The actual communion, as long as the Eucharist had the form of a real meal, was accomplished by the passing of the consecrated elements from hand to hand. When it became a formal act, it was prefaced (demonstrably as early as the end of the second century) by the bishop saying, “Holy things to holy persons” (from the Septuagint version of Lev. 24:9; cf. Matt. 7:6). The congregation answered, “One alone is holy,” etc., and then approached the altar, where they received the elements in their hands, standing. Great care was exercised to prevent a crum of the hallowed bread or a drop of the consecrated wine falling to the ground; in the reception of the former it was usual to place the left hand under the right in the form of a cross. The careful washing of the hands before communion was prescribed; and Cyril of Jerusalem instructs his catechumens to receive the chalice bowing low. The distribution of the elements was performed in Justin’s time by the deacons; but this function was withdrawn from them with the gradual growth of reverence for the elements and belief in priestly dignity and power. As a transitional stage, the deacons are found in some places entrusted with the administration of the chalice, as the less important. When a definite formula of administration came in is uncertain, though there are no traces of one in the apostolic age. The oldest was the simple statement; the formula is Hoc est corpus Christi, Hic est sanguis Christi. In the Apostolic Constitutions (VIII., xiii. 4) “body of Christ” for the bread, and “blood of Christ, cup of life” for the cup. In Mark the Hermit (c. 410) a longer formula occurs: “the holy blood of Jesus Christ for life eternal”; and in seventh-century Gaul a still further expansion, “May the Body and Blood of our Lord bring to thee remission of sin and eternal life” (Council of Rouen, can. ii.). Each communicant answered “Amen,” as an expression of faith. That the earliest use was to give first the cup and then the bread is shown by the Didache, and possibly by Luke 22:17 and 1 Cor. 10:16.” History is older than the 1960s, and the ancient practice was to receive the Gifts in the hands. Also, the Catholic Church is bigger than the Western, Roman Catholic Church. The 23 Eastern Catholic Churches have a wide variety of Eucharistic practices, and I ask you not o please study more deeply into the diversity and richness of the Church Universal.
Thank you for your comment! If you read the "About" section of this blog you will see that the comment space is primarily for people to share experiences and memories.
Growing up in Zimbabwe as a mission territory, this wasn't much of an issue. Taking communion in the hand had been official practice since 1971. Some of the older Irish missionaries still followed earlier communion practices at remote outstations, but the Jesuits at Chishawasha who had worked in the country since 1877 and the more progressive Dominicans in the Eastern Highlands adopted Vatican II changes early on.
What was more divisive was inculturation and that involved adoption of the kurova guva ritual as an official Catholic rite in 1982. This was an indigenous Shona rite performed to welcome the spirit of the deceased into the family as a spirit elder, and to induct it into the community of the spirit ancestors. Again, for older clergy, this was an uneasy mix of cultural traditions; as a younger Shona and Ndebele priesthood replaced the older foreign missionaries, the rite became more familiar and accepted. Marian devotion remained as strong as ever.
Catholicism has a much longer history in Zimbabwe than in South Africa (characterised by Calvinism since the 1650s) and dates back to the Portuguese Jesuit missionary, Fr Gonçalo da Silveira, who worked to convert Shona people at the court of the Monomotapa dynasty until he was martyred in 1561. He had been influenced by the travels of St Francois Xavier, had served with Ignatius of Loyola in Goa and attributed the conversions among the Shona to the intercession of the Virgin Mary. The ruler Chisamharu Negomo and his mother greatly admired a painting of the Madonna shown to them by Fr da Silveira and Chisamharu claimed Our Lady smiled at him (something that always reminds me of the miracle claimed by St Therese of Lisieux who saw a statuette of Mary smile at her). Before he was killed, Fr da Silveira said Mass at least three times a day and had to improvise because, as with many far-flung missionary expeditions, wafers, bread and wine could not be obtained. The reverence was always there.
Sorry for the length of this post, happy Thanksgiving to all in the United States.
I grew up in Los Angeles. In the early 1970s, our parish was a typical middle-class suburban parish: Sunday morning at 9:45 was the "guitar mass" aimed at teens and young adults, at 11:00 was the mass with organ and traditional hymns, etc.
In second grade (1972) we all made our first communion, which was on the tongue. Then a few years later -- 1977 or 1978? -- they rolled out three changes: communion in the hand, communion standing up, and communion in both species. My recollection is that these were all rolled out as one. I don't recall any mention of these being *optional*, but neither was there any sign of a struggle. The pastor said "The church is now doing it this way", so we did it.
My main reaction was that it made the communion line slightly easier, because now each line was a single-file until you received. Before that, there was a complicated dance where you watched the communion rail carefully, and when the priest moved to the left half of the church, a dozen or so people from the line on the right would settle on the communion rail. To me, this was always confusing because it required us to estimate how many people would be in a single "batch". If I was at the end, sometimes I would go up there but then there wouldn't be room and I had to step further back.
We all believed in the Real Presence and transsubstantiation and that communion had to be received worthily -- that didn't change (yet). But none of my CCD teachers conveyed these ideas with any particular emotion or passion; it was just something we did.
No memories of the change as I wasn’t born then, but clear memories of the nun who taught our First Communion class (1990) that is was absolutely disgusting to receive on the tongue and none of us was allowed to do that under any circumstances. She was very vociferous about it and I didn’t understand why, bc at age 8, I don’t think I’d ever seen anyone receive on the tongue anyway.
It was difficult for me because I am left handed and could never remember which was to hold my hands.
This was at a fairly conservative parish with a very old pastor, in Philadelphia.
I was born in 1966, so I received First Communion on the tongue. Since it was the Silly 70s(TM) the CCD powers that be thought it would be good to receive individually, sitting with parents, wearing nothing special. Then in the spring, the whole class got together dressed like First Communicants for a "Solemn Communion." We all stood at the Communion rail. I remember it being used and thought all of us standing in front of it was dumb.
In 1977, Father stood and the ambo (I still vividly remember this) and read the Cardinals letter saying Communion in the hand was being allowed but we had a choice whether to receive on the tongue or in the hand.
I received in the hand just a few times. However, I felt uncomfortable receiving that way and it seemed like I was holding a hot potato. When I complained about it, my Mom said, "Father said you don't have to receive that way, so don't." And I think I have only received once in the hand since, in college, when we were given crumbly bread that a parishioner had baked at home. Actually, I'm not sure that counts because based on a recipe I saw several years later, it was likely invalid matter. In the Covid era, I was refused on the tongue once. I just shook my head and walked away. Didn't even think about it.
Several years ago, I researched a bunch into Communion in the hand. I came to the conclusion that Cardinal Carberry (not my archdiocese) was the driving force behind holding off Communion in the hand in the USA until 1977. Without his efforts, I'm pretty certain it would have passed the bishops conference with the required 2/3 in 1970. I owe him a lot. My first Communion was in December 1973. I have a Mass said for the repose of his soul every year.
Your efforts weren't in vain, Your Eminence. It did matter. It mattered to me.
I was born in 1977, so Communion in the Hand has always been around, but I have some childhood memories (in the Philly suburbs) that are very different from where we've gotten to now.
First, at my 1st Communion (1985) I remember instruction on both means to receive and emphasis on careful and reverent reception. I imagine most or all of us received on the hand, but it was neither assumed nor insisted upon.
The communion rail was never removed from our church, and I can picture it being used a bit early on, but it must have only been on special occasions. I don't know what qualified as special.
I remember minimal use of EHMCs, and if a non-celebrating priest was in the rectory he nearly always walked over and assisted with distribution in cassock and stole.
As an altar boy (87-91), we used patens during distribution. I guess they went away in the 90s sometime. Reinstating those seems like low hanging fruit for the Eucharistic revival. Even if receiving by hand, the paten underneath conveys a message of the seriousness of dropping the Host.
I started receiving regularly on the tongue in 2006 when I had my infant son in my arms for a few Sundays in a row; then one week when I didn't I reflexively still received on the tongue. And thought, 'ok, I guess that's how I receive now'. Receiving in the hand again for a period during the pandemic was surprisingly difficult for me.
Nov 17, 2023·edited Nov 17, 2023Liked by Amy Welborn
I was a mere tween in '77, and an altar boy at the time. We used the patens and thus, since I was holding one, continued to receive on the tongue whenever I served at Mass. I can't recall exactly how I received when I was part of the congregation, but I imagine I still received on the tongue out of habit.
I gravitated towards receiving in the hand beyond high school, and I think that was because the EHMCs were poorly trained on how to distribute to communicants receiving on the tongue. To this day, very few EHMCs, in my experience, are comfortable doing so, and even more so post-COVID. Many a time I've had the host *dropped* onto my tongue rather than *placed*. I've never felt called to be an EHMC, so I'm ignorant of the training they receive, but if practice is any indication, I think more training is required.
I've been receiving on the tongue for the better part of the past decade.
Nov 17, 2023·edited Nov 17, 2023Liked by Amy Welborn
The second pamphlet is, I believe, a secular publisher that was probably contracted to do it. I've come across one in that exact same style, with the exact same style of illustration, on how to properly use contraception.
“6. The Communion
The actual communion, as long as the Eucharist had the form of a real meal, was accomplished by the passing of the consecrated elements from hand to hand. When it became a formal act, it was prefaced (demonstrably as early as the end of the second century) by the bishop saying, “Holy things to holy persons” (from the Septuagint version of Lev. 24:9; cf. Matt. 7:6). The congregation answered, “One alone is holy,” etc., and then approached the altar, where they received the elements in their hands, standing. Great care was exercised to prevent a crum of the hallowed bread or a drop of the consecrated wine falling to the ground; in the reception of the former it was usual to place the left hand under the right in the form of a cross. The careful washing of the hands before communion was prescribed; and Cyril of Jerusalem instructs his catechumens to receive the chalice bowing low. The distribution of the elements was performed in Justin’s time by the deacons; but this function was withdrawn from them with the gradual growth of reverence for the elements and belief in priestly dignity and power. As a transitional stage, the deacons are found in some places entrusted with the administration of the chalice, as the less important. When a definite formula of administration came in is uncertain, though there are no traces of one in the apostolic age. The oldest was the simple statement; the formula is Hoc est corpus Christi, Hic est sanguis Christi. In the Apostolic Constitutions (VIII., xiii. 4) “body of Christ” for the bread, and “blood of Christ, cup of life” for the cup. In Mark the Hermit (c. 410) a longer formula occurs: “the holy blood of Jesus Christ for life eternal”; and in seventh-century Gaul a still further expansion, “May the Body and Blood of our Lord bring to thee remission of sin and eternal life” (Council of Rouen, can. ii.). Each communicant answered “Amen,” as an expression of faith. That the earliest use was to give first the cup and then the bread is shown by the Didache, and possibly by Luke 22:17 and 1 Cor. 10:16.” History is older than the 1960s, and the ancient practice was to receive the Gifts in the hands. Also, the Catholic Church is bigger than the Western, Roman Catholic Church. The 23 Eastern Catholic Churches have a wide variety of Eucharistic practices, and I ask you not o please study more deeply into the diversity and richness of the Church Universal.
Thank you for your comment! If you read the "About" section of this blog you will see that the comment space is primarily for people to share experiences and memories.
Growing up in Zimbabwe as a mission territory, this wasn't much of an issue. Taking communion in the hand had been official practice since 1971. Some of the older Irish missionaries still followed earlier communion practices at remote outstations, but the Jesuits at Chishawasha who had worked in the country since 1877 and the more progressive Dominicans in the Eastern Highlands adopted Vatican II changes early on.
What was more divisive was inculturation and that involved adoption of the kurova guva ritual as an official Catholic rite in 1982. This was an indigenous Shona rite performed to welcome the spirit of the deceased into the family as a spirit elder, and to induct it into the community of the spirit ancestors. Again, for older clergy, this was an uneasy mix of cultural traditions; as a younger Shona and Ndebele priesthood replaced the older foreign missionaries, the rite became more familiar and accepted. Marian devotion remained as strong as ever.
Catholicism has a much longer history in Zimbabwe than in South Africa (characterised by Calvinism since the 1650s) and dates back to the Portuguese Jesuit missionary, Fr Gonçalo da Silveira, who worked to convert Shona people at the court of the Monomotapa dynasty until he was martyred in 1561. He had been influenced by the travels of St Francois Xavier, had served with Ignatius of Loyola in Goa and attributed the conversions among the Shona to the intercession of the Virgin Mary. The ruler Chisamharu Negomo and his mother greatly admired a painting of the Madonna shown to them by Fr da Silveira and Chisamharu claimed Our Lady smiled at him (something that always reminds me of the miracle claimed by St Therese of Lisieux who saw a statuette of Mary smile at her). Before he was killed, Fr da Silveira said Mass at least three times a day and had to improvise because, as with many far-flung missionary expeditions, wafers, bread and wine could not be obtained. The reverence was always there.
Sorry for the length of this post, happy Thanksgiving to all in the United States.
Thank you so much for commenting - I appreciate the insight you bring.
I grew up in Los Angeles. In the early 1970s, our parish was a typical middle-class suburban parish: Sunday morning at 9:45 was the "guitar mass" aimed at teens and young adults, at 11:00 was the mass with organ and traditional hymns, etc.
In second grade (1972) we all made our first communion, which was on the tongue. Then a few years later -- 1977 or 1978? -- they rolled out three changes: communion in the hand, communion standing up, and communion in both species. My recollection is that these were all rolled out as one. I don't recall any mention of these being *optional*, but neither was there any sign of a struggle. The pastor said "The church is now doing it this way", so we did it.
My main reaction was that it made the communion line slightly easier, because now each line was a single-file until you received. Before that, there was a complicated dance where you watched the communion rail carefully, and when the priest moved to the left half of the church, a dozen or so people from the line on the right would settle on the communion rail. To me, this was always confusing because it required us to estimate how many people would be in a single "batch". If I was at the end, sometimes I would go up there but then there wouldn't be room and I had to step further back.
We all believed in the Real Presence and transsubstantiation and that communion had to be received worthily -- that didn't change (yet). But none of my CCD teachers conveyed these ideas with any particular emotion or passion; it was just something we did.
No memories of the change as I wasn’t born then, but clear memories of the nun who taught our First Communion class (1990) that is was absolutely disgusting to receive on the tongue and none of us was allowed to do that under any circumstances. She was very vociferous about it and I didn’t understand why, bc at age 8, I don’t think I’d ever seen anyone receive on the tongue anyway.
It was difficult for me because I am left handed and could never remember which was to hold my hands.
This was at a fairly conservative parish with a very old pastor, in Philadelphia.
I was born in 1966, so I received First Communion on the tongue. Since it was the Silly 70s(TM) the CCD powers that be thought it would be good to receive individually, sitting with parents, wearing nothing special. Then in the spring, the whole class got together dressed like First Communicants for a "Solemn Communion." We all stood at the Communion rail. I remember it being used and thought all of us standing in front of it was dumb.
In 1977, Father stood and the ambo (I still vividly remember this) and read the Cardinals letter saying Communion in the hand was being allowed but we had a choice whether to receive on the tongue or in the hand.
I received in the hand just a few times. However, I felt uncomfortable receiving that way and it seemed like I was holding a hot potato. When I complained about it, my Mom said, "Father said you don't have to receive that way, so don't." And I think I have only received once in the hand since, in college, when we were given crumbly bread that a parishioner had baked at home. Actually, I'm not sure that counts because based on a recipe I saw several years later, it was likely invalid matter. In the Covid era, I was refused on the tongue once. I just shook my head and walked away. Didn't even think about it.
Several years ago, I researched a bunch into Communion in the hand. I came to the conclusion that Cardinal Carberry (not my archdiocese) was the driving force behind holding off Communion in the hand in the USA until 1977. Without his efforts, I'm pretty certain it would have passed the bishops conference with the required 2/3 in 1970. I owe him a lot. My first Communion was in December 1973. I have a Mass said for the repose of his soul every year.
Your efforts weren't in vain, Your Eminence. It did matter. It mattered to me.
I was born in 1977, so Communion in the Hand has always been around, but I have some childhood memories (in the Philly suburbs) that are very different from where we've gotten to now.
First, at my 1st Communion (1985) I remember instruction on both means to receive and emphasis on careful and reverent reception. I imagine most or all of us received on the hand, but it was neither assumed nor insisted upon.
The communion rail was never removed from our church, and I can picture it being used a bit early on, but it must have only been on special occasions. I don't know what qualified as special.
I remember minimal use of EHMCs, and if a non-celebrating priest was in the rectory he nearly always walked over and assisted with distribution in cassock and stole.
As an altar boy (87-91), we used patens during distribution. I guess they went away in the 90s sometime. Reinstating those seems like low hanging fruit for the Eucharistic revival. Even if receiving by hand, the paten underneath conveys a message of the seriousness of dropping the Host.
I started receiving regularly on the tongue in 2006 when I had my infant son in my arms for a few Sundays in a row; then one week when I didn't I reflexively still received on the tongue. And thought, 'ok, I guess that's how I receive now'. Receiving in the hand again for a period during the pandemic was surprisingly difficult for me.
I also began receiving on the tongue because of a baby in arms…then it just seemed right.
When I came back to the Church in 1980 after a 10 year hiatus I was told to receive in the hand so I did.
I was a mere tween in '77, and an altar boy at the time. We used the patens and thus, since I was holding one, continued to receive on the tongue whenever I served at Mass. I can't recall exactly how I received when I was part of the congregation, but I imagine I still received on the tongue out of habit.
I gravitated towards receiving in the hand beyond high school, and I think that was because the EHMCs were poorly trained on how to distribute to communicants receiving on the tongue. To this day, very few EHMCs, in my experience, are comfortable doing so, and even more so post-COVID. Many a time I've had the host *dropped* onto my tongue rather than *placed*. I've never felt called to be an EHMC, so I'm ignorant of the training they receive, but if practice is any indication, I think more training is required.
I've been receiving on the tongue for the better part of the past decade.
The second pamphlet is, I believe, a secular publisher that was probably contracted to do it. I've come across one in that exact same style, with the exact same style of illustration, on how to properly use contraception.