We belong to a Latin Rite parish that distributes Holy Communion only by intinction, kneeling at the rail. I know of no objections at our parish.
I think it is a wonderful idea, and I would love to see this as the norm. So what if Mass takes a little longer because only the priest or deacon can distribute? Would it really kill people to spend a few more minutes in the presence of Christ?
~Liza
I agree that it is wonderful to spend more time with Christ Truly Present. I’m glad we have an Adoration Chapel open 24/7 in our parish.
But it would sure make for a looooooooong day for the priests, organist, etc.
We have five Masses on Sundays: 6:30 A.M., 8:00 A.M., 9:30 A.M, 11:00 A.M, and 12:30 A.M. (There’s also a Lifeteen Mass at 6:00 in the evening, and there is a 4:30 P.M. Mass and 6:00 P.M. Mass on Saturday evening. And during the school year, there is a family Mass at 9:30 A.M. on Sundays which meets in the school gym at the same time as the regular Mass–it’s packed.).
Other than the 6:30 Mass, all the Masses are packed standing room only.
We have three priests and three deacons in the parish. Usually just one priest is present at each Mass, and sometimes a deacon is present, too.
Each Mass uses about 8 EMHC. It takes about ten minutes to get everyone through the Communion line.
(People receive in the hand, on the tongue, and kneeling on the tongue, BTW, and we kneel while Communion is distributed.)
I would estimate that if one priest and one deacon served everyone at a Mass, Communion would take…well…I’m guessing 20 minutes maybe. Possibly longer.
What this means is that the schedule would have to be changed to accomodate the longer communion times. It would look like this:
6:30
8:00
10:00
12:00
2:00
Now that’s a LOOOOONG day! And frankly, I think a lot of people would object to attending a 2 P.M. Mass. So the 8:00 and 10:00 Masses would be even more crowded and would probably run even later.
I’m a fairly new Catholic, so maybe this sounds extreme to me but not to you. Is this the way it used to be before Vatican II came along? Of course, I realize that back in those days, there were more priests, so maybe it didn’t take as long.
I guess I don’t think we should give people another excuse to skip Mass and/or leave the Catholic Church altogether. I believe that the various methods of distributing Communion should all be practiced in dioceses so that that the faithful can choose the method that they find most acceptable. But I don’t think that one size fits all.