Categoria: Communio in lingua genuflexis

Pope Emeritus Benedict breaks silence on abuse crisis: full text

Our handling of the Eucharist can only arouse concern. The Second Vatican Council was rightly focused on returning this sacrament of the Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ, of the Presence of His Person, of His Passion, Death and Resurrection, to the center of Christian life and the very existence of the Church. In part, this really has come about, and we should be most grateful to the Lord for it.

And yet a rather different attitude is prevalent. What predominates is not a new reverence for the presence of Christ’s death and resurrection, but a way of dealing with Him that destroys the greatness of the Mystery. The declining participation in the Sunday Eucharistic celebration shows how little we Christians of today still know about appreciating the greatness of the gift that consists in His Real Presence. The Eucharist is devalued into a mere ceremonial gesture when it is taken for granted that courtesy requires Him to be offered at family celebrations or on occasions such as weddings and funerals to all those invited for family reasons.

The way people often simply receive the Holy Sacrament in communion as a matter of course shows that many see communion as a purely ceremonial gesture. Therefore, when thinking about what action is required first and foremost, it is rather obvious that we do not need another Church of our own design. Rather, what is required first and foremost is the renewal of the Faith in the Reality of Jesus Christ given to us in the Blessed Sacrament.

Read Benedict XVI’s full essay here.

La Chiesa e lo scandalo degli abusi sessuali

Il nostro rapporto con l’Eucaristia non può che destare preoccupazione. A ragione il Vaticano II intese mettere di nuovo al centro della vita cristiana e dell’esistenza della Chiesa questo sacramento della presenza del corpo e del sangue di Cristo, della presenza della sua persona, della sua passione, morte e risurrezione. In parte questa cosa è realmente avvenuta e per questo vogliamo di cuore ringraziare il Signore.

Ma largamente dominante è un altro atteggiamento: non domina un nuovo profondo rispetto di fronte alla presenza della morte e risurrezione di Cristo, ma un modo di trattare con lui che distrugge la grandezza del mistero. La calante partecipazione alla celebrazione domenicale dell’Eucaristia mostra quanto poco noi cristiani di oggi siamo in grado di valutare la grandezza del dono che consiste nella Sua presenza reale. L’Eucaristia è declassata a gesto cerimoniale quando si considera ovvio che le buone maniere esigano che sia distribuita a tutti gli invitati a ragione della loro appartenenza al parentado, in occasione di feste familiari o eventi come matrimoni e funerali. L’ovvietà con la quale in alcuni luoghi i presenti, semplicemente perché tali, ricevono il Santissimo Sacramento mostra come nella Comunione si veda ormai solo un gesto cerimoniale. Se riflettiamo sul da farsi, è chiaro che non abbiamo bisogno di un’altra Chiesa inventata da noi. Quel che è necessario è invece il rinnovamento della fede nella realtà di Gesù Cristo donata a noi nel Sacramento.

Leggi il saggio completo di Benedetto XVI qui. (fonte: ACI Stampa)

Why receiving the Eucharist kneeling is always permissible

In the 2003 edition of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal (the governing document for how to celebrate the so-called “Ordinary Form” of the Roman Rite), there was a grudging admission that the faithful could receive kneeling:

The norm for reception of Holy Communion in the dioceses of the United States is standing. Communicants should not be denied Holy Communion because they kneel. Rather, such instances should be addressed pastorally, by providing the faithful with proper catechesis on the reasons for this norm.  (GIRM [2003], n. 160)

Due to a deluge of complaints that had reached the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments from U.S. Catholics, the USCCB was required to change this paragraph in the 2011 edition, where it now reads:

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. (GIRM [2011], n. 160)

That’s it – nothing else! So the idea that Catholics should be “catechized” about the norm of standing in order to make them conform to it has been dropped altogether. It is now simply left up to the individual Catholic whether he wishes to stand or kneel. (The same is true of whether to receive in the hand or on the tongue, about which there has never been the same level of controversy.)

Read the complete article by Peter Kwasniewski here.

The Basilica of Ss Peter and Paul in Chattanooga, Tennessee (diocese of Knoxville)

From New Liturgical Movement site:

We recently reported on a very nice restoration project at the Basilica of Ss Peter and Paul in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in the diocese of Knoxville, in which three new altars were installed, along with a new reredos for the main sanctuary, and a good deal of carpeting removed from the church’s original hard pine flooring. A final stage of the project has now been completed, with installation of a new tabernacle in the main sanctuary, and the return of the altar rail around it. Fr J. David Carter, the pastor and rector of the basilica, wrote to his parishioners that the altar rail is being used as a way of encouraging people to kneel for the reception of Holy Communion, in the hopes that it will serve to foster belief in and greater reverence for the True Presence of Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament – feliciter!

Latin Novus Ordo Masses:

11:30 am Sun. – Sung Novus Ordo Mass in English & Latin with schola, incense, ad orientem
1:30 pm Sun. – Sung Novus Ordo Misa en Español & Latín with choir, incense, ad orientem seasonally

The Basilica of Sts. Peter & Paul
214 E. 8th Street, Chattanooga Tennessee
423 266 1618
Website

Il card. Hume sulla Comunione nella mano

Avrei voluto dividere con altri un’inquietudine concernente la fede del nostro popolo nella Presenza reale del Cristo nell’Eucaristia. La Comunione nella mano, lo spostamento del Santissimo Sacramento dall’altar maggiore, l’assenza di genuflessione hanno, secondo la mia esperienza, indebolito il rispetto e la devozione dovuta a un così grande sacramento. I gesti esterni esprimono una disposizione interiore e, allo stesso tempo, contribuiscono a favorire l’atteggiamento adeguato.

Card. Basil Hume, in La Documentation Catholique n. 2211 del 3/10/1999.

Communion in the hand, moving the Blessed Sacrament from the high altar, failure to genuflect, have in my experience weakened the respect and devotion due to so great a sacrament.

(Catholic Herald 3rd September 1999)

Non è pane, è Gesù. Il corretto modo di fare la comunione

di Padre Paul Cocard

Prefazione di mons. Athanasius Schneider

Ed. Fede & Cultura

La Comunione sulla lingua aiuta a mantenere la distinzione, ereditata dalla Parola di Dio e dalla Chiesa primitiva, tra il sacerdozio comune dei fedeli e il sacerdozio ministeriale. Quest’ultimo deputa il prete al compito dell’Eucaristia che ne ha dunque la custodia e la responsabilità. Durante la Messa, l’Eucaristia, la sua celebrazione e la sua distribuzione gli sono affidate. San Giovanni Paolo II aveva sottolineato che il prete ha le mani consacrate per toccare l’Eucaristia.

In questo campo, la Comunione nella mano traduce di fatto una diminuzione e anche un certo rigetto della Fede cattolica nella Presenza reale. È lontano dall’essere neutro: permette al laico di mettersi allo stesso posto del prete nel suo rapporto all’Eucaristia e di smarcarsi da un forte attestato di Fede nella presenza di Cristo sotto le apparenze del pane e del vino consacrato per non riconoscervi che un segno di comunione tra tutti i membri dell’assemblea o, per lo più, un segno di una presenza puramente spirituale del Cristo.

Twelve Things I Like About the Novus Ordo Mass

Fr. Dwight Longenecker

Like many, I’m critical of the abuses of the new Mass–the dreadful architecture, banal art, saccharine and heterodox music, poor preaching etc etc that too often has gone along with the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, but my point has always been that these are abuses and when you take the Ordinary Form of the Mass–simply what’s in the book–just the words and rubrics–there’s not much wrong with it. Can there be some improvements? Sure, but I’ve asked traditionalists if they can tell me what is so terribly wrong with it–just the words in the book–not all the other abuses and things they don’t like that are associated with Vatican II.

Nobody’s given me a good answer yet.

In keeping with my own view that one should always give the benefit of the doubt and try to find what’s right rather than always find what’s wrong I thought I’d put together this list of what’s GOOD about the Novus Ordo Mass.

(…)

It’s flexible. We’re supposed to honor Latin as the language of our church and it is easy enough to integrate a little or a lot of Latin into the Novus Ordo Mass. It is also flexible musically. You don’t have to use Haagan Daz, hootenany and soft rock music. Learn Gregorian chant and polyphony. It fits.

(…)

It can be celebrated ad orientem, with altar rails, communion administered to the faithful kneeling and on the tongue, well-trained altar servers, good music, vestments, architecture and art. Yes, bland and banal is possible, but so is grand and glorious.

(…)

It’s simple. The plain words and actions of the Novus Ordo provide for a celebration with noble simplicity. Just saying the black and doing the red has a down to earth dignity–not overly ornate and fancy nor banal and vulgar.
Does this mean I am against traditionalists and disapprove of the Extraordinary Form of the Mass? No. It’s good to have both and each should inform the other. A person is most often right in what he affirms and wrong in what he denies. It is possible therefore to be critical of a thing without rejecting it entirely just as it is possible to see the good in a thing without endorsing it 100%.

Read full article here.

Chi impara a credere impara a inginocchiarsi

Chi impara a credere impara a inginocchiarsi, una fede o una liturgia che non conoscano più l’atto di inginocchiarsi, sono ammalate in un punto centrale. Per questo il divieto di inginocchiarsi appare come l’essenza stessa del diabolico. O Gesù, come non inginocchiarsi davanti alla tua umiltà, giunta fino alla morte di croce? E pensare che nella liturgia celeste descritta dall’Apocalisse, l’inginocchiarsi – proskynein – ricorre 24 volte. Per questo il piegare le ginocchia alla tua presenza, di te Dio vivente, è irrinunciabile.

Leggi la lettera completa di Mons. Nicola Bux sul sito di Aldo Maria Valli.

Dom Hugh Somerville Knapman OSB on the new Mass


Mass as envisaged by the new Missal

As argued in an earlier post, some of the changes introduced in practice are not even required by the modern Missal, such as facing the people during the Eucharistic Prayer. Nor is Communion in the Hand. The modern Missal assumes that the priest is facing East, and that Communion is on the tongue. There was of course permission given for the option to face the people, and a limited indult for Communion in the hand. Both have had dire consequences for the worthy celebration of the modern liturgy, and are foreign even to the new Mass. The failure here is in the pastors not in the Church herself.


This is not actually mandated by the new Mass

Some have a clear idea of the remedy for liturgical abuse and poor attendance at Mass. (…) The first step surely is to celebrate the liturgy according to the rubrics laid down by the Church, to do in fact as the Church intends to do.

Read the full post by Dom Hugh Somerville Knapman OSB here.