In this essay Paul Kokoski discusses claims brought forth by Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith, secretary of the Vatican's Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments, that the practice of receiving Holy Communion in the hand rather than kneeling and on the tongue has led to indifference, disbelief, and sacrilegious behavior toward our Lord in the Eucharist. It is the, who is giving us in the Eucharist a special way to participate in divine life. Yet the instruction states. We are utterly clueless in claiming that we have the truth objectively. Now there are two ways in which Communion is received in the Latin Church: We receive either on the tongue or in the hand. Shop: Roman Catholic "RC" Brand Original White Logo Collection Pillow | Multiple colors and sizes available! As a scientist who has studied extensively microbiology in university, no scientific proof exists that shows that there are less germs passed on to others from the hands, than from the mouth -and most likely it is the other way around, since our hands come in contact with much more unusual and dirtier items than our mouths. Let's hope he is not missing it in his everyday experience.Christ, "I have not called you servants but friends"John 15:15. These words were addressed to the apostles and not to all Christians indiscriminately. If you have already donated, we sincerely thank you. I have never seen a photo of Crd Sarah where he is not scowling like this. "20 Father John Hardon, S.J. The CCCB informed its members that "the growing participation in the Eucharist, especially by sacramental communion, has created within man the desire to see re-established the venerable custom of receiving the Eucharistic Bread in their hands. Undoubtedly, there will be parishes and ministers who will distribute Communion on the tongue regardless. If Communion is received in the hand, the hands should first of all be clean. ( St. How to Receive the Eucharist - Catholic Education Resource Center Mine has no angels at all, no hell, satan, or lucifer either. Receiving Communion in the Hand I just recently got into a discussion with my closest Catholic friend regarding the reception of communion on the hand, versus orally. Its an act of worship, and so we do it. Language matters. Sometimes people come up with their teeth clenched, and you wonder, How am I going to get our Lord into that mouth?. If youre going to kneel for Communionand its all right to kneelremember that, when you rise, you have people behind you. In the Eucharist our dear Lord Jesus shows how closely He wishes to be united with us - the very molecules and atoms of His Body become enmeshed in our cells - and at what price He accomplishes this - the unspeakable terror and anguish of crucifixion. being at home in our Father's house, in God's Immanence. No bishop on earth has the authority to countermand a law or specific directive of the Vatican, that is intended to the Universal Church. What Everyone Should Know About How To Receive Holy Communion [5] Out of that faith there has to come a devotion. Saint of the Day for Friday, July 14th, 2023, 7 Morning Prayers you need to get your day started with God. However, I also recall the up-tightness and lack of a sense of the "Familia Dei" so prevalent in pre-Vat.II worship.Worship should be connected with both God's Transcendence and God's Immanence; for our part, awe and reverence for God's Transcendence and comfort and childlikeness, i.e. What the hell is wrong with this man? The hands do not desecrate the body of Christ. When we take communion in the hand, we offer our hands outstretched, like the humble beggars that we are. This demonstrates how easily the practice of Communion in the hand can and in fact does open the door to all sorts of accidental and even intentional abuses. where you equate receiving communion in the hand with a diabolical plot. Photos are carefully chosen to impose a certain character on the individual. The priest holds up the Host and says, The Body of Christ, and the communicant answers, Amen. Thats not an English word; its an Aramaic word. You have dedicated your life to serving our dear Lord Jesus, please do not grieve Him by portraying Him as insisting that we are in league with Satan unless we keep Him at a distance. It is true that the modern method of receiving Communion in the hand seems more natural than receiving on the tongue (and more natural than what St. Cyril prescribes). No, I suppose, not. The Communion in the hand controversial swirling around the instantiated Covid protocols is causing crises of conscience for many Catholics. You can do this by giving your thanks, appreciation, and reverence to Jesus Christ through prayer. In the Old Mass, Catholics receive communion by kneeling down and receive the Holy Eucharist in tongue. . People become self-conscious or even offended. How appropriate is Jesus' discussion in Matthew 15:1-20. There have been plenty of humans who have claimed to have all of the answers to life; but only one of them was also God. We're not salespeople, but we depend on donations averaging $14.76 and fewer than 1% of readers give. Sometimes the priest or extraordinary minister doesnt see it. I think thats what many people complain about in our modern liturgy, the fact that the sense of reverence, of dignity, of awe, has disappeared. A History of communion on the Hand - ST. ELIZABETH OF HUNGARY CATHOLIC Oh yes! They assume that the seats at the end of the pew are all for people with baby strollers; they then ask the person with disabilities to move to the center of the pew where the problem with the kneelers going up quickly is more difficult. In the 1969 instruction Memoriale Domini, the Holy See offered the bishops of the world permission to distribute Communion in the hand, if requested by a two-thirds majority of each bishops conference. catholicism - Is it a sacrilege to take communion in hand It shows character .He looks like he know what he believes ,feels strongly about it and is principled. Having had the good fortune, on numerous occasions, to be invited to participate at Orthodox Jewish Seders, after the blessings are said over the bread and the wine, they are distributed and taken in the hands of participants before they are consumed. No doubt, the causes for this are complex, but it is indisputable that profanation has become easier with the reception of Holy Communion in the hand, since communicants can, deliberately or inadvertently, take the host away without consuming it. This item 8616 digitally provided courtesy of CatholicCulture.org. Cardinal Sarah is truly a disciple of Christ and a voice which needs to be heard in our church. He reminds us that communion in the hand was the original form of receiving communion. in philosophy from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. He looked black and ugly, with frightening thin limbs, but, most strikingly, he had no knees. Each one is free to communicate in one way or the other.. Rather, the point is to show that anyone who wants to establish an ancient pedigree for Communion in the hand will have to make his case elsewhere from St. Cyril of Jerusalem, whose exhortation on how to receive the Blessed Sacrament (a) differs significantly from how the faithful receive today and (b) shows no evidence that the practice he describes was widespread even in his time. also proclaimed, "Behind Communion in the hand I wish to repeat and make as plain as I can is a weakening, a conscious, deliberate weakening of faith in the Real Presence . Communion in the hand was introduced under a false ecumenism, allowed to grow due to weakness in authority, approved through compromise and a false sense of toleration, and has led to profound irreverence and indifference toward the Blessed Sacrament as the commonplace liturgical abuse and the disgrace of our age. If a temporary change in custom can prevent the spread of illness and even the danger of death, then it should be strongly considered as a reasonable measure. It endeavours to foster the culture of life by reporting truthfully, critically, contextually, and comparatively with a view to history and guided by a cultural vision inspired by Catholic doctrine and the classical liberal arts. Check out some of the. We do not just receive; we extend . This is in contrast to what His Excellency Bishop Crosby has ordered in his June 10, 2020 letter to the faithful in the Diocese of Hamilton, where he stated: Communion can be received only in the hand, In 1969, The Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship, issued the Instruction Memoriale Domini (AAS61 (1969):541-547), saying: Thus the custom was established of the minister placing a particle of consecrated bread on the tongue of the communicant. Monday, December 6, 2021 - 7:14am What Everyone Should Know About How To Receive Holy Communion Should you receive in the hand on or the tongue? Catholics believe that the "real presence of our Lord" is in the bread and wine and . . What is necessary is to receive with reverence and dignity. Should I genuflect before or after? Only as a sign of piety; its not necessary to genuflect, but it is necessary to make some gesture of reverence before receiving the Eucharist, but it may be kneeling, bowing, crossing oneself, or some other act. If one chooses to receive Holy Communion in the hand, "special care should be taken to ensure that the host is consumed by the communicant in the presence of the minister, so that no one goes away carrying the . Is anyone listening? They had done so for many centuries. There is no easy answer, for we are under the bishops authority one way or the other, whether that be amenable to us or not. When you talk about what Im going to talk about, people say, Oh, my goodness, Father has me directly in mind. Not exactlybut in certain instances I discern a loss of what the Cardinal is citing: The Real Presence of The Eucharist and the Reality of The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Comment made by a member of the Pontificium Consilium ad Christianorum Unitatem Fovendam in a personal letter of December 17, 1999. Please contact us at members@americamedia.org with any questions. Take away the Eucharist, and were like everyone else. Truth About Communion in the Hand While Standing It seems, like many bad defenses, antiquity is a fallacy that will only come back and bite the user. That is the exercise of a power we have from Christ. Cardinal Sarah: Receiving Communion in the hand part of a "diabolical "12 If, however, this was one of our bishops' primary motivations behind their quest for legitimate renewal, one has to wonder why the most solemn act of kneeling at the moment of Holy Communion was considered expendable when for centuries it was employed because of its immeasurable benefit of predisposing one to holiness. Not all of the Faithful however prescribe to the translation nor to the liturgical approach to the Holy Sacrifice of The Mass as Cdl. I continue to pray for you. By the way, if itshouldfall on the floor, indicate it to the priest. Firing him would be over the top too. Reception on the tongue is a reverent preference, but it is by no means a requirement. But there is a danger that in adopting a practice that seems most natural, a community might end up with a practice that is more natural because it is more desacralized. If one is right handed the left hand should rest upon the right. Just take a look at the photo used here and in earlier issues decrying the Cardinal who may be out the door soon enough. This passage is often cited to support the modern practice of receiving Holy Communion in the hand, with adherents insisting that Cyrils testimony roots the practice in antiquityand thus even makes it more respectable than Communion on the tongue. then spreading around the world against the long-standing custom of the Church and by long-standing, were talking millennia that the laity receive the Eucharist on the tongue, for various pious and practical reasons: To signify being fed by the Good Shepherd in the person of the priest, and that we dont feed ourselves with what Christ wills to feed us; to safeguard the dignity of the Body of Christ, handled by hands consecrated for that purpose; to ensure it was not carried off for vain or nefarious purposes. No thanks. He judged (c. 1970) that the spirit of reverence towards the sacred was radically undermined by such practices. Whether receiving Communion on the tongue, in the hand, or each way from time to time, every communicant should reflect upon how the outward manner of reception expresses and fosters his or. In this exclusive interview, Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich speaks about the synod of bishops on synodality that will open in the Vatican on Oct. 4, at which for the first time women will participate as full members with the right to vote. How to Receive Holy Communion - Catholic Exchange Today, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops makes it clear that Communion may be received in the hand or on the tongue, a decision that is to be made by the individual receiving. Dietrich von Hildebrand asked why ultimately the Church should continue to allow Communion in the hand when "it is evidently detrimental from a pastoral viewpoint, when it certainly does not increase our reverence, and when it exposes the Eucharist to the most terrible diabolical abuses? That said I do disagree with him on this one point. Associate chaplain of the Knights of Malta perhaps? But most clergy and Eucharistic ministers will certainly comply with their bishop's request. No doubt this has been due to the toning down, and in some cases the deletion, of these and many other symbols and signs of adoration. 5. Thanks, I would have said the same, although not as kindly. If you donate just $5.00, the price of your coffee, Catholic Online School could keep thriving. He's one of us and he is the creator/ king of the universe too. Sawyer, S.J. Be assured that the appropriate contacts will be made.. Honoring St Benedict and the Role of Monks in the Church, Doctors Opposing Abortion Face 'Brutal Discrimination' in Spain, Daily Readings for Thursday, July 13, 2023, St. Henry: Saint of the Day for Thursday, July 13, 2023, Prayer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus: Prayer of the Day for Thursday, July 13, 2023. Being Christians should humble us as all humanity is loved and saved by Jesus Christ, though all may not have the gift of faith in God or of being Christians. How to Receive The rationale for Communion on the hands being an ancient practice is from St. Cyril of Jerusalem. One's choice, as an act of faith, should be done in a manner that is unlike any other experienced in daily life. I agree completely. How Ancient Is Communion in the Hand? | Catholic Answers If you're going to receive in the hand, the best way is to put one hand down and put the other hand on top of it and make, as Tertullian used to say, a kind of throne for the Lord. And it can be argued that the risk is quite minimal. It is especially dangerous, claiming millions of lives, and causing significant illness in many millions more. That should be the overwhelming disposition with which we approach Holy Communion: It is the Lord!. This document foresaw two particular dangers with the novel practice: that it would suggest that there was some wavering on the part of the Church in its faith in the eucharistic presence and a danger or even suggestion of profanation. Surveys inform us that belief in the Real Presence has declined. Now we certainly dont expect anyone to crawl, but there has to be that depth of faith. 92- March 25, 2004). n.92), and further stating that nor is it licit to deny Holy Communion to any of Christs faithful who are not impeded by law from receiving the Holy Eucharist (cf. Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, "Internal Communication Directive" (March 23, 1970), hereafter cited CCCB. I also think that Parishes should take a look at their pews and ensure that some of the seats do NOT have kneelers in front of them so as to accommodate people with knee and feet injuries. I know hes directing what hes saying atme. People become self-conscious or even offended. We celebrate what Jesus enacted at the Last Supper and on Calvary. (CCC 1759). are you moderating the comments sections or not ? Sarah's embrace of pre-Vatican II thinking leaves my eyes rolling and my mind roiling in exhaustion at the ineffective solution. Though modern liturgical theorists, designers and consultants tout the newer practice, which opposes the Communion rail and its conduciveness to receiving Holy Communion on the tongue, there has been no ecclesiastical document that has come out against the Communion rail or one that sanctions its removal from churches. On another note, I recall how upset the late Monsignor of my old parish would become when people, at daily Mass, would receive the Eucharist on their tongue with great reverence then return to their seats and stare at their watches until the one hour period had passed before swallowing and sometimes this included well after the final Blessingsomething about the laws and not the meaning thereof. In conclusion, since the Supreme Authority of the Universal Church in Rome has told us repeatedly that Catholics cannot be forbidden to receive Communion on the tongue, even in a situation involving a contagious illness, their ruling outranks anybody and everybody else in the hierarchal structure of the Church. In an introduction to a new book about Communion practices, the cardinal writes, We can understand how the most insidious diabolical attack consists in trying to extinguish faith in the Eucharist, sowing errors and favoring an unsuitable manner of receiving it, according to a translation published by PrayTellBlog. Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith, Catholic World News (February 1, 2008). The Apostolic See then strongly urged bishops, priests and the laity to zealously observe this law out of concern for the common good of the Church. (CNS photo/Paul Haring), Were sorry registration isn't working smoothly for you. It is in this environment, culture and context, and not that of the early Church, that our Catholic bishops have adopted the practice. A person with disabilities may find it distracting and embarrassing, because their disability is otherwise "invisible" and therefore not known and understood (unless they have a visible limp or unless their limitation is known by others in the Parish). Nicaraguans overwhelmingly disapprove of the conviction and imprisonment of Bishop Rolando lvarez of Matagalpa, according to a survey in the increasingly repressing Central American country, where the Sandinista regime continues cracking down on the Catholic Church. This is provoking questions among the faithful. Such a loss would be like a mutilation of your own body. If one is receiving in the hand the following is normative: upon approaching the minister of the Host extend the hands in the middle of the chest. Mahpiya Luta | Red Cloud is seeking a passionate, committed leader to serve as its next president. Pope John Paul II responding to a reporter from. The question has been asked for a long time since the Church has often allowed both methods of reception. For example, to say that Communion in the hand is a sign of spiritual maturity, or that Communion on the tongue reduces the lay faithful to infancy, is belied by centuries of lay saints who received in this manner.
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