When "Extraordinary Ministers of the Eucharist" become "ordinary"

[AquinaSavio]

I regularly see 17 EMs at my parish.

 

[lak611]

I did tell my priest however, that I am uncomfortable with taking Communion to the sick and shut-in. In my mind, it’s one thing to distribute, it’s another level to conduct a Communion service. Not to mention, that I would be carrying the Eucharists in a pix in my purse! I told Father, I just couldn’t reconcile that during the feast of Corpus Christi, he carries the Eucharist in a monstrance, under a canopy, and we process around the church. And compare that grand treatment of the Eucharist to having it in a pix in my purse between my billfold and my cellphone. I just can’t do it. He said that he understood.

Why would you not place the pyx in a burse worn around your neck? That is how the EMHC’s in my parish carry the Body of Christ to the shut-ins. I have never seen the pyx carried in any other manner. Here’s a picture. matthewfsheehan.net/index.cfm?event=ProductDetails&CategoryID=1&ProductID=1628

 

[whatevergirl]

That’s not my issue at all. Mine is the sign value of receiving from the priest. The priest is acting in persona Christi, and represents Christ giving Himself to me in the Sacrament, regardless of his personal holiness or lack thereof. No lay person, no matter how holy, can fulfill this role. So I sit where I know my section will receive from the priest. If something changes and I end up in the line for the EMHC, that’s OK, too. It’s just not my preference. It’s still Jesus.

Betsy

I hear you–I wonder though, why the RCC permits lay people to distribute the Eucharist then? To act as EEM’s?

 

[baltobetsy]

I hear you–I wonder though, why the RCC permits lay people to distribute the Eucharist then? To act as EEM’s?

I guess because other considerations are held to be more important than what I think. Imagine that!

Betsy

 

[az_4_faith]

In my parish, our priests celebrate five Masses on Sunday over a 6 1/2 hour period, starting at 7am and concluding at 1:30pm (not to mention the 5:30pm Mass later that evening which makes six Masses.)

We have over 10,000 people in our parish.

For three priests to distribute Holy Communion by themselves, even if only under one species, would consume most of the morning.

Our Mass times are close together and leave little lee-way time as the faithful enter and exit the church and parking lots. It’s a giant shuffle game every Sunday.

Neighboring parishes are in the same boat.

With that many people receiving Communion every Sunday, our priests do need help.

Unlike years ago, when new parishes opened up on corner after corner to keep the congregations small, we can’t build new churches at the rate our population is growing (in the Phoenix metro area). The money’s just not flowing in as fast as the cost of land is escalating. And we wouldn’t have enough priests yet to staff the new parishes anyway (although we’re working on it - six newly ordained last week.)

While EMHC are desperately needed in our parish on the weekends, they are overused at our twice-three times a day daily Masses.

 

[PaixGioiaAmor]

In my parish, our priests celebrate five Masses on Sunday over a 6 1/2 hour period, starting at 7am and concluding at 1:30pm (not to mention the 5:30pm Mass later that evening which makes six Masses.)

We have over 10,000 people in our parish.

For three priests to distribute Holy Communion by themselves, even if only under one species, would consume most of the morning.

Our Mass times are close together and leave little lee-way time as the faithful enter and exit the church and parking lots. It’s a giant shuffle game every Sunday.

Neighboring parishes are in the same boat.

With that many people receiving Communion every Sunday, our priests do need help.

Unlike years ago, when new parishes opened up on corner after corner to keep the congregations small, we can’t build new churches at the rate our population is growing (in the Phoenix metro area). The money’s just not flowing in as fast as the cost of land is escalating. And we wouldn’t have enough priests yet to staff the new parishes anyway (although we’re working on it - six newly ordained last week.)

While EMHC are desperately needed in our parish on the weekends, they are overused at our twice-three times a day daily Masses.

It is very wonderful to see a place that HAS to use extraordinary ministers because of such fast growth and the volume of people at mass.

God is blessing you!

 

[whatevergirl]

I guess because other considerations are held to be more important than what I think. Imagine that!

Betsy

ok!

 

[whatevergirl]

It is very wonderful to see a place that HAS to use extraordinary ministers because of such fast growth and the volume of people at mass.

God is blessing you!

that is a wonderfully positive way of seeing that–thanks for this post!

 

[childofmary1143]

I am going to choose my words carefully as this issue is a very touchy one but I feel its important that I put my 2 cents worth into it.

To start off with I would suggest that if you haven’t read the book already that you do so now and its Michael Rose’s book Goodbye good men as that is a very truthful and eye opening book on the artificial shortage of Priesthood Vocations.

What is important is the OFFICE of the Priesthood. Its the vocation and the awesome honor of it. Parent’s pro-create human life but a Priest “pro-creates” GOD. It doesn’t get any more awesome than that. If “pro-create” is an incorrect term I apologise but I use it to compare with marriage.

Throughout history whenever there was an evil movement (Nazism, Communism etc.) one of the first groups of people they would target is Priests. I remember a Norbertine Priest saying that on EWTN years back.

We are told that EMHC or whatever acronym you want to use are necessary because there aren’t enough Priests to distribute them. At my parish there is 20 people attending Saturday Evening (Sunday Liturgy) mass and always there is 1 EMHC. It’s gone way past need. In the book I mentioned it documents how radical, liberal (i.e. women’s ordination, gay marriage, abortion, birth control) Nuns are in charge of admissions for Seminaries and how young men who are faithful and obedient to the Magisterial teachings of the Faith are either denied entry or are subjected to brainwashing and indoctrination. I have spoken to Priests who can attest to that kind of intimidation in the Seminaries.

Now as to “why” the Church permits it? Good question. I wish I knew.

I hope this helps a bit and I hope I haven’t offended anyone by this.

 

[Andreas_Hofer]

The issue with EEM’s is that many see lay people as fallen people. The truth is…all mortals are fallen and sinful. ALL. Who is to say that the priest isn’t in mortal sin when giving mass? But, we do not make such a judgement, but we judge EEM’s and view people who are not ordained, so to speak, as ‘lesser than.’

That may be how it feels to you, but I highly doubt most of the people who have problems with our current regime of EMsHC have exaggerated a worry about the sinfulness of particular individuals into a criticism of the whole ministry. Rather, the antipathy toward the extraordinary ministry is two-pronged.

First and foremost, there is a millenium of piety telling us that only those whose hands have been consecrated to that very purpose may touch the Body of Christ. It is not about the state of an individual’s soul but the respect accorded the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. This reverence for the sacrament used to be so strong that there are anecdotes of saints noticing a particle of the Eucharist that had fallen on the ground and rather than pick it up and consume it like most people would today they knelt by the Sacrament until a priest could be found to take care of it.

We can recognize that this is not dogma, not matter how distinguished a discipline it might be, so I think those motivated by this concern that only consecrated hands touch the host would be willing to cede some role for extraordinary ministers at gatherings so large that distribution of the Eucharist would take over, say, 20-30 min (or, as in some large parishes, when Masses simply can’t fit together unless Communion is distributed quickly). But this leads us to the second concern.

There are guidelines for EMsHC and communion under both kinds, but many people think those guidelines are clearly not being followed. Sure, maybe EMsHC will be necessary in certain circumstances, but, from my experience, they have only been necessary in a very small, single digit percentage of the Masses I’ve attended. The permission for extraordinary ministers and communion under both kinds seem to have ballooned in tandem such that you hear the unfounded and unreasonable complaints that “we always have to have EMsHC because we have to administer the cup at every Mass.” The rub is simply that, even if we agree there might be appropriate situations to call upon laypeople to distribute the Eucharist, it is never appropriate to abuse the liturgy, which is essentially what happens when the norms in place are bent to fit the tastes of the priest or congregation.

I submit, for instance, that absent time constraints of competing Masses, there is absolutely no necessity for EMsHC when there is ca. 1 priest to 150 communicants. The priest can commune those people in no more than 15 minutes (probably 10 or less), which seems plenty reasonable, and no cups are necessary. There’s obviously room for negotiation on rules of thumb like that, but consider the countless daily Masses with 20 communicants and at least one EMHC and see how big a change there would be in liturgical praxis if we just followed the rules.

 

[water]

I had an interview today, and I am accepted to be an extraordinary minster of the Eucharist.

I am doing this for the love of my neighbors - the elders who live in Nursing Home wanting to receive the Communion so much!

Now, you can be picky but when you are old and no one is available to bring the Eucharist to you, then you would be happy to have someone other than Priest and deacon to take the Communion to you.

 

[John_Higgins]

Welcome to the fold, water! Our parish has EMs because of the size and numbers of the Masses. I have not brought Communion to the sick, but I’d like to. My elderly aunt in Santa Barbara (the mission parish) routinely took Communion to the sick throughout her parish until well into her 80s.

John

PS: You’re Vietnamese? I always thought that was a pretty language, but I could never learn it. Some of my Air Force comrades who were in Viet Nam (I was stationed in Korea in 72-73) learned it.

 

[water]

Welcome to the fold, water! Our parish has EMs because of the size and numbers of the Masses. I have not brought Communion to the sick, but I’d like to. My elderly aunt in Santa Barbara (the mission parish) routinely took Communion to the sick throughout her parish until well into her 80s.

John

Thanks John. Bless your aunt!
Yes, our parish is huge too. There are 6 masses on Sunday, and each mass is probably well over 1000 people. There are 2 priests and 4 deacons. For this summer, we have only 1 priest, the other is taking class in another state. Can you imagine how much work this one priest has to do?

 

[water]

PS: You’re Vietnamese? I always thought that was a pretty language, but I could never learn it. Some of my Air Force comrades who were in Viet Nam (I was stationed in Korea in 72-73) learned it.

Yes, I am.
Amazingly, the one, whom I call the mother of our language, is a French missioner. He came to Vietnam very long time ago and formed the language based on Latin alphabets. Our formal language was all symbolic - just like Chinese.

 

[whatevergirl]

That may be how it feels to you, but I highly doubt most of the people who have problems with our current regime of EMsHC have exaggerated a worry about the sinfulness of particular individuals into a criticism of the whole ministry. Rather, the antipathy toward the extraordinary ministry is two-pronged.

First and foremost, there is a millenium of piety telling us that only those whose hands have been consecrated to that very purpose may touch the Body of Christ. It is not about the state of an individual’s soul but the respect accorded the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. This reverence for the sacrament used to be so strong that there are anecdotes of saints noticing a particle of the Eucharist that had fallen on the ground and rather than pick it up and consume it like most people would today they knelt by the Sacrament until a priest could be found to take care of it.

We can recognize that this is not dogma, not matter how distinguished a discipline it might be, so I think those motivated by this concern that only consecrated hands touch the host would be willing to cede some role for extraordinary ministers at gatherings so large that distribution of the Eucharist would take over, say, 20-30 min (or, as in some large parishes, when Masses simply can’t fit together unless Communion is distributed quickly). But this leads us to the second concern.

There are guidelines for EMsHC and communion under both kinds, but many people think those guidelines are clearly not being followed. Sure, maybe EMsHC will be necessary in certain circumstances, but, from my experience, they have only been necessary in a very small, single digit percentage of the Masses I’ve attended. The permission for extraordinary ministers and communion under both kinds seem to have ballooned in tandem such that you hear the unfounded and unreasonable complaints that “we always have to have EMsHC because we have to administer the cup at every Mass.” The rub is simply that, even if we agree there might be appropriate situations to call upon laypeople to distribute the Eucharist, it is never appropriate to abuse the liturgy, which is essentially what happens when the norms in place are bent to fit the tastes of the priest or congregation.

I submit, for instance, that absent time constraints of competing Masses, there is absolutely no necessity for EMsHC when there is ca. 1 priest to 150 communicants. The priest can commune those people in no more than 15 minutes (probably 10 or less), which seems plenty reasonable, and no cups are necessary. There’s obviously room for negotiation on rules of thumb like that, but consider the countless daily Masses with 20 communicants and at least one EMHC and see how big a change there would be in liturgical praxis if we just followed the rules./QUOTE

I agree–we shouldn’t abuse the liturgy. Perhaps, it is because society seems to be in such a rush…that EEM’s are seen as needed, even if perhaps they aren’t? (at certain masses) At this current parish I attend–there are three priests per mass…something I am not used to. (But 8 EEM’s, which seemed not necessary because there were enough priests to distribute Communion) My prior parish in PA had one priest per mass…it would take probably 40 minutes to go through communion if not for EEM’s…but, I don’t have a problem with time. I know a lot in society do…could that be a factor for some parishes overusing them?

 

[Writer]

Just simple question here… I’m curious whether the majority of people who feel strongly against the use of EEMs in Mass are from small parishes? I’m noticing that most of us supporters seem to be from much larger parishes than those who have expressed their concerns. If true, that would be interesting to know–might shed some light on the issue.

 

[Cranch]

It’s funny…people make a lot of excuses as to why the priesthood is diminishing…lots of finger pointing. Maybe it’s because the priesthood has suffered a lot of scandal…due to the disregard of the position BY OTHER PRIESTS. There could be other reasons no doubt…but please do not underestimate the sex scandals’ devestating effects on the priesthood. Let’s stop dancing around the issue and saying it’s the EEM’s fault…or it is because altar servers are girls. Although a small percentage of priests were involved in those scandals, I believe that many men are afraid of becoming priests because of the scandals.

The priesthood has been in numeric decline for decades. Surely the recent scandals play no more than a minor role in this trend. I do not agree with the solution to the priest shortage advocated in this Commonweal article from 1995, but the numbers cited are probably accurate. A few excerpts:Ordinations to the diocesan priesthood fell by half during the decades following Vatican II, dropping from about 1,000 per year in the late 1960s to approximately 500 per year throughout the 1980s.

The number of Catholic seminarians in U. S. theologates (the final years of study before ordination) has steadily decreased, and the bottom of the descent is not yet in sight. Enrollments in theologates dropped 59 percent in less than three decades, from 8,325 in 1966 to 3,416 in 1993. Between 1990 and 1993 alone, the size of this group fell by more than 5 percent.

Poor retention after ordination deepens the severe losses inflicted by plummeting ordinations. Chronic defection of young priests from the active ministry has likewise persisted since the end of the council. From 1968-74, the retention problem reached catastrophic proportions: The number of newly ordained priests needed to fill vacancies created by resignations averaged 73 percent annually, peaking at 95 percent in the early 70s. Later in that decade and throughout the 1980s, that dropped to 38 percent.
I believe the valid idea of a “priestly people” has been distorted to the detriment of the Catholic Holy Orders. The great post-council leveling of priest and people (of which EMHCs are the most visible example) and subsequent blurring of the priestly role is the greatest cause of the decline in the priesthood.

 

[Aramis]

I submit, for instance, that absent time constraints of competing Masses, there is absolutely no necessity for EMsHC when there is ca. 1 priest to 150 communicants. The priest can commune those people in no more than 15 minutes (probably 10 or less), which seems plenty reasonable, and no cups are necessary. There’s obviously room for negotiation on rules of thumb like that, but consider the countless daily Masses with 20 communicants and at least one EMHC and see how big a change there would be in liturgical praxis if we just followed the rules.

At the roman parish I currently attend, the average Sunday mass is well over 800 at the 930AM, and again at the 1130AM, and over 500 at the saturday vigil, and the Sunday 7PM “Fisherman’s Mass” (Sunday Liturgy, by permission of the AB), with two permanent deacons, still results in an average of 32-34 EMHC’s in use, since the AB has also decided communion under both species is a good thing for all Sunday masses.

Daily mass, usually 1 EMHC, for the Chalice, since both deacons hold day jobs.

 

[angiegirl67]

I’m a EEM…yet I would agree with whatever the Vatican’s stance is on it…if the Pope decided against EEM’s, then it would be no problem for me. Whatever is acceptable…I would follow.

I think that EEM’s have a serious responsibility with their role…I am humbled by it, but know many who look at it lightly.

I can see where you are coming from, though. I don’t think it undermines the Priesthood though.

It’s funny…people make a lot of excuses as to why the priesthood is diminishing…lots of finger pointing. Maybe it’s because the priesthood has suffered a lot of scandal…due to the disregard of the position BY OTHER PRIESTS. There could be other reasons no doubt…but please do not underestimate the sex scandals’ devestating effects on the priesthood. Let’s stop dancing around the issue and saying it’s the EEM’s fault…or it is because altar servers are girls. Although a small percentage of priests were involved in those scandals, I believe that many men are afraid of becoming priests because of the scandals.

I’m sorry I can’t agree with you on this. Your statements about the shortage being about the scandals is false. If that were true the shortage to clergy of other Christians faiths would not apply. The Protestants are also experiencing huge shortage as well.

The shortage might have more to do with the state of our world, “the you can have it all attitude.” On the attitude that sacrifice it a bad word. On the fact that there a so many Catholic parents that think being a priest is a waste. I recently heard a women speaking of the men at an ordinations about what a waste for such handsome men to be priest. What a sad statement. To sacrifice your life for the Lord and His people is a righteous and wonderful thing.

I think you should research some of the reason for priest shortage more carefully.

 

[whatevergirl]

I’m sorry I can’t agree with you on this. Your statements about the shortage being about the scandals is false. If that were true the shortage to clergy of other Christians faiths would not apply. The Protestants are also experiencing huge shortage as well.

The shortage might have more to do with the state of our world, “the you can have it all attitude.” On the attitude that sacrifice it a bad word. On the fact that there a so many Catholic parents that think being a priest is a waste. I recently heard a women speaking of the men at an ordinations about what a waste for such handsome men to be priest. What a sad statement. To sacrifice your life for the Lord and His people is a righteous and wonderful thing.

I think you should research some of the reason for priest shortage more carefully.

I never said the above statement, so you linking it with my name, is unfair. And, I have great respect for the priesthood…your post here implies otherwise.

Men have not changed. Back in the 50’s…there were the same temptations as there are today…back 100 years ago…200 years ago…back to Biblical times…the temptations that man faced, are apparent today. There is more technology, but sexual temptations still exist as they did back then and other thoughts as well such as…the decision to be a family man over a priest…the decision to not have children…the decision to not earn a particular living of their choice…are the same issues men have wrestled with for years. So what’s changed? There is a deep lack of respect for the priesthood by our media, by our culture. The scandals were not a minor part to this. Protestant ministers actually have more sexual scandals linked to them, than priests do…so I have done my research. I don’t believe in calling a spade something else, however. It doesn’t solve anything. We need to get to the heart of why the priesthood is shrinking…not dance around the large elephant in the middle of the room.