Kneeling Catholic has a good article on Communion in the hand/tongue, which he has found on the web by one Fr Frederick Heuser, on the excellently entitled Catholic Tradition website, 'Modern Church - Open Your Heart to God'!
'Imagine', Father Heuser writes, 'a bishop handing a container of Holy Chrism to a confirmation candidate so that he can anoint himself? Or someone baptising themselves? That is what is happening when people take Communion in the hand. They are not allowing the minister to administer.
They are self-administering. This refusal to allow oneself to receive a Sacrament communicated from another human minister attacks a fundamental truth of Catholicism, i.e. salvation comes to us through the ministry of a flesh-and-blood, identifiable, human organization known as the Church.'
A fellow Catholic and I laughed out loud, in the Presbytery after TLM, last night when we read an advert in The Tablet, who often have some rather 'new age' adverts in what is meant to be a Catholic magazine. One was offering a retreat in which the retreatant was promised time to 'relax with God' and the opportunity to 'minister to yourself'. 'Ministering to yourself', we decided, sounded like something one might like to bring the Confessional. 'Bless me Father, for I have sinned. I have ministered to myself twice this week.'
The picture above, by the way, looks like St Pio receiving the Eucharist. Is it?
1 comment:
Even St. Pio, whose hands were consecrated and born the stigmata, did not deem himself worthy to touch the Eucharist when receiving it.
Compare this to the practice, in some quarters of the church (especially a certain new movement), where taking the consecrated species is interpreted as a symbol of being "redeemed" and "renewed"!
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