"Communion services" in Toronto
  • https://www.catholicregister.org/item/32512-christmas-communion-service-approved-for-lockdown-regions-in-toronto

    I will keep my thoughts to myself, as I have nothing charitable to say about this.
  • Nor I.
  • tomjaw
    Posts: 2,765
    We have people travelling across the country to get to our Masses...
  • matthewjmatthewj
    Posts: 2,698
    10 minute Christmas... a little bit of the Palmarian Catholic Church in Canada.
  • 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.
    Thanked by 2ServiamScores tomjaw
  • I taught the Stella Cæli Extirpavit to our choir too, although it’s been a while since we’ve sung it. We sing it at home regularly though. Probably one of the only reasons we haven’t become too seriously ill now that covid is in the house.
    Thanked by 2sdtalley3 tomjaw
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,449
    I come across people (online) who adhere to the TLM, and have a strongly asserted preference for receiving communion after Mass, not during it.
  • @a_f_hawkins

    Really? I‘ve never heard of that.
    Thanked by 1ServiamScores
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,449
    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
    Thanked by 2tomjaw sdtalley3
  • tomjaw
    Posts: 2,765
    @a_f_hawkins
    I think the Communion given outside Mass mainly in recent centuries applied to Solemn High Mass, this can be seen with the arrangement of the music, Long Polyphonic Agnus Dei, the Communion antiphon after the motet. In the last century it became common to distribute Communion within the Mass which then leads to the second or third Confiteor arguments as the Rite of giving Communion outside Mass was inserted without much thought into the Mass.

    While in Trad circles you will find people that wish to live in 8th, 10th 15th century, these people are rare. At our Mass I have been educating our faithful that it was normal to receive outside Mass. Our Archbishop banned Communion on the tongue at Mass, but did not mention outside Mass so we have had the Communion Rite after Mass. I don't know if the ban is still in place as Communion is now given during Mass most of the time.
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,449
    1/ I think Communion after/outside Mass is a MUCH better idea than no Communion.
    2/ Communion of the faithful at Mass has been present, unchanged in the Missal at least in the typical editions from 1604 to 1920.
    3/ The Council of Trent expressed a strong preference for Communion of the Faithful within Mass.†
    Session XXII :CHAPTER VI. On Mass wherein the priest alone communicates.
    The sacred and holy Synod would fain indeed that, at each mass, the faithful who are present should communicate, not only in spiritual desire, but also by the sacramental participation of the Eucharist, that thereby a more abundant fruit might be derived to them from this most holy sacrifice: ...

    I don't dispute that after Mass was common, Westminster Cathedral in particular would be a logistical nightmare, particularly at a Solemn Pontifical Mass. AFAIK it never had an altar rail, the wall of marble at the front edge of the sanctuary is a good eight feet high. If you were actually follow the rite and offer each communicant a mouthful of water to wash the Host down, a couple of thousand people ! Probably have to delay Vespers!
    † but condemns Cranmer's view that is is neccessary.
    Thanked by 1sdtalley3
  • Our Latin mass community hasn’t been able to receive communion for 10 months now
  • Sponsa Christi,

    Why not?
  • Because only communion in the hand is allowed.
  • Sponsa, the TLM mass at my cathedral had the same problem (our bishop has since allowed communion on the tongue again solving the problem). They would just do communion after mass had ended. That way they followed both the Covid precautions and also the norms of the EF.
  • 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.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,970
    You know, it wouldn't kill the TLM people to adapt to a deadly virus for now until it is brought under control. I know they prefer communion on the tongue, but remember what Jesus thought of the Pharisees who were obsessed with details and regulations. This pandemic has been and is hard on everyone, not just TLM people. This rigidity and lack of flexibility surely can not be pleasing to the Lord. It just creates more argument and division.
  • 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.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,970
    The first 400 years of the church did not do communion on the tongue. That became the norm with St. Gregory the Great. I have received on the tongue before the Council and also at parishes that still do that as their local custom both OF and EF. I have nothing against the practice.

    We are in a strange time requiring some adaptations. Even in Byzantine circles multiple spoons are used then sanitized before being used again. We are having to compensate for the virus, too.

    I told a rather rigid friend who worries about particles falling to the floor to wear a white cotton glove on her left hand, on the way back to the pew remove the glove from the wrist so that it is inside out Upon reaching home put the glove in water until any possible particles can be dissolved, then pour the water out on the ground. I think that is all rather unnecessary and OCD, but it would work for her.

    Didn't blessed Maude of Nantucket, or some mystic somewhere else, say the angels lingered around to pick up stray particles?
    Thanked by 1a_f_hawkins
  • 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.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,970
    It is a sign of non-cooperation and an unwillingness to respect and work with lawful authority that is trying to look out for your best interests.
    Thanked by 1Schönbergian
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,449
    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.
    Thanked by 1CharlesW
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,970
    Thanks, AFH. Some of my local friends act as if the bishops want to end communion on the tongue forever. Although a few might be like that, most are just doing what they are told they can do to keep people safe. End the pandemic and communion on the tongue will be back.

    Prayers to St. Roch, anyone?
  • rich_enough
    Posts: 1,046
    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.
    Thanked by 1tomjaw
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,970
    Who knows? There don't seem to be any real "experts" on this new virus. Sometimes you just do the best you can.
  • 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.
    Thanked by 3CCooze CHGiffen tomjaw
  • CCoozeCCooze
    Posts: 1,259
    @CharlesW , given that months ago, the bishops received a notice from priests, etc. that Communion on the tongue poses no greater risk than Communion on the hand, it seems that the ONLY reason to suggest TLM-ers are "rigid," etc., is simply to force them to receive Communion in a way that goes against their personal belief choices, against the norm of the Church.
    Also, there is NO evidence to suggest Communion was "not" given on the tongue for the first 400 yrs, just b/c of something an Eastern saint wrote.
    Our pastor recently preached on such, and suggested that, if you really want to pretend (mine, not his) that this is in some way "traditional," you should really consider your own corporal which can be purified, so as to not continue the apparently 66%+ belief that you're taking a symbolic wafer and popping it into your mouth at "Communion time."
    Thanked by 1tomjaw
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,970
    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.
  • CCoozeCCooze
    Posts: 1,259
    I was reading about [hand] sanitizers, disinfectants, Et al, and how their overuse leads to viral mutations. Nothing like suggesting everyone do this and do that, and it causing issues, rather than thwarting them.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,970
    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.
  • Charles,

    You've piqued my interest. Which doctor of the Church, and what should I be seeing in his work -- does he say that communion in the hand is a good thing, or that one should be obedient to bishops or that Holy Communion wasn't given on the tongue?

  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,970
    “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


  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,449
    I have wondered whether St Cyril meant an actual physical touch with the host, or whether he intended feasting the eyes on the Lord's body.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,970
    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.
  • @CharlesW, I have seen something similar in a couple of contexts: one is the way people go into churches (here in Brazil) and touch things to the statues of saints, or, if they have access to the sacrário (English escapes me for a moment - the golden box where the Blessed Sacrament is kept), they will touch the door or touch objects to the door, as a way of blessing themselves or the item they have (car keys, work permit, picture of a sick child, etc.). If items can be touched to the relics of a saint, this is also valued. Some Charismatics also touch the monstrance during Adoration - the priest may carry it around the congregation and people reach out to touch the monstrance to be blessed. Also, obviously, people sometimes try to take home Our Lord by sneaking off with Communion, not because they are Satanists wanting to profane holy things, but because they want to be near holy things.

    I do think among the laity many simply receive Communion however it is offered and are quite pious and believing despite the ideologies that trickle down from theologians and activists and so on. I do find that touching here - there is a deep religious heart in people here that over-enthusiastic reforms and rules can put a good dent in but can't seem to kill.
    Thanked by 1CharlesW
  • 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.)


  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,970
    I do. Some of the local Trads are foaming at the mouth. They even appealed to Rome which supported the bishop's decision for in the hand until the pandemic is over.

    As for the hand being covered in those early days, maybe not.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,970
    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.
  • CCoozeCCooze
    Posts: 1,259
    Charles, did you read Cdl Sarah's letter & the letter the bishop received?
    I don't know where the CDW got that the Cardinal's letter supported suppressing Communion on the tongue. Regardless, he's also suggesting we should all stay away from our family for Christmas, that the Vatican nativity scene is just as good as any other art, and that anyone who disagrees with his views on covid should shut up and sit down.
    It's very frustrating.

    "Foaming at the mouth..." some of us haven't been allowed to receive Communion in quite a few months, and for no reason other than that's how our bishop feels it should be - despite suggestions to the usccb saying there isn't any reason that receiving on the tongue is any more dangerous than in the hand.
    Thanked by 2CHGiffen tomjaw
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,970
    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.
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • francis
    Posts: 10,778
    when the pandemic is over
    wishful thinking
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,970
    Francis, all good things come to an end. So do the bad ones. Hope, an often forgotten virtue.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,778
    @CharlesW

    all good things are coming to an end... yes... and the bad ones will too, and hope will always remain... however, that does not discount the loss of souls...
  • 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.
    Thanked by 2CCooze tomjaw
  • I have my doubts about whether or not our bishop will reallow Holy Communion to be received on the tongue after the pandemic has been placed under control. The Latin Mass society in our diocese has reassured its faithful that the bishop acknowledges the right of all under normal circumstances to receive in the traditional manner. It's his chancellor that makes me worried.
    Thanked by 1tomjaw
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,970
    I don't think our bishop will care. He freely allowed communion on the tongue before the pandemic and I believe he will afterward.
  • What is it about chancellors?
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,180
    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.
    Thanked by 1Andrew_Malton
  • All I know is:

    My tongue touches neither door handles nor my arse. And if a priest has to so meticulously purify his hands before and after touching the sacred Host, then why is it ok for a lay person (whose hands are not consecrated) to touch said Host? And like many other bits of church doctrine and praxis, just because something was done in the early church doesn’t mean it was/is the best way to do it. 1000 + years of universal praxis trumps one ancient letter.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,970
    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.