It seems good to reblog this post to remind us in these difficult times that Christ has taken our cares upon Himself. He is our Great High Priest, having taken on our nature.
Voici une site qui contient les mots de la messe en latin. Aujourd’hui, je voudrais traduire quelques mots pour nous faire réfléchir.
P : Deus, qui humanae substantiae dignitatem mirabiliter condidisti, et mirabilius reformasti: da nobis per hujus aquae et vini mysterium, ejus divinitatis esse consortes, qui humanitatis nostrae fieri dignatus est particeps, Jesus Christus, Filius tuus, Dominus noster: Qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitate Spiritus Sancti, Deus ; per omnia saecula saeculorum. Amen.
Priest: “O God, You who wondrously bestowed worth on human substance, and – more wondrously still – remade it anew: grant to us, through the mystery of water and wine, to be kindred to His divinity, He who deigned to partake in our humanity, Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, unto the ages of ages. Amen.”
All Along the Watchtower 
Lovely prayer, of course.
I was fascinated by the discussion in the comments of the 2019 article. I am, of course, an outsider, not being Roman Catholic but Scoop mentioned something I had wondered about for a long time.
I used to watch a lot of Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) here in the States. I was astounded, the first time, to see the congregation standing and receiving ‘in hand’ and in only one kind. It wasn’t always so; I remember going to my cousins First Holy Communions and folks knelt at the rail and received both kinds, as we do. When did that change and what was the thinking behind it?
Thanks!
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I couldn’t say, myself, but hopefully Scoop will have a comprehensive answer. My understanding is that under Catholic doctrine, the host contains both the body and the blood, therefore receiving the host only is sufficient – the fullness of Christ is present. I think that is true, but to the extent that it is a departure from earlier tradition, it raises the question of why the change was instituted. This also takes me back to my Anglo-Catholic days.
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It is part of the Offertory Prayers: http://www.dailycatholic.org/holymas3.htm
Yes we believe that the consecrated bread and wine are the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is not symbolic but a real transformation of the substance of the elements of bread and wine.
Indeed, flesh does not exist without blood and the wine is intermingled with a small fragment of the host (called the fermentum). It began as a piece of the host from the Pope’s Mass that was sent to all the parishes that were practicable. In this way it indicated that all Masses were part of the Mass of the Whole Church. So if you have a broken jaw and cannot chew the host, you may simply take a drop of the consecrated wine to receive Christ in the Eucharist: done often on the deathbed of those who cannot eat.
Also, every priest is required to both eat the host and drink from the chalice in order fore the Mass to be validly fulfilled. Once he drinks from the chalice (an orthodox priest) he has the bell rung one time to indicate that the Mass is now valid and our obligation to attend Mass is fulfilled should something happen to interrupt the Mass. A Mass is not fulfilled until the priest has received from the chalice.
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You did not see that in your lifetime in the old Latin Rite. We have received only under one kind for centuries due to the scandalous actions of many of the laity of old who passed the wine among them, smeared it on their faces and other offensive things . . . not mentioning the spilling of the Blood of Christ and people stepping on it.
We only began receiving under both kinds after Vatican II and the New Rite (the Novus Ordo) was introduced. It causes many problems today but few want to address them as they feel it is a fuller sign of the original Eucharistic event at the Last Supper.
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What odd people you seem to have had in your Church. Anglicans, like the early Christians, follow Our Lord and receive in both kinds. There is not a single documented piece of evidence of anyone smearing wine of their faces or stepping in it. I’d love to see the evidence that in churches Catholics used to do this?
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I’m aware of comments in the Didache about conduct of the Eucharist, but not in any detail. I usually consult the end part of it for tracking development of eschatological doctrine.
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Never have you seen abuses? Really. I have found consecrated hosts under bushes and under the pews and I have watched the chalice spilled on a carpet and glass chalice smashed to bits on a stone floor.
People love to quote St. Cyril about receiving in the hand but it is a quote that is in doubt as he speaks about putting the Precious Blood on his eyes.
For further info:
Let it be noted at the outset that St Leo the Great and St Gregory the Great are early witnesses to Communion on the Tongue as the normative. However, Saint Basil admits that Communion on the hand did happen. Saint Basil explicitly explains that Communion in the Hand was only allowed under certain circumstances {my notes are in red – like Fr Z does}:
“If {“if” denotes a conditional clause} one feels he should in times of persecution, in the absence of a priest or deacon, receive Communion by his own hand, there should be no need to point out that this certainly shows no grave immoderation {that’s pretty serious}; for long custom allows this in such cases {notices how he writes “in such cases” – that’s the key}. In fact, all solitaries in the desert, where there is no priest, reserving Communion in their dwellings, receive It from their own hands.”
So then, Saint Basil says that Communion in the hand is allowed:
1) under times of persecution where no priest is present
2) for hermits and ascetics in the wilderness who do not have priests
He says that that Communion in the hand under any other circumstance is “grave immoderation.” Thus, the laity were allowed to hold and touch the Holy Eucharist with their hands in exceptional cases. This practice, says St Basil was not, however, the norm.
Let us now turn to the most controversial quote regarding Holy Communion in the hand. It comes from one of the five mystagogical (i.e. post-Easter) lectures ascribed to Saint Cyril of Jerusalem in about the year AD 350. We currently have 18 undoubted lectures from Saint Cyril given to his catechumens in preparation for Holy Baptism at Easter. Now then, there are an additional five mystagogical lectures allegedly given by Cyril to this same group of people – now his audience has been baptized, confirmed, and has received the Holy Eucharist. So the manuscripts preserving Saint Cyril’s catechesis go like this:
18 Lectures for Catechumens preparing to become Christians
Easter initiation of this Catechumens
5 Follow-Up Lectures for these Newly Baptized Christians
Now the five follow-up lectures are highly debated and may not be authentic. In other words, they may have may been added by someone other than Saint Cyril. In fact, there exist manuscripts that do not attribute these five lectures to Saint Cyril. Hence, it is not entirely responsible to quote these last five lectures as a valid authority. The five later lectures are questionable.
Anyway, here’s the classic “Communion in the Hand” passage from the fifth follow-up mystagogical lecture attributed to Saint Cyril:
“When thou goest to receive communion go not with thy wrists extended, nor with thy fingers separated, but placing thy left hand as a throne for thy right, which is to receive so great a King, and in the hollow of the palm receive the body of Christ, saying, Amen.” (Catechesis mystagogica V, xxi-xxii, Migne Patrologia Graeca 33)
This is the passage on which the Patristic argument for Communion in the Hand stands or falls. Whereas there is this ONE alleged quote from St Cyril (the one just above from the disputed Catechesis mystagogica), there are many undoubted quotes by other Fathers that affirm Communion on the tongue (both “great” Popes Saint Leo the Great and Saint Gregory the Great) explicitly witness to Communion on the tongue. So why take the dubious quote when there are others to go by?
I want to add one more argument against the alleged Saint Cyril of Jerusalem passage listed above. The “make your hand a throne” passage goes on to say that the faithful should touch the Holy Body of Christ to their eyes before consuming it. Then it also says that the faithful should touch their lips still moist with the precious Blood of Christ and touch the Blood to their eyes.
Even if this passage is authentic (and I don’t think that it is), then Communion in the Hand should also include touching both the Holy Body and the Holy Blood to our eyes. Yet who wants to argue for this custom?!
I think that every Catholic would find this abhorrent. It is an aberration from holy tradition.
So then, it seems that the early Church administered Holy Communion on the tongue with the exception of the absence of a priest in times of persecution. If a priest were absent, then the faithful might not need to receive on the tongue.
Let me just add that I am by no means a Patristic expert and I’m very open to being corrected. I’m even more interested in any passages in the Church Fathers that support Communion in the hand as normative. So far, I’ve not encountered any such passages. The only evidence given is the quote quote from Saint Cyril about making your hand into a throne – and from what has been argued above, that argument is not convincing.
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No, in more than 35 years I have seen no abuses. Have you thought of moving to a more civilized part of the world? There is no doctrinal issue here, it is custom and practice, and here we find it works, and oddly, we find we have no shortage of seminarians and no-one claiming to be Anglican while denying the Archbishop of Canterbury. Sounds like you could learn a lot – oh, I forgot, I’m a woman and part of the problem 🙂
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Scoop’s correct, sort of. The early church did receive in both kinds, or so everything I’ve read says. At some point, the Catholic Church stopped doing so, and Luther (and Cranmer?) reinstituted the practice some 500 years ago. I too know of no abuses of the wine, ever.
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