Pope Benedict’s new Master of Pontifical Liturgical Celebrations, Monsignor Guido Marini, says he believes that people receiving Communion kneeling and on the tongue will become common practice at the Vatican.
Pope prefers Communion on tongue, says Vatican liturgist...
"Communion in the hand has not been, and will not be accepted by Heaven. This is a sacrilege in the eyes of the Eternal Father, and must not be continued, for you only add to your punishment when you continue on in the ways that have been found to be unpleasing to the Eternal Father."
- The Bayside Prophecies
Our Lady of the Roses, June 30, 1984
The Catholic News Agency reported on June 25, 2008:
In interview published in the Wednesday edition of L'Osservatore Romano, Pope Benedict’s new Master of Pontifical Liturgical Celebrations, Monsignor Guido Marini, says he believes that people receiving Communion kneeling and on the tongue will become common practice at the Vatican.
Msgr. Marini’s comments were made during an interview with Gianluca Biccini on some of Pope Benedict XVI’s recent liturgical decisions and their meaning.
Biccini noted in the exchange that Pope Benedict distributed Holy Communion to people who knelt and received the host on their tongues during his visit to Brindisi (Southern Italy) last week.
When he was asked if this would become a common practice at the Vatican, Marini responded, "I believe so."
"In this regard it is necessary not to forget the fact that the distribution of Communion on the hand remains, up to now, from the juridical standpoint, an exception (indult) to the universal law, conceded by the Holy See to those bishops' conferences who requested it,” the liturgical master of ceremonies reminded.
Canada, Mexico, the Philippines and the United States are all countries that have been granted an exception from the universal practice of receiving Communion on the tongue.
It seems though that the Pope wants to provide an example for the Church, according to Msgr. Marini, “The form adopted by Benedict XVI is meant to highlight the force of this valid norm for the whole Church."
"It could also be noted that the (Pope's) preference for such form of distribution which, without taking anything away from the other one, better highlights the truth of the real presence in the Eucharist, helps the devotion of the faithful, and introduces more easily to the sense of mystery. Aspects which, in our times, pastorally speaking, it is urgent to highlight and recover."
In light of a widespread lack of reverence for the Eucharist, the archbishop suggests that it is "high time to review" the policy
Vatican official suggests reconsidering Communion in the hand...
Catholic World News reported on February 1, 2008:
The secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship has called for reconsideration of the practice of Communion in the hand.
In the preface to a new Italian-language book on the Eucharist, written by a bishop from Kazakhstan and released in January by the Vatican's official publishing house, Archbishop Albert Malcolm Ranjith Patabendige Don suggests that the reception of Communion in the hand has contributed to a general sense of "carelessness" about the Eucharist, as well as some flagrant abuses. The archbishop makes his remarks in the preface to Dominus Est, by Bishop Athanasisus Schneider.
The practice of receiving Communion in the hand was not mandated by Vatican II, nor was it introduced in response to calls from the laity, Archbishop Ranjith writes. Instead, he argues, an established practice of piety-- receiving the Eucharist kneeling, on the tongue-- was changed "improperly and hurriedly," and became widespread even before it was formally approved by the Vatican.
Vatican newspaper article says Catholics should receive Communion kneeling and on the tongue...
LifeSiteNews reported on January 9, 2008:
Although it may seem a little strange, there is a definite battle being waged within the Catholic Church. It is the same "culture war" being waged by secular moderns against those who uphold traditional morality, it is pro-life vs. pro-choice.
But within the Catholic Church the same battle is fought along liturgical lines, and the publication in the Vatican newspaper of an article calling for Catholics to receive Holy Communion kneeling and on the tongue is telling.
"If some nonbeliever arrived and observed such an act of adoration perhaps he, too, would 'fall down and worship God, declaring, God is really in your midst,'" explained Auxiliary Bishop Athanasius Schneider of Karaganda, Kazakhstan in the pages of L'Osservatore Romano.
The Catholic News Service reports that in the January 8 edition of the Vatican paper, Bishop Schneider noted that the reverence and awe of Catholics who truly believe they are receiving Jesus in the Eucharist should lead them to kneel and receive Communion on their tongues.
"The awareness of the greatness of the eucharistic mystery is demonstrated in a special way by the manner in which the body of the Lord is distributed and received," the bishop wrote.
Another prominent example was the denial of Communion to Virginia House of Delegate member Richard Black by Arlington's St. Thomas More Cathedral Rector, Fr. Dominic Irace in 2002. Black was one of the strongest defenders of life in the legislature. As Delegate Black left the Cathedral, Fr. Irace loudly called him a "conservative idiot."
These types of situations caused the Vatican to react rather strongly in 2002. Jorge A. Cardinal Medina Estévez, the head of the Vatican's Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, which addresses liturgical matters, wrote a bishop about reports received of a priest denying Communion to faithful because they were kneeling.
The Cardinal called such denial "a grave violation of one of the most basic rights of the Christian faithful," and directed the bishop to investigate the case. The letter said that the Vatican regards such abuses of the faithful as very grave. The letter said, the Congregation, if such actions are verified, "will regard future complaints of this nature with great seriousness, and if they are verified, it intends to seek disciplinary action consonant with the gravity of the pastoral abuse."
Despite this letter from the Vatican, the suppression of kneeling remains strong.
The article in the Vatican newspaper advocating kneeling however signals a sea change.
Those who kneel have a champion in Pope Benedict who prior to his elevation to the pontificate wrote of kneeling and its tie to culture in his book 'The Spirit of the Liturgy" (Ignatius Press, 2000)
"There are groups, of no small influence, who are trying to talk us out of kneeling," wrote then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. "'It doesn't suit our culture', they say (which culture?) 'It's not right for a grown man to do this -- he should face God on his feet'."
Cardinal Ratzinger continued: "The kneeling of Christians is not a form of inculturation into existing customs. It is quite the opposite, an expression of Christian culture, which transforms the existing culture through a new and deeper knowledge and experience of God.
Kneeling does not come from any culture -- it comes from the Bible and its knowledge of God . . .
The Christian Liturgy is a cosmic Liturgy precisely because it bends the knee before the crucified and exalted Lord. Here is the center of authentic culture - the culture of truth. The humble gesture by which we fall at the feet of the Lord inserts us into the true path of life of the cosmos."
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