Cardinal Blaise Cupich of Chicago has just released another directive for his diocese, discouraging Catholics from kneeling to receive Holy Communion.
Before we get to his reasons, we should go back 45 years, to the summer of ‘69, when all manner of liturgical chaos seemed to be breaking loose.
In the wake of the ‘spirit of the Council’ – which as Cardinal Ratzinger pointed out more than once, had little to do with the Council itself – bishops across the world asked Paul VI for a change in mode of reception of Communion. Up until then, Catholics received from a priest, on the tongue, kneeling at the altar rail, which was covered by a cloth, and with a paten under their chin held by an altar boy, to catch any fragments or fallen Hosts.
Bishops asked that people be allowed to receive on the hand. It’s unclear who or what motivated this request. Perhaps some considered it ‘undignified’ to be fed, kneeling before a grown man. But as a student in class recently quipped when I mentioned this, ‘but we’re eating a grown man!’ – which, in a very real, if sacramental sense, is true.
The Pope at first tried to forbid the new practice, and his initial response in Memoriale Domini, promulgated on May 29th, 1969, makes for informative, if nostalgic, reading. He warns against the indignity to the sacred Host by Communion in the hand – dropped or stolen Hosts, fragments, and all the rest of it:
Further, the practice which must be considered traditional ensures, more effectively, that holy communion is distributed with the proper respect, decorum and dignity. It removes the danger of profanation of the sacred species, in which “in a unique way, Christ, God and man, is present whole and entire, substantially and continually.” Lastly, it ensures that diligent carefulness about the fragments of consecrated bread which the Church has always recommended: “What you have allowed to drop, think of it as though you had lost one of your own members.”
Whatever the custom might have been in the earliest days of the Church, the practice soon developed of reserving distribution to priests, and reception on the tongue:
Soon the task of taking the Blessed Eucharist to those absent was confided to the sacred ministers alone, so as the better to ensure the respect due to the sacrament and to meet the needs of the faithful. Later, with a deepening understanding of the truth of the eucharistic mystery, of its power and of the presence of Christ in it, there came a greater feeling of reverence towards this sacrament and a deeper humility was felt to be demanded when receiving it. Thus the custom was established of the minister placing a particle of consecrated bread on the tongue of the communicant.
This method of distributing holy communion must be retained, taking the present situation of the Church in the entire world into account, not merely because it has many centuries of-tradition behind it, but especially because it expresses the faithful’s reverence for the Eucharist. The custom does not detract in any way from the personal dignity of those who approach this great sacrament: it is part of that preparation that is needed for the most fruitful reception of the Body of the Lord.
Ah, yes, ‘reverence’. It turns out, if you glance through to the appendix, that when Paul VI polled his episcopacy, most bishops were against the change. But the vocal minority eventually convinced the stodgy majority, and Paul VI – a sensitive soul, seeking unity, averse to conflict – eventually acquiesced to episcopal pressure from countries around the world, granting indults to change the ‘custom’, so that one could choose to receive on the hand, presumably also while standing. France was the second country to be granted the indult on June 6th, 1969, just after Belgium on May 31st – a scant two days after Memoriale was promulgated. Soon, the new practice was de rigeur. The indult has become the custom, even the law, as anyone who has tried to kneel soon discovers.
We’ve come a long way from that summer of ‘69. Now, according to the Cardinal Cupich, receiving the Body of Christ is a ‘procession’, so we should ‘proceed together’, lining up, one by one. In his words:
Our ritual for receiving of Holy Communion has special significance in this regard. It reminds us that receiving the Eucharist is not a private action but rather a communal one, as the very word “communion” implies. For that reason, the norm established by Holy See for the universal church and approved by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is for the faithful to process together as an expression of their coming forward as the Body of Christ and to receive Holy Communion standing.
Cardinal Cupich continues:
Nothing should be done to impede any of these processions, particularly the one that takes place during the sacred Communion ritual. Disrupting this moment only diminishes this powerful symbolic expression, by which the faithful in processing together express their faith that they are called to become the very Body of Christ they receive.
There is much that could be said here, but what of freedom of worship, and ‘expressing one’s faith’ by kneeling to receive God Himself? What of accompaniment and accommodation?
But a bread crumb of a concession is made:
Certainly reverence can and should be expressed by bowing before the reception of Holy Communion, but no one should engage in a gesture that calls attention to oneself or disrupts the flow of the procession. That would be contrary to the norms and tradition of the church, which all the faithful are urged to respect and observe.
The very paradigm of ‘lining up’ to receive – call it a procession, if you will – means that anyone who kneels, by the very nature of the act, ‘calls attention to themselves’, when all they really want to do is direct their own attention, and veneration, to God. Kneeling before the Lord has always been the ‘norm and tradition’ of the Church. The more sacred, transcendent and invisible a reality, the more we need such symbols to support our faith in them. The signs point us to the deeper reality, and the exterior deportment of our bodies should be consistent with, and conducive to, the interior disposition of our soul.
The Gospels are replete with people kneeling before Christ, even though they could but glean His divinity. Now, in His more hidden form beneath the species of bread and wine, we should continue to bend the knee at the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Were we to see the glorified Christ as He really is, we would not just kneel, but crumble to the very dust, our souls rent asunder from our bodies. That will happen to all those still alive when He comes again, on clouds appearing.
Now, the reader might be thinking: But the Cardinal has not explicitly forbidden Communion on the tongue. ‘Processing and standing’ to receive, however, in any practical sense, also implies means receiving on the hand, and almost everyone who lines up receives this way. To take Communion on the tongue, while standing, requires one twist into contortions, especially if you’re a six-foot-four recipient in front of a five-foot-four priest (or laywoman ‘minister’). Is this what this is really all about?
Whatever one says of the pastoral prudence of the Cardinal’s modus recipientis, the empirical evidence is that five decades of such reception of Communion – which at least invites a cavalier attitude – has resulted in a precipitous drop in belief in the Real Presence to an all-time low.
And the hierarchy wonder – some, apparently, grinding their teeth – that people, especially the younger demographic, are flocking to the TLM, or at least to more traditional Novus Ordos with altar rails and kneelers, where they can receive with what they believe fitting dignity and reverence, as per ancient custom.
What Cardinal Cupich thinks of Paul VI’s Memoriale is a mystery. But we should be aware that according to the former Pope, following tradition, every Catholic has the right, as per ancient custom and law to receive on the tongue, kneeling, to be sacramentally fed by our pastors who stand in persona Christi. This has never been rescinded, as the Magisterium of Pope Benedict XVI reminded us. An as Father Casey Jones makes clear in an article the other day in Crisis, the current edition of the General Introduction to the Roman Missal (GIRM) also states clearly that Catholic are allowed to kneel to receive. Sure enough, the norm for reception of Holy Communion in the dioceses of the United States is standing. Sure, this is problematical, but the very next sentence states: Communicants should not be denied Holy Communion because they kneel. (cf., par. 160, emphasis added).
Catholics, stand up for your rights! If you will forgive the paradox.
To coerce the conscience, especially in spiritual matters, and most of all when such practices are right and pious, is not a healthy thing (another teaching of the Second Vatican Council) and does not bode well for the already suffering Church in Chicago. I wonder if the cardinal’s new directive applies to the good canons of Saint John Cantius, already forbidden the traditional Latin Mass, striving to maintain what beauty and reverence they might?
God bides His time, and will provide a means for His faithful, to ‘eat His flesh, and drink His blood’ in a way that fittingly reverent, so we may not only maintain our Faith, weak enough as it is, but that it may grow and increase. One grain of mustard seed, and we could move mountains, even the diocese of Chicago!
Veni, veni Emmanuel!
Captivum solve Israel!
Qui gemit in exilio,
Privatus Dei Filio.!+