" Catholics In The United States Can Kneel Now"

[ToJesusMyHeart]

:angry:  :nono:  :mad5: What a horrible pity for a Bishop to directly defy the teaching of the Church.

 

Redemptionis Sacramentum: (http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/ccdds/documents/rc_con_ccdds_doc_20040423_redemptionis-sacramentum_en.html)

 

[91.] In distributing Holy Communion it is to be remembered that “sacred ministers may not deny the sacraments to those who seek them in a reasonable manner, are rightly disposed, and are not prohibited by law from receiving them” Hence any baptized Catholic who is not prevented by law must be admitted to Holy Communion. Therefore, it is not licit to deny Holy Communion to any of Christ’s faithful solely on the grounds, for example, that the person wishes to receive the Eucharist kneeling or standing.

 

And from the 2011 General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM) : (http://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/the-mass/general-instruction-of-the-roman-missal/girm-chapter-4.cfm)

 

160. The Priest then takes the paten or ciborium and approaches the communicants, who usually come up in procession.

It is not permitted for the faithful to take the consecrated Bread or the sacred chalice by themselves and, still less, to hand them on from one to another among themselves. The norm established for the Dioceses of the United States of America is that Holy Communion is to be received standing, unless an individual member of the faithful wishes to receive Communion while kneeling (Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Instruction, Redemptionis Sacramentum, March 25, 2004, no. 91).

 

 

Read the crystal clear rules, Brown!  :rules:

[Basilisa Marie]

I'm glad people won't be "corrected" anymore for kneeling to receive, especially because it was part of what...1500? years of liturgical practice.  

 

I don't have a problem with standing being the norm, though.  I guess what really matters to me is how we're catechizing people.  Do we teach first communion kids that we stand because it represents our new life in Christ? Clearly Benedict felt the need to emphasis the sacredness of the real presence through encouraging people to receive on the tongue.  You'd think that bishops and priests would realize that if someone is doing something outside the norm like kneeling to receive, they do so because it has great spiritual benefits for them.  Grrr. 

 

Slightly related, mostly for the peanut gallery, this gives a little background on standing's place in the Church's history. 

 

http://jloughnan.tripod.com/commhand.htm

 

Before Vatican II, it had been the custom for almost 1,500 years in the Catholic Church for those receiving Holy Communion to do so kneeling. The Host was received on the tongue, and the priest said: Corpus Domini Nostri Iesu Christi custodiat animam tuam in vitam aeternam, Amen. "May the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ preserve your soul unto life everlasting. Amen".

 

These words and the tradition of receiving the Sacrament kneeling date from the time of Pope St Gregory the Great (590-604 A.D.) and the custom of receiving the Host on the tongue can be traced even further back – at least to the time of Pope Agapitus who died in 536 A.D. A Council held in Rouen in the 7th century forbids it to be given in any other way. Practice seems to have varied from country to country up until this definitive ruling in 880 A.D.

 

During the first four centuries, however, as Communion time drew near, the cantor at the Mass would call out Sancta Sanctis, "Holy Things to the holy," and the faithful would approach the altar, bowed but standing.

 

At that time the universal custom in the Church was to receive the Sacred Species in the hand.

 

Thus St Ambrose (339-397 A.D.) Bishop of Milan, asked the Emperor Theodosius how he dared to receive Holy Communion with his hand dripping with the blood of the innocent, after the massacre of Thessalonica. St Augustine (354-430 A.D.) whom St Ambrose himself baptized, writes of a Bishop who used to receive Communion in the hand from a priest who in his turn received Communion in his hand from the Bishop. St Basil (330-379 A.D.) writes of a priest who places portion of the Eucharist in the hands of a communicant who then puts it in his mouth with his own hand. St John Chrysostom (345-407 A.D.) speaks of the importance of the faithful approaching Holy Communion with clean hands, because of the sacredness of what they are going to touch. St John Damascene (675-750 A.D.) required his Catholics to put their hands in the form of a cross, receiving the Sacrament in the palm of the right hand, supported by the left.

 

For pastoral reasons the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council decreed that we should return to the earlier custom of receiving Holy Communion in the hand, and use the older form of words. If our faith is truly to be nourished as the Church intends, we must ensure that we receive Holy Communion devoutly, with scrupulously clean hands held out in the form of a cross, with the hollow of the right hand like a throne upon which the Sacred Host will be placed. The faithful are left free to receive Communion on the tongue if they so wish. It is not permitted to receive Communion between one's fingers, and all are exhorted to hold their hands up at a reasonable height and to support the right with the left, to ensure that the Host does not fall to the ground.

 

In ancient times, as the faithful approached to receive Communion, they would recite Psalms together. This may not be possible today, but a prayer that could be said quietly by communicant as they approach the altar would be the one from the Roman Missal: "I will take the bread of heaven and call upon the name of the Lord: May the Body of Christ guard my body and soul unto life everlasting Amen."