Why would someone complain about this (re: Communion)?

[FredM]

Sounds like that Archbishop has time on his hands. But if he bothers himself with this I imagine he has already rooted out whatever real liturgical abuse there may have been in that diocese.

Fred

 

[Andreas_Hofer]

Some suggestions on why people would not like standing across the front of the sanctuary, waiting to receive Communion:

• Its an unusual practice, not what people are used to, likely to cause confusion.
• Communion is likely to take longer
• There would not be the same flow of people
• From the 2002 GIRM “160. The priest then takes the paten or ciborium and goes to the communicants, who, as a rule, approach in a procession. …”. Instead of approaching the priest, he his approaching them, perhaps a little like being served by a waiter. So people may think it is less reverent.

It always amuses me that when a priest does something that is not within the rubrics but people like it, they ask what is wrong with changing the rubrics to fit what they like; and when they don’t like it, they protest loud and long…

The rubrics then say that people will approach in procession and receive. To have them line up and stand, as if they were at a Communion rail but not kneeling, is to change the rubric.

The priest may feel that giving Communion will allow, or require people to spend more time thinking about Communion; but I doubt they will be thinking much more than they would have had they received per the rubrics of procession individually up to the priest to receive; in fact, by changing it to something that is unusual, different, and a bit awkward, he may actually have acted to defeat that with some who were receiving.

As has been mentioned already, the rubrics state that communicants are supposed to approach in procession, it does not say “receive in procession.” There is absolutely nothing abusive about the practice instituted by the priest and forbidden by the archbishop. This is actually fairly common in the parts of Europe in which I lived - off the top of my head, roughly half the parishes I’ve attended in Germany and Austria employed some variant of this arrangement.

I’ve been to places that still used the rail where the communicants (in retrospect, illicitly) did not approach in procession but from the direction they pleased at the time they were ready to approach, so the rubrics do demand something different than the traditional practice of certain areas. The communicants in the OP, however, were approaching in procession.

I realize posters were giving reasons why an individual might feel awkward, and there’s no sense in arguing that those feelings don’t actually exist, but I do think people should be careful about assuming they know how well any one particular method of distribution will work or how it will feel, especially since methods can be well or poorly implemented. I’ve seen rails flow far better than standard NO practice, and I’ve seen them cause traffic jams. I’ve seen rails that allow individuals to remain for a while to meditate before leaving, and I’ve seen rails with the exact same pressure to move out of the way as you would find in any line. I’ve seen lines that caused horrendous bottlenecks so that those who want to go right back to their seats were stuck behind a queue for the Precious Blood - probably an awkward moment for them.

So instead of asking ourselves why an individual might like or dislike a particular method of distribution I think the question needs to be: 1) is it licit? and 2) if so, should one communicant’s preference be allowed to overrule the judgment of the pastor and the presumed (at least) neutrality of the congregation? I don’t think anyone has shown this practice to be illicit, and I would also deliver a firm negative in response to the second question.

 

[Br.Rich_SFO]

Pax vobiscum!

My uncle is a priest and is the pastor of a parish. He felt that with people coming up in the Communion line like most parishes have now, there was too much movement and not enough time for people to think and pray about the Eucharist. Now, the church he is at long ago tore out its Communion rail, so he had people line up standing along the front and distributed Communion that way. Well, someone (or more than one person) complained about it. But did they talk to him? Nope. They just called up the archbishop, who told my uncle not to do that anymore.

Now why in the world would people have a problem with this? The point of it was to give people more time to reflect on receiving the Eucharist so that everyone wasn’t just moving the whole time. There was no reason given for the complaint.

In Christ,
Rand

I agree with your uncle, I would have put the Communion rail back.

 

[rwoehmke]

I can tell Rand is a young feller. Some of us older folks cannot keep our balance when standing still in a free zone. In the pew it is different as you can stabilize your self on the back of the pew in front of you. When ever someone stops me to talk to them I have to “dance” in place to stay upright. I would feign it were different, but unfortunately for some of us it is not. I try to offer up the embarrasment.