. vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_let_24021980_dominicae-cenae_en.html
It talks a bit about it and it might help you with your conversation with your mom.
It talks a bit about it and it might help you with your conversation with your mom.
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brotherhrolf
Guest
In my 18 + years of singing in a cathedral choir, I cannot tell you the number of times Father or the Bishop had to run someone down because they had attempted to “pocket” the Host. “Improper” things? Satanic things. The police broke up an animal sacrifice in conjunction with a desecrated host at a local park here well after midnight. While such things are not the norm, it is foolish to think that they don’t happen.
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Aurelio
Guest
Hello!I think maybe a lot of us get mixed up about the difference between what is possible, and what is** impossible**.
In the savage persecution that swept across Mexico from 1926 to 1929 – and even beyond – no matter the emergency and the resulting shortage of validly ordained priests to say Mass and consecrate the Bread and Wine into the Body and Blood of Chirst, no lay man could do it instead, period. No matter what.
However, one British citizen wrote from what seemed to be his own first-hand experience and what he’d seen was this:
Consecrated hosts were often kept in a secret place where the people would meet and after prayers, go up one by one and administer Holy Communion to themselves.
Now, it looks like from this account at any rate, that “Communion on the Tongue” just might be a disciplinary thing, and not a doctrinal thing like having to be an ordained priest to say Mass obviously is.
Besides, what was St. Stephen up to, carrying what seems to have been Consecrated Hosts?
Just an idea!
Aurelio:thumbsup:
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Gene_Church
Guest
Receiving the Body of Christ on the tongue provides me with the opportunity to experience grace in a manner that receiving by the hand does not seem to provide.
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JesuXPIPassio
Guest
Yeah, there was a case of something like that with John Paul II. A guy on eBay was selling what he claimed to be a Eucharistic Host that was Consecrated during a papal Mass. The winning bidder was a Catholic who just did it to protect the Host, and eBay changed its policies and banned that sort of thing.
I’m wondering, what did the priest or bishop do to the person taking the Eucharist and trying to steal it? Did he yell at the guy? Did he take the Eucharist back? Did he do anything else?
It’s a horrible thought, but I’m curious as to what the clergy would do if they saw such a thing happen. I also wonder about how the priest or bishop would react when someone who isn’t supposed to receive the Eucharist does come up. Never seen that happen.
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maurin
Guest
Is anyone else hoping that the Bishop seized the opportunity to catechize this person and the whole assembled Congregation?
My first reaction, from my disordered soul, probably would be to “yell at the guy,” I must admit. But I hope in the presence of such Grace as the Blessed Sacrament, the Holy Spirit would take hold of me and use me for the common good. But I find, if I am to be perfectly honest with myself, that I often fail when such opportunities of charity present themselves.
Peter Maurin taught that the poor–whether they be the financially poor or the Spiritually poor, or the morally and ethically poor–give to the rich the opportunity to do good, to perform the Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy. In this sense, they can be considered the ‘Ambassadors’ of God. And in this sense both the poor and the rich give each other the opportunity to become more like Christ. Not necessarily detached from one’s passions, but allowing reason to dictate to one’s passions, rather than the other way around.
As the CCC teaches (1767): In themselves passions are neither good nor evil. They are morally qualified only to the extent that they effectively engage reason and will. Passions are said to be voluntary, “either because they are commanded by the will or because the will does not place obstacles in their way” (Summa Theol. I-II, 24, 1). It belongs to the perfection of the moral or human good that the passions be governed by reason.
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anamchara
Guest
The cradle Catholics are normally much more charitable and don’t call Protestants “heretics” try and keep in mind there are forum rules for a reason
Let me guess, from the evangelical side of Protestantism?
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Crusade_Guy
Guest
It seems like us Traditionalists have been relegated to the “catacombs” while the modernists destroy our beautiful churches and forbid us to celebrate the very Mass those churches were built for.
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Crusade_Guy
Guest
I have heard of such things happening, apparently it’s common or at least more common than one might think. All that stuff about Satanists trying to steal consecrated hosts isn’t a myth. At the conservative Novus Ordo parish I used to attend before I “went Trad”, they even have a camera on the sanctuary because Satanists have broken into the church and tried to chip away at the marble Altar to get inside the tabernacle. In the past they have also stolen sacred vessels and a humeral veil.
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GandalfTheWhite
Guest
I just wanted to say that it makes a lot of sense to me to be able to receive holy communion both on hand and tongue. Sure, tongue should probably stay as the default way but I think it’s a bit careless if you are sick. It happens quite often that a priest (especially if they are old) touches someone’s lips/tongue. I’m guessing that was also the reasoning of VII (though I might be wrong).
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jessecd
Guest
Orthodox Reformed Presbyterian.The cradle Catholics are normally much more charitable and don’t call Protestants “heretics” try and keep in mind there are forum rules for a reason
Let me guess, from the evangelical side of Protestantism?
If the forum rules prevent calling beliefs contrary to Catholic dogmas heretical, and those who believe such things as heretics, then I am guilty of going against forum rules and I apologize. In the future, I’ll cite the saints and doctors of the Church when I need to use the word “heretic.” I can’t get in trouble for simply citing them when they use the phrase “Protestant Heretics” can I?
That should be an effective loophole.
Jesse
Please watch the charity level, folks. And please get back on topic. Thank you, Jean Anthony, moderator.
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