We have people travelling across the country to get to our Masses...

When this pandemic was first making major headway throughout America, this is what even our Easter was reduced to in the Charlotte, NC area. There were only allowed to be 10 parishioners at once in the chapel, and we could have confession and communion followed by a blessing from the priest. It was really a sad situation given the great importance of what previous Easter celebrations were, but not wanting to test the patience of our civic overlords, we bit our lips and complied knowing things would get better, and for the most part they have. We now hold two Masses on Sundays instead of one, attendance is up, and we've had 1 or 2 cases of parishioners contracting the "Rona", but not via participation at our church.

Its probably not fair to compare it to a "persecution" of Christianity, but when you have other business and services deemed "essential" and remain open while chapel doors are shut to the public, it makes one wonder. I really do think that God looks out for those who constantly seek his aid and grace. Every Sunday, and I mean EVERY Sunday, our schola sings Stella Caeli Extirpavit.

I come across people (online) who adhere to the TLM, and have a strongly asserted preference for receiving communion after Mass, not during it.

sdtalley3 - sorry it may be a red herring but here for example the note, after the Sunday Mass times that : (2) Holy Communion is given after each Mass in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel, leads to a tedious discussion (but left me better informed/armed).
http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2018/07/westminster-cathedrals-weekly-schedule.html#disqus_thread

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Our Latin mass community hasn’t been able to receive communion for 10 months now

Because only communion in the hand is allowed.

In Hamilton Diocese, the chancery office has repeatedly (by letter) spoken to prohibit the administration of Holy Communion in the traditional way, on the tongue, "in any circumstances": "there are no exceptions".

Thus here, also, there had been no reception of Holy Communion among the diocesan traditional Mass groups since March 2020. This will cause a conflict with the obligation to receive once a year, soon.

Charles,
You seem to mean by "adapt to a deadly virus for now", this: "give up what the Church in the West has always permitted, and encouraged for multiple hundreds of years, in favor of a grudgingly permitted practice". There are people who don't attend the TLM who choose to receive on the tongue. In fact, I don't think I'm alone among people nowadays who began receiving Our Lord on the tongue while still attending the modern rite.

Charles,

I don't know your friend, and I grant that rigidity exists (as does scrupulosity, but it is not the sin of our time, except in some rather curious ways) but receiving on the tongue (or desiring to do so isn't (in itself) a sign of rigidity.

Cdl Sarah, no crazy progressive he, wrote recently in an official letter from CDWDS (Aug 15 2020)

A sure principle in order not to err is obedience. Obedience to the norms of the Church, obedience to the Bishops. In times of difficulty (e.g. wars, pandemics), Bishops and Episcopal Conferences can give provisional norms which must be obeyed. Obedience safeguards the treasure entrusted to the Church. The measures given by the Bishops and Episcopal Conferences expire when the situation returns to normal.

most are just doing what they are told they can do to keep people safe.

Sounds like they're getting poor advice. In our diocese we've never stopped communion on the tongue at public Masses, as is the case in many parishes and dioceses across the country. It's too bad the bishop is refusing to allow something that is demonstrably not a threat to people's health.

If it didn't matter how we receive communion it wouldn't be a pre-existing battle and perhaps temporarily changing methods would be a minor meaningless choice and hand-communicatirs would be delighted to use an altar rail and receive on the tongue during normal times, and priests would cheerfully distribute Communion by whatever method without fuss.

Here (Rio de Janeiro area, and some other parts of Brazil and Argentina I've visited) at least, there are such partisan politics around it, and such a constant battle to eliminate Communion on the tongue, mostly in the interests of a movement emphasizing the priesthood of believers who don't need a priest and can do things by themselves and don't need to be so fussy about 'sacred' things. It's a completely different theology from that of communities who maintain sacred roles and hierarchy, reverential gestures and so on that emphasize God's grandeur and our humility etc.

With that background, this recent requirement for Communion in the hand is probably going to eliminate Communion on the tongue for a good many years. Those who would like to have a choice know that they'll never get the horse back in the barn if they concede on this point. One will have the option at private or traditionalist Masses, but that just keeps the divisiveness on high heat. God will sort it out, though. I count on that.

He wasn't just an eastern saint but a doctor of the church. I don't know of any TLM'rs that have that status. Also, priests are not physicians and often not scientists - among lots of other things they are not, including musicians. I think I would rather be safe than sorry on this one. Strange times having to deal with strange people.

Now, if anyone believes anything they see on the news, another strain of Covid is showing up in Europe. We have bigger problems than communion. St. Roch pray for us.

I could see, if the vaccines don't work and new strains emerge, no masses. Not to mention the economic hardship affecting many. It's not good at the moment.

“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.”

"The time was not the 1980’s, the place was not a suburban American parish, and the preacher was no Father Feelgood. The year was mid fourth century, the place was Jerusalem, and the preacher was St. Cyril—possibly a priest at the time, he would become Bishop of Jerusalem and a Doctor of the Church—and the words were his Catechetical Lecture 23."

"A couple of centuries after St. Cyril’s time, the Church in the West reached the conclusion that Communion on the tongue should be adopted as the normative means for the faithful to receive the host. Pope St. Gregory the Great (590-604) worked to standardize the custom of offering Communion on the tongue by disciplining priests who continued to adhere to the older practice. By the seventh century A.D., the Church in the West judged Communion on the tongue necessary to instill in the faithful a better understanding of and devotion to the Real Presence of Christ."

"... he (St. Cyril) took for granted that Communion in the hand can be done in a reverent fashion. Note his instruction about a communicant blessing his eyes by touching the consecrated host to them before consuming the host. This is not an option the Church allows for today—communicants must immediately consume the host after receiving it in the hand—but it is an indication that the consecrated host not only is not profaned by being touched by the communicant but that the Eucharist makes holy that which it touches. St. Cyril took for granted that Communion would be distributed in the hand."

You can find the article at Catholic Answers

I think he was talking about physical touch. They were not using hosts in those days.

Interesting that he thought that what the eucharist touches is made holy. I had an icon blessed by an Orthodox priest and he placed it on the altar for 40 days. The belief is that anything the altar touches is made holy. I haven't observed those beliefs in western churches. That doesn't mean they are not there, I just haven't seen them.

Charles,


Having hallowed the hand, St. Cyril doesn't (in what you've cited) say "Take the Host in your hand and partake of it." He says "partake of it". The only thing this passage mentions as touching the host is the eyes. (It says the host will be received by the hands, but -- as I understand it -- the hand was already covered by a cloth).


The question of a profanation of the Blessed Sacrament (while interesting) is beside the point of the reason why people chose to receive on the tongue. (I don't know anyone who has made the argument that receiving on the hand is, ipso facto, a kind of profanation.)

CatherineS, I think in our desire to reverence the Eucharist, we have put too much distance between Christ and the people. I like what you were writing about the behavior of the people. Christ should be adored, but he came to dwell among us and be one with us. Your folks have, I think, the right attitude.

I think one can be intractable and difficult. In a major crisis, would it really hurt some of the Trads to cooperate temporarily? You would at least have something to give thanks for when the pandemic is over and you can go back to normal practices. Offer it up for the holy souls. They will appreciate it.

BTW, I haven't seen any holy water in 7-8 months. No delightful company to enjoy after Sunday morning masses while enjoying coffee. either. It is not the best of times and let us pray it doesn't get worse.

Francis, all good things come to an end. So do the bad ones. Hope, an often forgotten virtue.

Corinne,

I am saddened to hear that your diocese bans all things necessary to receive on the tongue. Our situation is (comparatively) much better.

Francis,

Yes, the idea that Communion on the Tongue will be allowed freely once the present crisis is over, if only we cooperate now, is wishful thinking, but I'll go you one better: it's counterfactual. Every flu season some bishop decides that Holy Communion may be received ONLY in the hand, and since flu season comes about once a year.... the pattern is set that once a year for a period of months, no one is allowed to receive on the tongue.

Since a Communion Service isn't a Mass, any attempt to treat them as if they're identical, or as if one is just as good as the other is mistaken.

I don't think our bishop will care. He freely allowed communion on the tongue before the pandemic and I believe he will afterward.

The chancellor probably had someone that went over every detail and verified it for consistency and accuracy. But then that person must have been dismissed, becoming (of course) the exchecker of the chancellor. When the chancellor retires, someone should probably be engaged to keep track of the bloke, thereby becoming the checker of the exchancellor.

Bitch and moan. Did you ever hear of making the most of a bad situation? None of us are exactly having a great time right now.