Vatican City, Mar 7, 2018 / 03:05 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Cardinal Robert Sarah has authored a preface for a newly published book detailing the ascendancy, in the last 50 years, of the reception of Communion in the hand. He has been thanked for his efforts with at least one call for his removal from office. The flare-up offers an opportunity to look in greater detail at the history of the means of receiving Holy Communion.
Sarah, the prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, wrote a preface to La distribuzione della Comunione sulla mano: Profili storici, giuridici e pastorali (The distribution of Communion in the hand: A historical, juridical, and pastoral profile) by Father Federico Bortoli, which was published recently by Edizioni Cantagalli.
The book notes that in 1969, following the Second Vatican Council, the Congregation for Divine Worship issued an instruction which expressed that Blessed Paul VI had determined not to change the means of administering Holy Communion to the faithful – i.e., to retain distribution of the Host on the tongue to those kneeling, rather than allowing communicants to receive the Host in their hands.
The instruction, Memoriale Domini, indicated that where distribution of communion in the hand already prevailed, episcopal conferences should weigh carefully whether special circumstances warranted reception of the Eucharist in the hand, avoiding disrespect or false opinions regarding the Eucharist and ill effects that might follow, and if a two-thirds voting majority decided in the affirmative, such a decision could be affirmed by the Holy See.
Despite this instruction, and subsequent expressions of support for the reception of Holy Communion on the tongue from St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI, the distribution of the Eucharist on the hand has become widely adopted, especially in the West.
The Congregation for Divine Worship’s 2004 instruction on matters regarding the Eucharist, Redemptionis sacramentum, established that: “Although each of the faithful always has the right to receive Holy Communion on the tongue, at his choice, if any communicant should wish to receive the Sacrament in the hand, in areas where the Bishops’ Conference with the recognitio of the Apostolic See has given permission, the sacred host is to be administered to him or her. However, 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 Eucharistic species in his hand. If there is a risk of profanation, then Holy Communion should not be given in the hand to the faithful.”
And the General Instruction of the Roman Missal currently in force in the US simply states that “The consecrated host may be received either on the tongue or in the hand, at the discretion of each communicant.”
Using previously unpublished documentation, Bortoli’s work traces the dynamics which led to the present situation, and argues that reception of Holy Communion in the hand has contributed to a weakening of faith in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
The text of Cardinal Sarah’s preface was published Feb. 22 by La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana, and portions were translated into English by Diane Montagna.
The cardinal wrote that the angel of peace who appeared at Fatima desired that the three children would make reparations for profanations of the Eucharist (such as desecration or sacrilegious reception — by those not in the state of grace or not professing the Catholic faith) and for all that can prevent the sacrament’s fruitfulness.
He then said that the “most insidious diabolical attack is trying to extinguish faith in the Eucharist, by sowing errors and fostering an unsuitable way of receiving it; truly the war between Michael and his Angels on one side, and lucifer on the other, continues in the hearts of the faithful: Satan’s target is the Sacrifice of the Mass and the Real Presence of Jesus in the consecrated Host.”
According to Cardinal Sarah, the demonic attack against the Eucharist follows two tracks: the reduction of the concept of the real presence, and an attempt to remove the sense of the sacred from the hearts of the faithful. He noted that a sense of the sacred can be lost by receiving special food in the same way as ordinary food.
The cardinal wrote that the liturgy “is made up of many small rituals and gestures — each of them is capable of expressing these attitudes filled with love, filial respect and adoration toward God. That is precisely why it is appropriate to promote the beauty, fittingness and pastoral value of a practice which developed during the long life and tradition of the Church, that is, the act of receiving Holy Communion on the tongue and kneeling.”
He pointed to the example of St. John Paul II, who always knelt before the Eucharist despite infirmity, and St. Teresa of Calcutta, who habitually received Communion on the tongue.
“Why do we insist on communicating standing and on the hand? Why this attitude of lack of submission to the signs of God? May no priest dare to impose his authority in this matter by refusing or mistreating those who wish to receive Communion kneeling and on the tongue,” the cardinal wrote. “Let us come as children and humbly receive the Body of Christ on our knees and on our tongue. The saints give us the example. They are the models to be imitated that God offers us!”
He noted that in the case of the distribution of Communion, “a special concession has become the picklock to force and empty the safe of the Church’s liturgical treasures.”
Noting that the process by which Communion in the hand has recently become common “was anything but clear,” he added that “The Lord leads the just along ‘straight paths’, not by subterfuge. Therefore, in addition to the theological motivations shown above, also the way in which the practice of Communion on the hand has spread appears to have been imposed not according to the ways of God.”
Cardinal Sarah voiced hope that Bortoli’s work would encourage both priests and laity who wish to administer or receive the Eucharist in the mouth and kneeling.
“I hope there can be a rediscovery and promotion of the beauty and pastoral value of this method. In my opinion and judgment, this is an important question on which the Church today must reflect. This is a further act of adoration and love that each of us can offer to Jesus Christ … May Fr. Bortoli’s work foster a general rethinking on the way Holy Communion is distributed.”
The cardinal did not propose to change the current ecclesiastical norms governing the reception of Holy Communion.
Nevertheless, writing at Commonweal Feb. 27, commentator Rita Ferrone responded to Cardinal Sarah’s preface by calling for his removal from office. She asserted that “what he really does best is sow division,” and characterized his writing as evaluating the reception of Communion in the hand “as pure evil.”
Ferrone claimed that the cardinal “manages to slander Christians of the first millennium who took communion in the hand regularly for at least nine hundred years” and that his comments “reveal either an appalling ignorance of or an indifference to liturgical history. Does he not know that this practice (standing and receiving in the hand) comes from the apostolic church? Does its venerable antiquity not commend the practice to him as holy, even though he prefers the more recent historical practice of receiving communion kneeling and on the tongue?”
While in in the earliest ages of the Church there are many writings which demonstrate that Communion was received in the hand (most notably St. Cyril of Jerusalem’s Mystagogical Catecheses), there are also early demonstrations of Communion on the tongue, as in the writings of St. Gregory the Great.
As Cardinal Sarah noted in his preface, communion on the tongue is “a practice which developed during the long life and tradition of the Church.” [emphasis added]
The prominent Jesuit liturgist Josef Jungmann wrote in The Mass of the Roman Rite that over time, “growing respect for the Eucharist … led to the practice of placing the Sacred Host in the mouth.”
Reception of Communion in the mouth was widely adopted around the ninth century, and Communion in the hand had disappeared entirely after the 10th and 11th centuries, according to Jungmann. This development removed the worry “that small particles of the sacred bread would be lost”, and the Jesuit wrote that it was probably related to the transition from leavened to unleavened bread.
By the end of the patristic age, the Church had abandoned the practice of Communion in the hand, having found that Communion in the mouth was a better expression of reverence for the Eucharist.
Of course, liturgical practices of the first millenium should not be revered simple because they are old.
In his 1947 encyclical Mediator Dei, Ven. Pius XII wrote that “it is neither wise nor laudable to reduce everything to antiquity by every possible device,” and that it is “obviously unwise and mistaken” to “go back to the rites and usage of antiquity, discarding the new patterns introduced by disposition of divine Providence to meet the changes of circumstances and situation.”
Another Catholic commentator, Fr. Anthony Ruff, OSB, wrote March 6 at the Pray Tell blog that Cardinal Sarah’s preface indicated that “his grasp of what has happened in eucharistic theology in the last 75 years is simply shocking.”
This commentary was a source of confusion for many, because recent magisterial teaching seems to support Cardinal Sarah’s position.
The Congregation for Divine Worship issued its instruction on Holy Communion, which decreed the retention of Communion on the tongue despite some calls for distribution in the hand, five years after the end of the Second Vatican Council, and during the pontificate of Blessed Paul VI.
“It is a matter of great concern to the Church that the Eucharist be celebrated and shared with the greatest dignity and fruitfulness. It preserves intact the already developed tradition which has come down to us,” Memoriale Domini stated. “The pages of history show that the celebration and the receptions of the Eucharist have taken various forms. In our own day the rites for the celebration of the Eucharist have been changed in many and important ways, bringing them more into line with modern man’s spiritual and psychological needs.”
It noted that “It is certainly true that ancient usage once allowed the faithful to take this divine food in their hands and to place it in their mouths themselves.”
But “Later, with a deepening understanding of the truth of the eucharistic mystery, of its power and of the presence of Christ in it, there came a greater feeling of reverence towards this sacrament and a deeper humility was felt to be demanded when receiving it. Thus the custom was established of the minister placing a particle of consecrated bread on the tongue of the communicant.”
“This method of distributing holy communion must be retained … not merely because it has many centuries of-tradition behind it, but especially because it expresses the faithful’s reverence for the Eucharist.”
The congregation also wrote that this traditional practice “ensures, more effectively, that holy communion is distributed with the proper respect, decorum and dignity. It removes the danger of profanation of the sacred species” and “it ensures that diligent carefulness about the fragments of consecrated bread which the Church has always recommended.”
They noted that “A change in a matter of such moment … does not merely affect discipline.”
“It carries certain dangers with it which may arise from the new manner of administering holy communion: the danger of a loss of reverence for the august sacrament of the altar, of profanation, of adulterating the true doctrine.”
When some bishops asked for permission for Communion in the hand, Bl. Paul VI sought the opinion of all the Church’s Roman rite bishops. Of those responding, 57 percent said that attention should not be paid to the desire for the reception of Communion on the hand. Of those bishops who were open to considering the practice, just over one-third had reservations about it.
And 60 percent of bishops did not even wish that Communion in the hand be experimented with in small communities. More than half did not believe the faithful would receive such a change gladly.
So, in 1969, in full consideration of Sacrosanctum Concilium, Bl. Paul VI “ decided not to change the existing way of administering holy communion to the faithful,” considering the remarks and advice of his fellow bishops, the gravity of the matter, and the force of the arguments against it.
The Pope who oversaw much of the Second Vatican Council, and who implemented its liturgical reform, was clearly concerned about the risks of disrespect and false opinions about the Eucharist which could arise from Communion in the hand. The Church’s norms have not shed that concern. Nor did Sarah’s pastoral reflections.
Benedict XVI was well-known for advocating something he called a “hermeneutic of reform” in theological conversation. He meant that historical memory should inform contemporary theological reflection. The alternative, he said, was something he called the “hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture.”
If Cardinal Sarah, who is responsible for the regulation and promotion of the sacred liturgy, is impugned for raising the very objections against Communion in the hand which were raised by Paul VI fewer than 50 years ago, it’s worth considering whether the idea of the “hermeneutic of reform” has been rejected among Catholic intelligentia.
If nothing else, the affair reveals a very short historical memory among some members of the Catholic press.
It’s also worth noting the strength of the reaction to what Cardinal Sarah in fact wrote was largely a function of media distortion. Sarah is far from removing permissions for Communion in the hand. His stated desire is to foster the “rediscovery and promotion of the beauty and pastoral value” of Communion on the tongue.
The matter also demonstrates the degree to which reactionary Catholic media voices can enflame the kind of sensationalism they might otherwise criticize.
Cardinal Sarah won’t really be removed from his office for suggesting the value and beauty of, to borrow the words of Benedict XVI, “what earlier generations held as sacred.” But in this moment of ecclesial polarization, he will likely continue to be criticized.
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Right after allowing Anglican ‘Mass’ in Catholic basilica. The Church is in the hands of demons.
Yeah, uh, demons are insisting people stop messing with and thus preventing the bestowal of grace specific to … the Sacraments. That makes sense.
Personally Robert I will not be convinced that the Pachamama Vatican lawn worship, the Pachamama St Peter’s Basilica enshrinement ceremony, cardinals dancing and chanting carrying the idolatrous effigy into the sanctuary has not had dire daemonic repercussions.
Although it is a perfectly clear and required document on the validity of the sacraments in respect to some, who ‘create’ their own meaning of both the words of consecration during the Mass and the conferring of other sacraments, after 11 years of dilution of the power of the sacraments by suggestion and duplicity the DDF is apparently following the exact pattern of following some scandalous statement with pristine orthodoxy. Sort of like following being beaten with soothing music and a favorite dish. The mind’s apprehensive faculty eventually becomes numbed and incapable of moral discernment.
That is certainly the pattern.
Sick, those who cannot accept he is upholding the Faith as he is required. Stop playing teams and be faithful disciples. Uou should be rejoicing!
Reconciliation after an injury, doesn’t come because the person gives evidence that they aren’t completely depraved, but because they repent of and work to reform the specific sinfulness that caused the injury.
One might rejoice over finding that a Protestant isn’t completely wrong about the Faith. Finding out that a *Cardinal* has managed to say something that about the Faith that is neither wrong, nor misleading, (with help from an entire Dicastery available) nor hyper-sexualized, seems like it should be expected. The fact that it cannot be, is no reason to rejoice.
A covering gesture that merely states a few obvious points that should not be necessary were the Church not hemorrhaging from the same sources that refuses to acknowledge their critical wounding, which has wounded the whole of humanity, not a mere idiosyncratic internal error. Given the history of duplicity of these two men, one can rationally expect an upcoming assault on sacramental orthodoxy and shameful indifference from their acolytes.
Yes, it is a typical pattern of emotional abuse: abuse – normality – abuse – normality etc. The more people will recognize that pattern the better is for them and for the Church.
I see another thing here: in effect, there are two Churches now, one is true and another is fake (a shadow). The fake one endorses all those “blessings”, Synodality, perverse mysticism and so on. The true one is trying to stick to the revealed truth. The fake Church cannot exist without the true one (because it needs a credibility of the true Church, it needs her very Body to parasitize on it) though so it is in her interest to keep the true Church around. Those two Churches will continue to exist under the same roof.
Hence Fernandez, after throwing the necessary food (‘FS’) into the fake Church to grow her, now throws something suitable into the true Church. It is very much akin to a narcissistic abuser who occasionally interrupts his abuse with “love bombing” to the victim would perk up a bit and continue providing to an abuser with emotional resources.
When speaking above of an emotional abuse in a toxic family I forgot to mention a crucial role (for perpetuating a circle of abuse) of “good-willing explainers” i.e. those who keep telling the victim “He is not bad, look, he gave you such a nice present, don’t cause unpleasantries in your family” and so on. (Note that they blame a victim for “unpleasantness” and not an abuser). In a case with the Church, the words are usually “You are bad Catholics, you only see bad things, you create disunity” thus attacking those who point the wrong instead of engaging in a rational discussion about that wrong.
There is a way to verify whether an abuser is “good” so the victim should “trust him”. If an abuser repented his actions and did reparation then yes, he is moving towards good and a victim may cautiously trust him (if she so desires). But if an abuser did none of the sort but bought her flowers then no – because there is no reason to believe that he changed. Analogically, if ‘FS’ was cancelled/condemned, those responsible for it and other scandalous things repented and did reparations then the faithful would have a reason to rejoice and to begin trusting again. As long as nothing of that has been done = the past abuse is not addressed and its consequences have not been repaired then the faithful would be very unwise “to trust” and to rejoice.
Fernandez is the very last person on the face of the earth to be chiding others for an “unbridled imagination.” Pot and kettle going on here, a la “mystical orgasms.”
I suspect this is put out there to build some sort of credibility following the FS fiasco.
Go home, Your Eminence.
I meant to reply this person, regarding those who cannot stop their partisan behavior long enough to recognize the DDF, Fernandez, and/or Francis doing their job and celebrating it. But I guess it applies to almost every comment here.
This is a papacy that has played foot-loose with the Sacrament of Marriage and now it wants to shore up the entire sacramental system because some ministers are coming up with personal interpretations of the various rites. Ironic, indeed.
“Shore up? Foot lose”? Explain.
The sacrement of matrimony was “shored up” with annulments, regaining your Catholc faith after a divorce. A marriage that has absorbed too much pain of mental and physical abuse and suffering will cease to exist.
My new wife suffered 30 years of torture from a criminal gambler who took the family into bankruptsy. Thank God she and her four chidren survived.
US Conference of Catholic Bishops: “declaration of nullity when there is no longer any hope of reconciliation of the spouses”. The only relief is when a couple divorces, they must remarry in the Church. We could not because they were not divorced since he refused. The children from such a seemingly, impossible to get divorce will have lingering issues. Dad is still admired.
Thank God for Gail. She is not only my wife, she is my life.
Sorry, Fernandez. Not listening anymore.
Throw the dogs a bone after creating a global scandal with “Fiducia Supplicans”?
They have no credence. I would not take the advice of Bergoglio or Fernandez on how to exit a paper bag. I’ll abide by the orthodox teaching provided over two thousand years in the perennial magisterium. No one requires any counsel from manipulative deceivers toying with the minds of the faithful.
We witness the collapse of the two voices for freedom in Western Civilization. The Catholic Church is in retreat from authentic faith and the United States — with the grotesque leadership of many post-conciliar Catholics — abandons its role in insuring the liberty of the globe.
Its far beyond time to wake up. Church and State are in the hands of atheist Fascists.
It used to be trendy to baptize “In the Name of the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Sanctifier” to replace those offensive terms “Father” and “Son.” After a non-Catholic friend witnessed such a ceremony in the ’80s, I suggested that she might baptize the infant herself with the correct form, if she could get the child alone by a faucet. I don’t know if she ever did. But there must be quite a number of Catholics in that area who were never properly baptized–and don’t know that.
This “note” from the DDF is nothing more than what the military calls a DIVERSIONARY TACTIC. A transparent move to distract our attention from “Fiducia Supplicans” and their continuing and resolute defense of same!
This is a bone for faithful Catholics – stating nothing more than obvious Church teachings which Pope Francis’s Vatican will studiously continue to sidestep or ingore, as has been their modus operandi from the start. All while they continue with their chief military objective – the wreckovation of the Catholic Church!
This might be a side issue, but I’m throwing it out here: Unsurprisingly, the document just HAD to make that remark about “keeping at a distance…from rigid rubricism.” There’s those two dirty “R” words, again! The same snark from the current Vatican leadership, repeating this hackneyed canard– a “rigidity” which by and large doesn’t even really exist in the post-Conciliar liturgy. (Remember why “Read the black, do the red” has been such a big deal for the last half-century?) Ironic…the very thing they are complaining about as far as being “creative” with celebrating the sacraments (whatever that means) is, in fact, kept in check by being OBSERVANT (= rigid) yet being within the bounds entails a certain degree of real standardization (= rigidity), doesn’t it?
It’s frankly scandalous when faithful Catholics are reduced to placing the Vatican in the same category as the US Federal government i.e. you can’t trust a word they say.
“It’s frankly scandalous when faithful Catholics are reduced to placing the Vatican in the same category as the US Federal government i.e. you can’t trust a word they say.”
Yes it is scandalous and you must consider the fact that those Baptized Catholics in the U.S. government calling for “ the new catholic springtime” are the same group of catholics who deny that God, The Most Holy And Undivided Blessed Trinity, Through The Unity Of The Holy Ghost, Is The Author Of Love, Of Life, And Of Marriage and thus The Author Of our unalienable Right to Life, to Liberty, and, to The Pursuit of Happiness, the purpose of which can only be, what God intended, because they desire to change both The Letter And Spirit Of The Law, and thus The Letter And Spirit Of The Constitution , by rendering onto Caesar or themselves, what Has Always, and Will Always belong to God, The Most Holy And Undivided Blessed Trinity.
When you render onto Caesar, what belongs to God, anything can become permissible, including the destruction of an innocent beloved son or daughter, residing in their mother’s womb.
Woe to us!
As The Veil is being lifted, the atheist materialist overpopulation alarmist globalist are being exposed, including those who are attempting to make it appear as though they are part of The One Body of Christ, which is not possible, due to The Unity Of The Holy Ghost.
I missed this. Being put together, it is quite remarkable:
#1 “Both matter and form, summarized in the Code of Canon Law, are established in the liturgical books promulgated by the competent authority, which must therefore be faithfully observed, without ‘adding, removing or changing anything,’”
and
#2 “It seems increasingly urgent to mature an art of celebrating that, keeping at a distance as much from rigid rubricism as from unbridled imagination, leads to a discipline to be respected, precisely in order to be authentic disciples,”
Well, the person cannot help two express two contrary spirits in one message:
#1 – he states what is correct and expected of him: do that “without ‘adding, removing or changing anything”
#2 – he creates a room for his own rules urging the faithful to keep “at a distance as much from rigid rubricism as from unbridled imagination”. Note how the masterfully added “unbridled imagination” softens the absurdity of condemning “rigid rubricism” after advising to embrace that very “rigid rubricism” = “without ‘adding, removing or changing anything”.
It is the same duplicity that ‘FS’ has “we do not change the Church’s teaching” – “we order to bless homosexual couples”. One cancels another. I will also add that there is a sense of emptiness behind the latter document, as if it was crafted automatically.
Pulling it down to where it belongs i.e. a toxic family’s constellation: a narcissistic parent as a rule has his own set of rules, often contradictory which he exercised as it suits him. He creates chaos without which he cannot live. Instead of upholding the moral law as something above him, such a person uses it as a mere tool of his to control others and never obeys it himself. He is the only law-giver there.
Those in the Vatican and in local churches who preach anti-rigidity do this only for one reason: to obtain a license to rule as they wish, without obeying the objective rules created by the Church. It is like a bad parent who corrupts their own children with all-permissiveness so they could be “loved” and manipulate children as it suits them.
PS When I first saw the title “Vatican doctrine office releases note on discerning the validity of the sacraments” I thought that the Vatican is reassuring the faithful that Eucharist is still the Body and Blood, even after ‘FS”. Probably because it was what I have been thinking about since ‘FS’.
I used to go to Mass every second day. I cannot live without Holy Communion. Since ‘FS’ I have been just a few times, overcoming myself. Last time I did not want to go, forced myself and felt totally numb. I cannot help but wonder if it is good to receive Holy Communion while being very aware of the covert heresy hanging over the Church, so to speak. If I was worshiping with a congregation which publicly rejected ‘FS’ I would not have such a dilemma.
My problem then is of an inner conflict, of my desire to receive Our Lord and of my emotional inability to do so. To shut down my correct emotions is wrong; to stay without Christ is also bad. By the way, I perceive ‘FS’ to be a double bind for a believer’s psyche because it creates a dilemma that breaks that psyche: “come to the Church which accepts a heresy and receive Christ”; Christ thus is used as a tool. This is the fruit of ‘FS’ and of similar things. “By their fruits…”
We, the faithful, should have the minimal rights: to be able to come to Mass and worship and receive the Lord without lies, twists and convert heresies making it a torture if not impossible. Those covert lies are a form of emotional abuse and emotional abuse is not compatible with Christ. In fact they do something to the Eucharist, via a violation of the psyche of the faithful.