I wouldn't mind if the church took away communion for a while. It might cause greater appreciation for it. Now we have whining teenagers screaming, "Noooooo! That's not how I want it." Throw in a few foot stomps and roll in the floor kicking and screaming.

Look, if the saints received in the hand for approximately four centuries, it danged sure ought to be good enough for anyone here.

You mean before the Pharisees regulated and nit picked it to death?

There have been times when priests would lie down in Irish fields and consecrate the elements resting on their chests to avoid the British. During wars, mass has been said for the troops using the hood of a jeep. Unusual times and events called for adapting to the situation as best possible. The folks stepped up and did what they had to do.

Not now. The whining never stops.

I realise that the preference for receiving on the tongue arises from great reverence. I would suggest, though, that there is no irreverence in receiving in the hand. As an Anglican I had received on a throne made of my hands all my life. It was a terrible honour and gift that I looked forward to. There was nothing that I ever touched that I held in such great awe and trembling reverence. I was sometimes moved almost to tears that he 'by whom all things were made' was resting in my hands for a brief moment before entering into my body and soul. There is no greater gift. The very cruel irony now is that in the Ordinariate all we ex-Anglicans must receive by intinction on the tongue, while I can go to any Roman Catholic church and receive in the hand just as I did as an Anglican. It is obvious that I am out of step with most of my friends here, but I am disappointed deeply, even hurt, by this being spoon fed by the priest. There is nothing so humbling than holding God in one's hands before that God becomes heavenly Food. God loves to come to us, loves to be our Food, and is not demeaned by being received in our trembling and adoring hands - just as the Disciples did at that first Eucharist and countless faithful did for centuries after.

I respect those who prefer receiving on the tongue for their great reverence and deep humility - but there is no irreverence or lack of deep humility in receiving God in one's hands.

those who grew up Catholic in the modern era were taught irreverence and non-chalance as a matter of course. (Yes, I know there are exceptional places, but they demonstrate the truth of the general observation.)

I must have grown up in an exceptional place! My experience as a youngster exactly matches MJO's description.

There was a time when Anglican orders were invalid but don't be too sure about that today. A local Episcopalian priest some years ago had himself ordained by a rather -thumb-in-your-eye Orthodox bishop in the middle east. Given Latin church views on orders, that priest gave the body and blood of Christ to a significant number of Protestants.

Chris, how could you possibly know who is bored at mass, whether they give a rat's behind about line dancing or their interior disposition and degree of reverence? "God I thank you that I am not like other men..." Luke 18:11.

“In approaching [for Communion] therefore, come not with your wrists extended, or your fingers spread; but make your left hand a throne for the right, as for that which is to receive a King. And having hollowed your palm, receive the body of Christ, saying over it, ‘Amen.’ So then, after having carefully hallowed your eyes by the touch of the holy body, partake of it; giving heed lest you lose any portion thereof; for whatever you lose is evidently a loss to you as it were from one of your own members.”

St. Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem and a Doctor of the Church—and the words were his Catechetical Lecture 23.

Charles is right about Anglican orders. Since the BCP rite of ordination has been held to be not sufficiently explicit as to whether the ordinand is being ordained into a truly sacerdotal state, there is room for question as to whether this Anglican priest is a Catholic one, just like the Romans and the Orthodox. In fact, as Charles notes, there have been many, very many, Anglican priests who, in order to be certain that they were, indeed, Catholic priests, got themselves ordained by an Orthodox or by one of the national churches that broke with Rome over infallibility, but whose apostolic line remained intact. Ultimately, while we have made our peace with those who delight sneeringly to grumble that Anglican orders are not valid and like haughtily to assert that Anglican priests are 'ministers', there is, in fact, no certitude either way. Many in Anglican orders are unquestionably valid, while many (most?) are or may be invalid. In a purely ontological sense, we do not know with certainty one way or the other. This much is certain: developments in the last half of the XXth century rather shot off any leg the Anglican world had to stand on as concerns its being truly Catholic, and that is why we who have crossed the Tiber did so and are glad of it.

An interesting sideline to this question is the fact that, as is not well known, a group of Anglicans approached Leo XIII about the very question of Anglican orders. He appointed a commission to study the matter and the commission's recommendation was that they were, indeed, valid. Well, the English bishops got wind of this and were horrified and inundated Leo with frantic petitions that this just must not be. So, Leo overrode the commission and declared Anglican orders invalid. I have always thought that if Rome had held out a hand of encouragement we might have been spared the disastrous developments of the last sixty or seventy years, that we as a whole might have been pulled in another direction. As it is, though, history has unfolded as it has unfolded - it, like Pilate, has said quod scripsit scripsit. While we can never know surely about all Anglican orders, there is no doubt that many are in a valid line of succession.

Meanwhile, we in the Ordinariate have come into a safe harbour, our people have a deeply Catholic sensitivity, and we are ever grateful to HF Benedict for it.

From my youth up I prayed that some day there would be a rapprochement between Canterbury and Rome. As it became clear that that was not going to happen (that the distance betwixt them was becoming wider, not narrower) I prayed that somehow it would come to pass that we would have an Anglican entity in Rome and that we would have our own bishop, just like the Catholic oriental rites. My prayer has been answered with gratitude to Benedict XVI, who made it happen.

Jackson,

The Prayer of Humble Access is one of my favorites, and I remember it fondly even all these years later. When I discovered that it was official teaching that this prayer was utter nonsense..... I remember thinking... "How can this be?"

On the subject of holy orders, it might be helpful to lay down some conditions on which to answer the thorny question. 1) Did the ordaining bishop have valid orders; 2) Did the rite he used contain what was necessary; 3) did the ordaining bishop have proper intent; 4) Is the man receiving orders.... male? (remember that, Justin Welby notwithstanding, only males can validly receive valid ordination).

Charles,

I don't know who is bored or why, and I'm sorry that I gave the impression that I did. As a musician in many parishes I learned from whoever was in the chain of command that liturgy was boring to our youth, and we needed to "meet them where they are", or " make it meaningful to them", or "give them what they want" because "they are the future of the church".

Chris -

I shant bicker with you over this any longer.
But, about the Prayer of Humble Access, I didn't know that anyone had declared it 'utter nonsense'. It just happens to be in the Ordinariate Use in the same place that it holds in the BCP. I have but one grumble about it - the whole congregation, not just the priest, now say the prayer. This was an innovation of the '79 BCP. According to earlier ones the priest alone said it and the people responded with 'amen'. Somehow this is more seemly. I'm glad that you like it - it has always been one of my dearest devotions. So, since it is in the Ordinariate Use you, as a Catholic, can now say it privately at mass whenever you please.

It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Hebrews 10:31

It is an even more fearful thing for the living God to fall from our hands.

And look at this article, which goes into more physical details about another example

Dad,

The claim is that Anglican orders from the time of Henry VIII are not valid, but that some Anglican persons, desiring to have valid orders, submitted themselves to someone whose orders were unquestionably valid, and that these persons therefore validly confected the sacraments. They remained Anglicans in some sense, but they also claimed valid orders. So, if they managed to make it to being an Anglican bishop, somehow, then the orders they really did have they could transmit to those who submitted to them. Thusly (if I understand the situation) they bestowed validity on Anglican orders.

I think one of the things that most baffled me upon conversion was discovering that Catholics aren't all "unthinking zombies mindlessly following the Pope" - in fact there seems to be an enormous diversity within the Church, ranging from wacky extremes, through the boring middle, and all the way to the other far end of wacky. One guy explained it to me once as "trying to hold the Church together in a loose embrace" so as not to simply throw out anyone who wanders a bit off the narrow trail. But I do think sometimes what the Church manages is something like a big family that keeps welcoming all its children, even if some are in bad relationships, difficult patches, ill-health, open rebellion, that goth or punk phase, or even abject crash and burn. With perhaps the hope that somehow, despite the mess, God will keep a hand on them, and in the long run they will benefit more from being welcomed home over and over than from being thrown out on their behinds.

*edited to fix some typos

@CatherineS

Well put... it really sounds like a God who will do anything to have his children come home.

Charles,

The form he used would, also, have to be valid.

because later research calls the intention of a non-Catholic prelate into question.

Yup. The examples proposed above have a lot of "ifs" and "perhaps-es" embedded within.

@Elmar - Perhaps the Host fell after the person walked away from the priest? This is one thing that can't happen when the Host is received on the tongue.

Chris

I learned from whoever was in the chain of command that liturgy was boring to our youth, and we needed to "meet them where they are", or " make it meaningful to them", or "give them what they want" because "they are the future of the church"

I recognize this. Even when the conclusion is wrong, the observation probably is to the point.

An anecdote: My family loves a yearly retreat spanning Old Year's Eve and New Year. I also like it, except for (you guess it) the happy-clappy music in liturgy. So at some point I proposed to the organizers to have 'real' Vespers on one of the evenings, with chanted psalms and hymn and dialogues, the full program (in the vernacular, that is).
To my surprise they agreed; so I prepared it, including two 1,5h after-lunch workshops to teach anyone interested how to sing Vespers (from scratch, and of course a capella).
My next surprise: Nearly half of the adults joined the workshops instead of going for a walk or having a nap ... and not one of them had ever sung chant. So we were going for it! Probably for the first time in their lives, the kids would experience a 'sung liturgy' properly speaking.

So when I announced what was going to happen, I warned the kids that I had double bad news for them: (1) it may be boring, and (2) this was exactly what it was meant to be.
For the following two reasons:
- Liturgy in its very nature is the exact opposite of a useful activity in any secular sense; therefore it mustn't create wealth, nor have a specific purpose, nor be exciting.
- Vespers specifically is supposed to lift you away from the speed and the stress of a working day, into a mental state of timelessness and absence of activity; in order to become open to what, and the One Who, is beyond the earthy.
The last surprise - at least to me; to all of you this would have been obvious beforehand: the kids were fascinated, and the 'happy-clappy' parents loved it. We're going to do it this year again if corona permits!

I have never come near to dropping a Host when receiving in the hand - but quite a number of times I have almost dropped the Host when receiving on the tongue... when the priest failed to get it far enough onto my tongue. I believe that receiving on the tongue is far more dangerous for the Host than receiving in the hand.

I'm sorry Mr. Ostermann, but I have to disagree. I can't help but notice that you work in a diocese that permits communion on the tongue. You are not having to deal with this problem. We are. There are other things I would like to say, but charity demands that I don't. Good day.

Vatican II and liturgical changes afterwards were more than 50 years ago. Many Catholics were not even alive then. Most don't remember anything other than communion in the hand.

Charles,

The wisdom of the Church doesn't depend on the wisdom of the current age.

As to "most Catholics".....maybe I'm unusual, but I began receiving on the tongue when I became Catholic, and (to the best of my recollection) have never done otherwise since.

Rewrite history? Funny, but isn't that what many of the proponents of Communion in the hand say - that we should go back to the way it was done in the infancy of the Church? Funny how when one group wants to "go back" it's doing what the Church once did, but when the other group wants to, it's trying to "rewrite history."

TCJ, pick your favorite time period. Historical reenacting is the rage these days.

After what we've been through

Phrased differently: Knowing what we know now, why were public Masses banned at all after the first month of evidence that (outside of NYC) this thing was not 'as advertised.'

I think the rotten hands of ACDA might have been somewhat involved. At least the precautions we are working under seem identical to what I saw from them. If I am wrong, let me know since what they had may have come from somewhere else. Some of what is in those recommendations is excessive.

At the federal agency where I work part-time as a retiree, we received masks and hand sanitizer two or so weeks ago. Several of us agreed it was more than a month late.

Bureaucracies operate at less than lightning speed.