Is Receiving The Body Of Christ In The Hand A Liturgical Abuse?

[MIKolbe]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' timestamp='1295642104' post='2202625']
I don't believe that Communion in the Hand is conducive towards reverence for Christ in our current culture.
[/quote]
just as a point of clarification, are you proposing or implying a causal relationship between receiving 'in the hand' and irreverence for Christ in our current culture? If so, clarify which causes which. If not, I totally misread you, my bad.

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='kafka' timestamp='1295643249' post='2202632']
Reverance for Christ proceeds from the soul. So for a person who is interiorly reverent, a bow and reception in the hand can be a sufficient exterior expression or reverence before consuming regardless of culture.
[/quote]


[quote name='MIkolbe' timestamp='1295645694' post='2202649']
just as a point of clarification, are you proposing or implying a causal relationship between receiving 'in the hand' and irreverence for Christ in our current culture? If so, clarify which causes which. If not, I totally misread you, my bad.
[/quote]
I don't want to say right out that Communion in the hand *causes* irreverence, but I think it's one facet of an entire generation that is tending towards irreverence. I'm sure there are a few root causes. In a way, maybe it's the swinging of the pendulum. I don't really feel the need to speculate on that. So it's one symptom, if you will, and one which is aggravating the problem itself in my view. Goes hand in hand with a lot of other symptoms, all of which (or at least most of which) aggravate the problem.
On the flipside, I do think Communion on the tongue can in a certain sense 'cause' greater reverence, in that it can shock the person into further reflection, and in the sense that it forces you into an exterior show of submission before God. Lex Orandi Lex Credendi, right?
For me personally, I had received on the hand my entire life, because that's how I was taught. I decided to change that because of the intellectual arguments, and when I knelt at the Communion rail at my first Mass in the Extraordinary Form, I was shaking and completely overcome with (in a Christian sense) a fear of the Lord. For me, the exterior action reminded me and brought me to a far clearer understanding of the enormity of the Eucharist and the reverence due Him.

[Laudate_Dominum]

The quarterly CotH thread! Woot!@

[MIKolbe]

i think you mean CitH...

sheesh...

AT AT

[Laudate_Dominum]

Wrong thread. lol.

Edited January 21, 2011 by Laudate_Dominum