This Powerful Meme Tells the Hard Truth About Mistreatment of the Eucharist in Our Parishes

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Inquisitor_rex said:
Too many Catholics act so unacceptably nonchalant about receiving God the Son in His tender and vulnerable form. It baffles me how people practically SHRUG when they walk up, snatch The Lord from the hands of His consecrated and pop Him in their mouths like a Tylenol or a potato chip. Leaving crumbs and the like everywhere. It always the people that brag about how they “brought the Church into the modern age” too.
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We have a woman at our Church with some kind of disability and she uses a cane. When she goes up to receive, she grabs the Eucharist with her left hand and does exactly that…pops it in her mouth like taking aTylenol.
 
If one is unable to kneel that is very different than one who will not. As for receiving in the hand, it is still possible to be fed by the hands of Our Lord 🙂
 
Oh so in short discard the statements of Popes, Doctors of the Church, Fathers of the Church and the consecrated across the ages because you don’t like it? That’s not very Catholic
 
You claimed it was Church teaching. So being limited to only Church teaching should be enough for you.

Now if the question was if receiving on the tongue while kneeling could be a way for some people to receive more reverently, that’s a whole different ball game because then it gets into the question of “Among these valid options, which is the best for me?”
 
I’m arguing that in the hand is inherently inferior in matters of reverence.
 
And if you were saying that, for you personally, that was the case, I’d have no issues with such a statement. But if you’re gonna argue the Church teaches that, be prepared for when people ask you to prove that by providing a source of official Church Teaching.
 
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Inquisitor_rex said:
However receiving kneeling and on the tongue is the superior way with pride of place. The other method is a modern innovation that is seen as an inferior side option.
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Please, enough!
  1. I won’t kneel where I attend Mass as there is nothing to help prop myself back up; I’m 60 and I have osteoarthritis in my spine.
  2. I won’t stick out my tongue to anybody, especially Our Lord. My parents brought me up to believe that sticking your tongue out was a very rude gesture, and would admonish me severely as a child if I ever did it. If it’s bad enough for them, it’s even worse for Our Lord.
  3. The Church allows both, and unlike CAF members does not rate as “inferior” the inner disposition (which is all that matters) of those choosing to receive standing and in the hand.
It. Really. Is. That. Simple.

I’m therefore not going to rehash the arguments all over again. Nobody wins, and the same nonsense keeps coming back again, again and again.

Doc, I think you need to double that dose of morphine. Wheee…
mVitus said:
“Among these valid options, which is the best for me?”
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Bingo!
yankeesouth said:
Older folks who are of the ‘spirit’ of Vatican II age might be set in their ways
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Ageist nonsense.
yankeesouth said:
Traditional Latin Mass is more accessible now and will continue to grow and attract. That might also affect the Novus Ordo which might become more like what Vatican II called for.
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More nonsense. I already attend such an Ordinary Form Mass, with Gregorian chant and all the trimmings. And I sing in a Gregorian schola.

It has nothing to do with the form of the Mass, but the disposition of the celebrant(s). If the EF would become the only form again, you’d have the same issues with reverence, or lack of, as the OF because it would no longer be in the care of aficionados. A priest (who may, BTW be great pastorally) who is liturgically awkward will continue to be so, he’ll just have more “rules” to “break”. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that the Tridentine Mass was always celebrated reverently before the Council. It wasn’t. It was said occasionally by drunk priests, by priests having contests between them on how fast they could say a low Mass, by priests who mumbled, and by priests who were liturgically awkward.

Just like now for that matter. It wasn’t just ICK or FSSP priests offering the Mass back then (in fact they didn’t even exist then).
 
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I am not one to pass judgment or scrutinize someone receiving by the hand. Largely for the most part, it’s how most people are taught. It’s even what I was taught.

That said I personally favor bringing back communion rails and receiving communion on the tongue and with a paten (the plate held out underneath). I think people would be more likely to understand the True Presence when it’s given this kind of care and reverence. A lot of Catholics don’t actually believe they are receiving the body and blood of Christ, they think it’s “symbolic.” It would also make it more difficult for abuses to take place.

I think it would also make the whole situation less of a source of distress, particularly with scrupulants, about any stray fragments or drops from the wine.
 
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You’re welcome to your opinion and you’re free to receive on the tongue if you wish, but just recognize that until canon law is changed it’s personal preference and you shouldn’t be presuming to know how reverent other people are based on whether they’re standing or kneeling.
 
I’m not going to argue about receiving in the hand here, but people that are receiving on the tongue are not sticking their tongue out to the Lord. It is not the same thing as making a rude gesture.

If you feel like that’s what you would be doing and it would make you uncomfortable doing so, I will respect that. But saints received on the tongue for centuries and generally people that receive on the tongue are doing it out of reverence and are most likely not making rude gestures.
 
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What is actually taught:

The General Instruction asks each country’s Conference of Bishops to determine the posture to be used for the reception of Communion and the act of reverence to be made by each person as he or she receives Communion. In the United States, the body of Bishops determined that Communion should be received standing, and that a bow is the act of reverence made by those receiving. These norms may require some adjustment on the part of those who have been used to other practices, however the significance of unity in posture and gesture as a symbol of our unity as members of the one body of Christ should be the governing factor in our own actions.

Those who receive Communion may receive either in the hand or on the tongue, and the decision should be that of the individual receiving, not of the person distributing Communion. If Communion is received in the hand, the hands should first of all be clean. If one is right handed the left hand should rest upon the right. The host will then be laid in the palm of the left hand and then taken by the right hand to the mouth. If one is left-handed this is reversed. It is not appropriate to reach out with the fingers and take the host from the person distributing.

http://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-wor...t/the-reception-of-holy-communion-at-mass.cfm
 
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Ardent_Fire said:
I’m not going to argue about receiving in the hand here, but people that are receiving on the tongue are not sticking their tongue out to the Lord. It is not the same thing as making a rude gesture.

If you feel like that’s what you would be doing and it would make you uncomfortable doing so, I will respect that. But saints received on the tongue for centuries and generally people that receive on the tongue are doing it out of reverence and are most likely not making rude gestures.
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It boils down to… we have different notions of what is reverent, and what is rude. It is cultural. The Church is universal. Universal does not equal uniform, which is why the Church leaves it up to the local conference of bishops to decide what is appropriate for their country, and culture.

Which again makes such threads totally pointless; imposing one form or the other becomes an exercise in cultural chauvinism. Roma locuta est, causa finita est.
 
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The Council of Trent confirmed the Church’s power to change disciplines regarding the reception of the sacraments, and gave the following motivations the Church should have when doing so (my emphasis):
It furthermore declares, that this power has ever been in the Church, that, in the dispensation of the sacraments, their substance being untouched, it may ordain,–or change, what things soever it may judge most expedient, for the profit of those who receive, or for the veneration of the said sacraments, according to the difference of circumstances, times, and places.
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Given our circumstances, which discipline–the current or the prior–leads to greater veneration of the sacrament and greater profit for the recipient?

Honestly, I’ve seen plenty of arguments why the current practice is not contrary to the faith or sacrilegious (and I agree with those arguments), but not why it leads to greater veneration of the sacrament and profit for the recipient. To me, it seems the opposite has been the result…
 
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