Self-consciousness at Mass

“Can I ask you something personal?” my friend from daily Mass leaned up to ask this morning. I thought she was going to ask a question about NFP, even though she’s well past the age of needing to use it. But what she asked was whether I received the Eucharist on the hand or by mouth. A tougher question.

“Usually by hand” I replied.


So she asked me to read a small, worn booklet detailing why receiving by hand is disrespectful. Allowing it was originally a concession to disobedience. A quote from Mother Teresa about the decline in reverence in the church was repeated multiple times, as was an anecdote about how if you go to the Vatican, you have to kneel to receive and you receive on the tongue. Probably the most effective argument was about how the priest has consecrated hands while our hands are not.


I read most of the booklet right there because we had a few minutes before the start of Mass. But half my attention was given over to what I was going to say when I handed it back.


“Well that’s a lot to think about. He makes some good points,” is what I came up with. Then I told the story of how once a priest, a wonderful Cistercian, dropped the Host when he was putting it in my mouth. It was excrutiatingly embarrassing. The priest, gasping, stopped me from picking it up so that he could consume it himself. That was not so bad, but what pained me was the announcement at the end of Mass about opening your mouth up and sticking your tongue out so that this doesn’t happen again. I was sure every eye was accusing me of carelessness with the Body of Christ.

So I have gone back and forth with how I receive. If I’m holding a baby I receive on the tongue. Ditto if the parish we’re attending has altar servers holding patens. But our current one doesn’t. Some priests and ministers seem dainty about placing the Eucharist on the tongue, so I’m always afraid it is going to fall again.

Since my parents are converts, I didn’t even know about receiving on the tongue until probably college – or maybe senior year of high school when I went to daily Mass once a week with my dad as a part of a Lenten promise. At the time, we went to a typical suburban parish: lots of families, not a lot of super Catholics. It took awhile for the riches of the faith to be uncovered, but they were there and there were people wanting to share them.  Eventually, I met a few people who received on the tongue and read a few things and began to receive that way for a while before that scarring event.


So during the Eucharistic procession, in front of my friend, I went forward feeling very self-conscious. And since I was receiving from an extraordinary minister, I went ahead and received in my hands.

But I do feel unsettled. The book’s tone suggested it was motivated by scrupulosity. I couldn’t find anything specific in the Catechism about hands vs. tongue. In the early Church it was the practice to receive in the hand and St. Cyril of Jerusalem is often quoted about making a throne with your hands, which is what I taught my kids. I wonder if Christ would balk at being touched by hands (also a remnant of our first parish and of years in Protestant Sunday School: my images of Jesus came out of 70’s theology.) At our former parish, the priest once instructed the congregation on when to kneel and stand and bow because too many parishioners were doing things differently, but he did not dictate whether to receive on the tongue or in the mouth. (see pertinent quotes below)


My reaction was similar when I read Dressing with Dignity a couple years ago. After I read it, I went out and bought a few skirts at the thrift store. Even though I had never felt wholly convinced that wearing pants was leading men to sinful thoughts, I did recognize that wearing skirts made me feel more feminine and like I needed to be on my best behavior. But I couldn’t get down and play with my kids or chase them around the park easily. And I resented that the lady who wrote it lived in Texas and didn’t have to wear tights all the time. A friend liberated me from fastidiousness about how to dress by linking how we dress to whether we are called to be more contemplative or active in our lives. Some of us live a more cloistered life; others of us live more in the world and evangelize by our actions and appearance.


Which leads me back to reception of the Eucharist. Like the little book pointed out, we are an example to others when we receive Communion. Either manner we receive should be marked by reverence.



A few good quotes:
From the Bishops:

The liturgical assembly of the baptized that comes together for the celebration of the Eucharist is a witness to, a manifestation of, the pilgrim Church. When we move in procession, particularly the procession to receive the body and blood of Christ in Communion, we are a sign, a symbol of that pilgrim Church 'on the way.' For some, however, the experience of the Communion Procession is far more prosaic, analogous perhaps to standing on line in the supermarket or at the motor vehicle bureau. A perception such as this is a dreadfully inaccurate and impoverished understanding of what is a significant religious action …



Over and over again the prayers of the liturgy and the norms of the General Instruction emphasize this fundamental concept of the unity of the baptized, stressing that when we come together to participate in the Eucharistic celebration we come, not as individuals, but as united members of Christ's body. In each of the Eucharistic Prayers, though the petition is worded in slightly different ways, God is asked to send his Holy Spirit to make us one body, one spirit in Christ; the General Instruction admonishes the faithful that they should become one body, whether by hearing the word of God, or joining in prayers and singing ...(GIRM, no. 96) it describes one of the purposes of the opening song of the Mass as to ... intensify the unity of those who have been gathered and says of the Communion Chant that its function is to express outwardly the communicants’ union in spirit by means of the unity of their voices, ... and to highlight the communitarian nature of the procession to receive Communion. …


It is difficult for some of us to embrace this emphasis on Mass as the action of a community rather than an individual act of my own faith and piety, but it is important that we make every effort to do so. Christ himself at the Last Supper pleaded with his Father: Holy Father, keep those you have given me true to your name, so that they may be one like us ... Father may they be one in us, as you are in me and I am in you ... Jn. 17: 11; 21. Baptism has joined us to Christ and to one another as the vine and its branches. The life of Christ, the Holy Spirit, animates each of us individually, and all of us corporately and guides us together in our efforts to become one in Christ.


http://www.usccb.org/liturgy/girm/bul5.shtml

Excerpt from Pastoral Answers

by Msgr. M. Francis Mannion


Communion in the Hand


Question: I know the practice is optional, but where did Communion in the hand come from? Don’t you think it encourages disrespect?


Answer: Communion in the hand was the norm for most of the first millennium. Because of the dangers of misuse and the growing concern for reverence, the practice of giving the Host on the tongue was introduced about the ninth century.


The present practice of giving communion in the hand dates from 1969, when Pope Paul VI opened the way for episcopal conferences who wished to reintroduce the practice. Permission was granted to the U.S. bishops in 1977.


In my opinion, there is nothing intrinsically more reverent about reception on the tongue or less reverent about receiving in the hand. Reverence or irreverence are generally determined by other factors: the spiritual attitude of the recipient, the demeanor of the one giving communion, the adequacy of eucharistic understanding, and the manner in which the eucharistic elements are treated both within and outside Mass.


St. Cyril of Jerusalem in the fourth century offered a powerful catechesis on the mode of receiving communion in the hand that is still applicable today: "When you approach, do not go stretching out your open hands or having your fingers spread out, but make the left hand into a throne for the right which shall receive the King, and then cup your open hand and the Body of Christ, reciting the ‘Amen.’ Then sanctify with all care your eyes by touching the Sacred Body, and receive it. But be careful that no particles fall, for what you lose would be to you as if you had lost some of your members. Tell me, if anybody had given you gold dust, would you not hold fast to it with all care, and watch lest some of it fall and be lost to you? Must you not then be even more careful with that which is more precious than gold and diamonds, so that no particles are lost?"


http://www.osv.com/OSV4MeNav/Sacraments/TheEucharist/EucharisticQandA/tabid/498/Default.aspx

Fom the Catechism:

1378 Worship of the Eucharist. In the liturgy of the Mass we express our faith in the real presence of Christ under the species of bread and wine by, among other ways, genuflecting or bowing deeply as a sign of adoration of the Lord. "The Catholic Church has always offered and still offers to the sacrament of the Eucharist the cult of adoration, not only during Mass, but also outside of it, reserving the consecrated hosts with the utmost care, exposing them to the solemn veneration of the faithful, and carrying them in procession."208


http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p2s2c1a3.htm