J
JReducation
Guest
I think that the problem we have here is that we are discussing communion on the hand or the tongue as theology. In this, the entire thread is wrong. This is not a theological issue. Theology has to do with the nature of God and with those dogmas and doctrines that explain and organize for us the nature of God using reason. That is theology. Anything outside that falls into a different academic discipline.
Communion in the hand falls under the area of liturgical disciplines. Liturgical disciplines are not theological points, for several reasons. First, they are not dogmas. They can be changed by the authority of the Church at any time and without any explanation. Second, they are not sacred Tradition. They are traditions with a lower case T. Again, traditions can be changed or even dropped by the competent authority without an explanation. Third, they are not moral laws. They do not bind us under pain of sin. What binds us is the moral law. In this case, if we treat the Eucharist irreverently, either on the tongue or on the hand, the moral law binds us and convicts us. On the other hand, if we treat the Eucharist with reverence and approach it in a state of grace, the moral law protects us from condemnation, both divine and human.
As a liturgical discipline, the Holy See has granted an indult to the local bishops and to the conferences of bishops to use the indult, which allows communion in the hand. It is arrogant on the part of any of us to presume that we know better than the Holy See and claim that the indult was a mistake or that the indult causes people to sin.
It is arrogant for several reasons. First, we do not have the authority to criticize the Holy See. When you criticize someone, it means that you know something that they do not know. This begs the question, by what power do you or I come to know what the Holy See does not know?
Second, it is arrogant because you and I are not the givers of the law. If one is not the giver of the law, then one is either the judge of the law and the law giver or the servant of the law. But we cannot be both obedient to the law and at the same time be judges of the law. Either we accept that the indult was given and choose which way to receive the Eucharist is best for us or we become the judges of the law and the law giver and proclaim to the world that the law is wrong. If the law is wrong, the law giver must be wrong, for the law does not promulgate itself. The indult is not self-promulgating. It was promulgated by the Holy See.
Third, we must recognize the truth about history. The indult was granted because communion in the hand was being practiced in some dioceses. If memory serves me right, it was in the Dutch dioceses where it first appeared. But we have to look at why the Church chose to created the indult rather than condemn the Dutch dioceses. The Church decided to create the indult to rescue those dioceses from the pain of the sin of disobedience. They were not being saved from some heresy. They were being protected from the sin of disobedience to the rubrics.
The Church is a merciful mother. As a merciful mother, she protects her children from sin, whenever her power and authority allows her to do so. Why does she do it? Because it is her mission to protect her children from sin. She protects her children from sin in one of two ways.
- She admonished and guides her children away from sin and toward virtue and holiness. Even if she has to discipline them, as was the case with the SSPX and other groups.
- She also protects her children from sin by using her authority to bind or unbind those rules that are within her power to do so. By unbinding, in the case, there is no sin of disobedience to the rubrics. If there is no sin of disobedience, then the Church has saved her children from themselves.
As long as the indult is in place, we must accept it, because it speaks to us of the motherhood of the Church and her protection of her children.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
