Friday, January 18, 2013

Travails of Communion in the Hand

This blog post is too good to miss: an American deacon, Greg Kandra recants his support for Communion standing and in the hand. It is wide open to all manner of abuses.

I've watched a mother receive communion, her toddler in tow, then take it back to the pew and share it with him like a cookie.
At least four or five times a year, I have to stop someone who just takes the host and wanders away with it and ask them to consume it on the spot. 
Once or twice a month I encounter the droppers. Many are well-intentioned folks who somewhere, somehow drop the host or it slides out of their hands and Jesus tumbles to the floor. 
A couple times a year I get the take-out crowd. They receive the host properly, and then pull out a hanky and ask if they can take another one home to a sick relative.

Go and read the whole thing.

3 comments:

  1. ''...interrogavit si Eucharistiam intus haberent. Respondebant: 'Quid opus est Eucharistia? Neque enim mori adhuc habes, qui tam hilariter nobiscum velut sospes loqueris.' Rursus ille: 'Et tamen,'' ait, ''afferte mihi Eucharistiam.' Qua accepta in manu interrogavit si omnes placidum erga se animum et sine querela controversiae ac rancoris haberent.''
    St Bede

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    Replies
    1. This quote is irrelevant to the discussion, since Caedmon (the subject of the quoted passage) was in Holy Orders when he took the host in the hand: therefore he was entitled to do so.

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  2. Full a full treatment of the practice of communion on the tongue, see the FIUV position paper on the subject, here: http://www.fiuv.org/dossier_liturgy

    We don't claim it was universal in the 7th Century. So what?

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