COMMUNION IN THE HAND, A REVIEW

"In my Parish in Minglanilla, Cebu there is this man who goes from one communion line to another.  He receives one in the tongue and another in the hand."   (tayaonglapis.blogspot).

“We lined up to pee in a toilet and on our way back to Church, I cleaned my hands with garden soil since all the faucets were dried up.  My friend received communion in the hand; I did mine on the tongue.  I never saw him clean his hands after he zipped it in.”  (Shared by a friend).

“In Holland, some students were conducting a flourishing trade in consecrated Hosts, thanks to Communion given in the hand. They collected them and arranged them on the wall, like butterflies. About 200 Hosts were found, transpierced in this manner…” (President of the Parish, F.E.A.G.).

“In a restaurant, some young people cut a Host into pieces to see if the Blood would run, then they threw it into the toilets.” (from the Proprietor, November 1969).

Incidences like these are shared by countries where Communion in the Hand or CITH has been allowed with permission from the Holy See.   In 2009, Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales has urged communicants to receive communion in the hand to minimize the spread of the swine virus. With the threat gone, the practice should have been lifted.  CITH is fast becoming a fad in the Philippine archipelago but without the required permission from Rome.

  

No INDULT for the Philippines

The Second Vatican Council never really authorized the practice of Catholics receiving Communion in the Hand. It was "introduced abusively and hurriedly in some spheres" and authorized only years later by the Vatican.  CITH was introduced in Belgium (1965) by Leo Josef Cardinal Suenens “in disobedience to the rubrics of the Church.”  But instead of castigating a brother bishop, Pope Paul VI took a late stance to save a colleague and the Church.  In his Memoriale Domine (Instruction on the Manner of Administering Holy Communion) in 1969, the Supreme Pontiff authorized CITH but only as an ‘alternative’  not  a replacement of the traditional Communion on the Tongue.  

With the Instructions out, modernist clergies wasted no time applying for the INDULT – a special permission from the Holy See to implement CITH in their dioceses with the oath to protect the sanctity of the Real Presence of Christ in the Host.   Sixteen countries got the indult in 1977 but not the Philippines.  The Holy Father gambled in "leaving the care of the Sacrament to the prudence of the bishops" who are supposed to protect the sanctity of the host and to report all violations thereat.

CITH now has taken its toll and it is growing by the numbers.  Communicants are taking the host home to be used as amulet or charm placed in the family altar unaware that doing so is a sacrilege.  The Body of Christ is not supposed to be touched or kept but only consumed at once.

Pope Paul VI has said: "It (CITH) carries certain dangers with it which may arise from the new manner of administering Holy Communion: the danger of a loss of reverence for the august sacrament of the altar, of profanation, of adulterating the true doctrine." Mother Teresa of Calcutta confirmed her preference to receive communion by tongue: “Wherever I go in the whole world, the thing that makes me the saddest is watching people receive Communion in the hand."

In his time, Pope John Paul II had a sign posted at St. Peters specifying that ALL priests celebrating Mass there were to give Communion only on the tongue.  Concelebrating priests were also told to do the same.  Communion on the tongue remains the Law of the Church and the Apostolic See has urged bishops, priests, and laity to submit to the law.  And Pope Benedict XVI also gives holy communion only by the tongue with the communicant kneeling down.

Communion on the tongue (and to receive it kneeling down) is the preferred way of the Church. “The Apostolic See therefore vehemently urges bishops, priests and laity to carefully submit to the law [Communion on the tongue] which is still valid and which has again been confirmed.”   In fact communicants who desire to have it this way are urged to report the matter to the Archbishop if the bishop or priest in their community refuses to administer the Sacrament to them.  And they are advised to receive spiritual communion in the meantime.

Cuddling the Resurrected Christ in the hand is a sacrilege and am not ready to take the risk!

[You may receive Communion in the tongue (the old way if you say so) at the Archdiocesan Shrine of Nuestro Padre Jesus Nazareno Talisay City, Cebu.]