Posted on 04/28/2008 1:39:13 PM PDT by NYer
It is rare that I find good news in the The Tablet (aka the bitter pill). They do however try to make the worst of a a good situation.
The Tablet reports that Peruvian Cardinal Cardinal Luis Cipriani Thorne has banned communion in the hand in his diocese.
[Cue sinister music] Opus Dei Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne told Petrus: "I maintain that the best way to administer Communion is on the tongue, so much so that in my diocese I have forbidden the host in the hand."[/Cue sinister music]Thanks to the Tablet for including an anonymous quote from a missionary priest that the surrounding dioceses would not go for this. Who cares?!? The Cardinal, apparently unlike the anonymous priest, has the courage of his convictions.
The cardinal, who is Archbishop of Lima and a member of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, said that "the relaxed attitude of many priests" was to blame for a decline in reverence for the Eucharist among the faithful. "In Masses with great attendance, in the past we even found hosts thrown on to the pavement of the church," he added.
A missionary priest working in Lima told The Tablet the ban "would only apply to his jurisdiction of the Archdiocese of Lima". "The remainder of the dioceses around Lima would not go for such a practice," he said.
did Christ place the bread directly into the mouths of the Apostles?
Very rare to find anything good in the Pilot.
I used to read it on occasion because Richard “Tricky Dick” Lennon now of the Cleveland Diocese was a devotee and I used to get a copy on occasion from him.
They had a meal. It was nothing like Communion done today.
“the relaxed attitude of many priests” was to blame for a decline in reverence for the Eucharist among the faithful.”
The relaxed attitude of many priests and ministers is to blame for many problems as Christian churches loose membership while the Islamic menace grows.
He broke the bread, and gave it to His disciples. Don’t think He placed it on their tongues. I believe if Christ only wanted it to be given on the tongue, Christ would have made a point to do this, and either made a statement about doing it that way, or that it would be explicitly recorded as having been done this way. In short, I believe God was more concerned with what this does, and the attitude of the person about what this does for them, rather than whether you put the wafer in your mouth or your pastor does.
I hope so too! I was wondering, btw, if the "missionary priest" was an American, since there are a fair number of them in Peru, many of them leftist types who go there not to preach the Gospel but to condescend to the natives with a little social work. It sounds like something an American liberal would say.
Can we say "papabile"?
Maybe that's why The Tablet is ticked off about what's happening far off, high in the Andes. Perhaps they're a little twitchy that this man could be a future Pope.
In addition, much of what Christ said and did is not recorded in Scripture as St. John told us.
"But there are also many other things which Jesus did; which, if they were written every one, the world itself, I think, would not be able to contain the books that should be written." John 21:25
Excellent answer.
Darn, I was so hoping it was my Diocese.
The bishop is right, of course (unless the communicant is a deacon, priest, bishop or the Emperor).
If the manner of receiving were known with certainty from the Early Church, that would have been dogmatic and the Church today would not be in a position to legislate on it.
As it is, we don’t really know. Whether leavened or unleavened bread was used is another such thing that is left to the episcopacy to define.
Here's the Vatican's biographical profile on him.
CIPRIANI THORNE Card. Juan Luis
© www.catholicpressphoto.com
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| Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne, Archbishop of Lima and Primate of Peru, was born on 28 December 1943 in Lima. A champion basketball player, he studied industrial engineering at the National Institute of Engineering and joined Opus Dei in 1962. After working as an engineer, he was ordained for the Prelature on 21 August 1977 and holds a doctorate in theology from the University of Navarre. He did pastoral work in Lima and taught moral theology at the Pontifical Faculty of Theology. He was later Regional Vicar for Peru and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Piura. On 23 May 1988 he was appointed titular Bishop of Turuzi and Auxiliary of Ayacucho, receiving episcopal ordination on 3 July. He was promoted to Archbishop of Ayacucho on 13 May 1995. He tried to negotiate a peaceful resolution to the siege of the Japanese ambassador's residence in Lima (December 1996 to April 1997) and ministered to the Japanese and Peruvian hostages. He was named Archbishop of Lima on 9 January 1999. Created and proclaimed Cardinal by John Paul II in the Consistory of 21 February 2001, of the Title of S. Camillo de Lellis (St. Camillus de Lellis). Member of:
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I’m convinced I got oral herpes from a communion cup, only the one outbreak, fortunately. Now I take communion in the hand only, unless I’m at the front of the line, and I really don’t want it on the tongue. (Yes I know the priest doesn’t touch the tongue, but the communicants haven’t had as much practice.) As other posters have said, Jesus put the bread in his disciple’s hands.
When I was in college, the Paulist father encouraged communion by intincture.
Now, that's a good question.
I don't think that sacred moment of the meal was considered the "meal".
I’ll second that.
As a nurse, I believe it is much more sanitary for people to take their own Communion in the hand. Thank you, but I don’t want my fellow communicant’s virus.
I have received on the tongue for about the past 12 years. It was not long after my reconversion and my deepening love
for the Blessed Sacrament that I saw that I could no longer receive this way.
Yet I have been an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion since in my 20s. I no longer serve at Mass but did for years. I saw grubby hands reach out in boredom for the Sacred Host. We would find Hosts in the missals and in the Church. Reverence had taken flight to a large extent.
Now I still take communion to the hospitalized and homebound for we do not have priests who wish to do this.
If the laity did not step up here, our sick would not recieve Holy Communion. But I will be willing to let this go if our priests and deacons would visit the sick.
For Communion, I like a rail the very best of all.
Interesting point. However, I simply see nothing wrong with receiving on my hands, unless my hands were dirty.
Speaking of which, I sometimes am not too keen on having just shaken hands with someone who has a cold or worse and then take the host in my hand.
So, for that practical reason, I would be willing to go back to the old way.
If the priest places the Host on the communicant’s tongue properly, his fingers will never come into contact with the person’s mouth.
If he were giving Communion in the hand, he would almost have to touch the person’s hand to make sure the Host was securely placed there. It’s much easier to place the Host on the tongue without actually touching it.
I’ve received many times where it felt as if the Host just floated onto my tongue. So you see, if done properly, there’s much more chance of catching a virus with Communion in the hand.
Yes. It was part of the Passover celebration.
I saw grubby hands reach out in boredom for the Sacred Host. We would find Hosts in the missals and in the Church. Reverence had taken flight to a large extent.
Not surprising at all. I recall one of the male EMHCs at my previous parish would douse himself with cologne; the hosts he distributed bore that fragrance.
You are absolutely correct when you say that reverence took flight. In the Maronite Catholic Church, there are NO EMHCs. Communion is distributed by intinction and only by the priest with the words: "The Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ be given to you for the forgiveness of your sins and eternal life." Infants and young children who have not yet received the Sacrament of First Communion are blessed when Father touches their heads with the base of the ciborium. This is reverence!
At one time I had considered becoming a EMHC but I was raised by the good sisters who told us only the priest may touch the host. Our pastor is bi-ritual (Maronite & Latin Rites). He assists the RC diocese by saying mass at priestless parishes in order to consecrate enough hosts for their weekend lay run services. Like you, he has shared stories about people receiving in the hand. He actually had to chase down one communicant when he noticed they had dropped the host into their jacket pocket.
If the laity did not step up here, our sick would not recieve Holy Communion. But I will be willing to let this go if our priests and deacons would visit the sick.
Absolutely right!! Last year I was hospitalized twice. My pastor came to administer the Sacrament of Healing on both occasions. Hospital staff were surprised to see a priest in the hospital. Like you, he often visits the sick and says Mass at a local Catholic hospital. When he approached one bed ridden Catholic woman, to bring her communion and chrism, she turned him away. Essentially, she turned Christ away.
We need to come up with a better way to catechize Catholics in this country.
My understanding is that communion on the tongue prevents any part of the Body of Christ from winding up on the ground, which would be a big problem.
It is probably the main reason why churches choose to use the circular wafers as opposed to the crumbly bread. After all, Christ and His Apostles didn’t use circular wafers at the Last Supper, did he?
The priest used to keep his thumb and forefinger together, for this same reason, to prevent any particles from the Host (seen and unseen) from falling on the ground. It is also the reason why the altar has a corporal cloth on it. Priests after communion would wash their thumb and forefinger with water into the chalice when he cleaned it, and corporals would be carefully folded and placed into the burse to prevent any particles from falling.
Of course, some churches don’t use circular wafers, and some priests don’t keep their thumb and forefinger together, and some altar servers don’t stand off to the side holding a paten to catch the Host if it is in danger of falling to the ground, and some priests don’t clean their thumbs or forefingers, or their chalices after communion, and some parishes don’t know what the heck a burse is.
So I can see why some people wouldn’t understand the whole communion on the tongue thing.
Just this morning I found a Sacred Host on the floor about half way down the church under the pew. I consumed Him.
It may not be right to blame the practice of Communion in the hand, but it no doubt facilitates the sacrilege.
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