Hmmmm, not everything sanctioned by a bishop is good.
Posted on 12/18/2008 9:00:48 AM PST by Pyro7480
...The Congregation for Divine Worship [in 1969] issued an Instruction, Memoriale Domini, on the manner of receiving Holy Communion....
After recalling the development of the reception of Communion on the tongue as a fruit of "a deepening understanding of the truth of the Eucharistic mystery...", the Instruction declares that "this method of distributing Holy Communion must be retained...."
It also warned: "A change in a matter of such moment, based on a most ancient and venerable tradition, does not merely affect discipline. It carries certain dangers with it...the danger of a loss of reverence for the august sacrament of the altar, of profanation, of adulterating the true doctrine."
...Today, the Instruction's warnings about loss of reverence for, belief in and even the profanation of the Blessed Sacrament have - sadly - been vindicated. It is time to look again at the question of Communion in the hand. This is precisely what a young bishop from Central Asia has done in 'Dominus Est.'
This little book, a brief but insightful survey of the Fathers, the Early Church, the Magisterium and the Eastern and Western liturgical rites, is capable of creating a storm - not in a teacup, but in the minds of those unduly attached to the flawed external changes made to the liturgy in what can only be described as a peculiar period in the Church's history.
That it will provoke a storm is unfortunate, for the practice it advocates is a practice of love and of humility, one from which no one who truly adores Christ present in the Blessed Sacrament ought to recoil....
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicherald.co.uk ...
Courtesy ping.
“..there was never a thought of “too many for the priest to handle”
Masses were of longer duration than now, because of the larger number of (Latin) prayers in those days and the faithful were accustomed to it. Today, if a Mass lasts longer than 45 minutes, the people get antsy.
But I agree, it is not the Church that should accomodate the faithful, but the reverse should be the case. But you still have not addressed the problem of distribution of Communion to patients at home and hospital. If our priest had to do it by himself, he would not have time to do anything else.
How can the practice be disordered and damaging if it has the sanction of the Bishop, et al?
Thanks, but not being Roman Catholic my comments can only be taken as offensive in a [Roman] Catholic Caucus.
“Preach more and with more vigor about sin and the need for the sacrament of Penance.”
I like that. But don’t you know that we have to be politically correct or we will have empty churches? I myself have grown very tired of all the wishy-washy, feel-good, homilies on social problems that I have had to suffer through without any reference made to the Gospel of the day.
Wassamatter! You’re a conservative Catholic, or something?
See my post 11. Maybe we should start teaching the people not to be “antsy”.
EMHCs should be “extraordiany”. We have a parish of nearly 1000 “open to life” families. Meaning, the norm on children is 8 but more likely 10. Those kids are getting married and having babies. The parish is growing by leaps and bounds.
Yet, although there are EMHCs, they are not used as Priest substitutes, rather as assistants. For those times a Priest cannot make it. They are not paraded into the church at the beginning of Holy Mass like the main attraction. My husband is one and is called on rarely. Yes, we have a home ministry, but again it’s when the Priests can’t make it.
And please understand, we have two Holy Masses on Saturday (including the TLM) and six on Sunday. Each (excluding the TLM which is High Holy and lasts nearly 2 hours with chant) is an hour or more. I don’t find any excuse in the idea of an hour long mass being too long.
I’m going to pay you the high compliment of assuming your question was ironic.
Hmmmm, not everything sanctioned by a bishop is good.
>>We have GOT to get away from this idea that the routine use of lay men and women in the distribution of Holy Communion is anything less than a disordered and damaging practice. <<
Routine is the key word here.
I have been in many a parish across the midwest where the EMHCs are in the procession to begin mass. Along with the lectors, the cantor and anyone else they want to throw in.
Please!
Not at all. Since when does the sheep know better than the shepherd?
I would think at the very worst something officially sanctioned would be neutral.
This could happen here? I suggest it is more likely than not to happen here.
When the shepherd doesn’t ACT as one, and instead lets the sheep wander, then it’s a problem.
Can you just give me the condensed version?
Get yer barf bag ready, and check out the “dancers” in #30.
Well i can understand criticizing them for being poor administrators as with the abuse cases, but isn’t criticizing their ruling on faith and practice just another variation of the “ordain women,’ “catholics for choice” mindset?
...Aware of the greatness of the moment of Holy Communion, the Church in her two-millennium-long tradition has searched to find a ritual expression that can bear witness in the most perfect manner to her faith, love and respect. This is verified when, in the wake of an organic development, stemming from at least the sixth century, the Church began to adopt the method of distributing the Sacred Species of the Eucharist directly into the mouth. This is attested to in several places: in the biography of Pope Gregory the Great and an indication by the same Pope relative to Pope Agapitus (Dialogues, III); the Synod of Cordoba in 839 condemned the sect of so-called “Casiani” because of their refusal to receive Holy Communion directly into their mouths; then the Synod of Rouen in 878 confirmed the norm in force regarding the administration of the Lord’s Body on the tongue, threatening sacred ministers with suspension from their office if they distributed Holy Communion to the laity on the hand.
In the West, the gesture of prostration and genuflection before reception of the Body of the Lord is found in monastic settings already from the sixth century, e.g., in the monasteries of St. Columbanus. Later, in the tenth and eleventh centuries, this gesture was even more widely diffused. At the end of the patristic age, the practice of receiving Holy Communion directly into the mouth became thenceforth an almost universal practice.
This organic development may be considered a fruit of the spirituality and Eucharistic devotion of the Fathers of the Church. Already in the first millennium, due to the highly sacred character of the Eucharistic Bread, the Church in both the East and the West in an admirable consensus and almost instinctively perceived the urgency of distributing Holy Communion to the laity only in the mouth. The liturgist Joseph Jungmann explains that, with Communion distributed directly into the mouth, various concerns are eliminated: the need for the faithful to have clean hands; the even graver concern that no fragment of the consecrated Bread be lost; the necessity of purifying the palm of the hand after reception of the Sacrament. The white tablecloth and, later, the Communion plate would be the expression of heightened attention to the Sacrament of the Eucharist....
The Fathers of the Church demonstrate a lively concern that no one lose the smallest particle of Eucharistic Bread, as exhorted St. Cyril of Jerusalem in this very impressive manner:
Be careful that you do not lose anything of the Body of the Lord. If you let fall anything, you must think of it as though you cut off one of the members of your own body. Tell me, I beg you, if someone gave you kernels of gold, would you not guard them with the greatest care and diligence, intent on not losing anything? Should you not exercise even greater care and vigilance, so that not even a crumb of the Lord’s Body could fall to the ground, for It is far more precious than gold or jewels? (Mystagogical Catecheses, 5, 2)...Based on the experience of the first centuries, in the organic growth in theological comprehension of the Eucharistic mystery and its consequent ritual development, the manner of distributing Communion on the hand was limited by the end of the patristic era to a specific group, that is, the clergy, as is still the case with the Eastern rites. The Eucharistic Bread began to be distributed to the laity – intincted in the consecrated Wine in the Eastern rites – directly into the mouth. In the Eastern rites, only the non-consecrated bread is distributed on the hand, the so-called antidoron. Thus is shown in a clear manner the difference between Eucharistic Bread and bread that is merely blessed. The most frequent admonition of the Fathers of the Church about the attitude to possess during Holy Communion resounded thus: cum amore ac timore (with love and fear). The authentic spirit of Eucharistic devotion of the Church Fathers developed organically at the end of antiquity in the whole Church – East and West – in the corresponding ways of receiving Holy Communion in the mouth, preceded by prostration on the ground (in the East) or with kneeling (in the West). Would it not correspond much better to the intimate reality and truth of the consecrated Bread, if today also the faithful one in receiving It prostrated on the ground and opened his mouth as the Prophet received the Word of God (cf. Ezekiel 2) and let himself be fed like a child – since Communion is a spiritual nourishment? Such a gesture would likewise be an impressive sign of the profession of faith in the Real Presence of God in the midst of the faithful. If some non-believer happened upon the liturgical action and observed such an act of adoration, perhaps he too, “falling on his face, will worship God and declare that God is really among you” (1 Cor 14:25).
No, because their higher authority, the Vatican called for the preservation of Communion on the tongue, but as the review above stated, they abused a “loophole” in the Vatican’s document.
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