Jimmy Akin is skeptical…

Last updated on: December 31, 2014 at 1:29 pm by Mark Shea

Jimmy Akin is skeptical… 2014-12-31T13:29:36-07:00 Mark Shea

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…that Michael Voris is right about kneeling for communion. Here is what the bishops of the United States, who are, you know, the people God entrusts with legislating such matters, say:

The Priest then takes the paten or ciborium and approaches the communicants, who usually come up in procession.

It is not permitted for the faithful to take the consecrated Bread or the sacred chalice by themselves and, still less, to hand them on from one to another among themselves. The norm established for the Dioceses of the United States of America is that Holy Communion is to be received standing, unless an individual member of the faithful wishes to receive Communion while kneeling (Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Instruction Redemptionis Sacramentum, 25 March 2004, no. 91).

When receiving Holy Communion, the communicant bows his or her head before the Sacrament as a gesture of reverence and receives the Body of the Lord from the minister. The consecrated host may be received either on the tongue or in the hand, at the discretion of each communicant. When Holy Communion is received under both kinds, the sign of reverence is also made before receiving the Precious Blood.

Bottom line: do as you please, standing or kneeling, receiving in the hand or on the tongue, and have proper reverence. Internet popinjays with a web cam are not the Boss of you.

Nick Thomm summarizes my own view about matters like kneeling for communion.

A very wise man, Archbishop Robert Carlson, always said we should be “as generous as the Church is, not more, not less.” if the Church allows something to be done, even as an exception from the norm, then it is legit and we shouldn’t mock those who do what the Church allows. Personally I would like to see the Cardinal’s desires be implemented for the sake of making an outward sign of the sacred. But Benedict is the only Pope and until he removes the exception from the norm, one should not deride, mock and attribute the worst possible motives to the Church Militant, priests, or bishops for allowing what the Church allows.

Voris’ approach essentially constitutes a temptation and a suggestion that our task, at Mass, is not to be about the business of worshipping God, but to play pharisaic liturgical cop and sit in contemptuous judgment of fellow Catholics about matters which the Church herself says are matters of liberty. You can see the poison at work in comments like this (from FB):

For someone who was a largely nominal Catholic a couple of years back, receiving communion kneeling has done wonders for my faith particularly in transubstantiation.

It really irks me when I see people straddling up the aisle to pop the body of Christ in their mouth like it were a mere mint pastel.

Quite simply, a Catholic engaged in real Eucharistic devotion should not be making it any of his damn business to sit in judgment of his fellow parishioners for doing what Holy Church says it is perfectly legitimate to do. Egging parishioners on to do just that–and to sit in judgment of the bishops who legislate such matters with complete lawfulness–is not building up the body of Christ but tearing it down.

Abp Chaput nails this subtle poison well:

“The Church belongs to Jesus Christ, and the different roles within the Christian community – clergy, laity and religious life – have equal dignity but different purposes.”

In particular, the clergy’s leadership in the Church should always be marked with humility and service “and never by a sense of entitlement,” he said. “Bishops, priests and deacons are too often weak and sinful. They need to be held to high standards. Some deserve to be chastised.”
“But men and women didn’t found the Church, they don’t own her, and they have no license to reinvent her.”

Although sin and failure “need to be named,” he said, “when people deride their bishops and priests out of pride and resentment or some perverse desire for what they perceive as ‘power,’ they undermine the Church herself, and they set themselves against the God whose vessel she is.”

So feel free to kneel if you like. Feel free to wish it were the norm if you like. But don’t congratulate yourself on your superior holiness or look down on your neighbor (about whom you do not know one damn thing about their interior disposition or reverence) if he or she opts to obey the Church by bowing rather than kneeling. Nobody died and made you bishop.

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