Sometime ago mention was made in this column of the second Confiteor recited by the altar boy just before the communicants approached the altar to receive the Body of Christ.
A number of clergymen claimed no recollection of this rubric which was suppressed in the 1960s. Since my memory of profoundly bending over the marble altar steps at St. Charles in Woonsocket is quite vivid, I reviewed my 1953 copy of “How To Serve,” by Dom Matthew, OSB, given to me by my ninth grade teacher, Mercy Sister Mary Lucy Carr, when I entered the seminary in 1958. The text reads: “If Communion is distributed, the server, instead of going to the credence table for the cruets, kneels on the lowest step at the Epistle side, facing the Gospel side. When the priest has consumed the Precious Blood, the server bows and says the Confiteor.”
This now curious practice might serve to recall that until the lifetime of most readers of the “Quiet Corner,” the reception of holy Communion was not as frequent as it is today. Perhaps because of the midnight fast, people rarely went to Communion at later Masses or at funerals or weddings in the “old days.” Many excellent Catholics were content only with their annual Easter duty. At one point in church history merely gazing upon the consecrated host was considered an honor. Shocking as it may seem, the Communion of the laity was considered an addition to the Mass more than an integral part, hence the extra Confiteor ordinarily employed when a priest administered Communion outside of Mass.
Eucharistic curiosities are not limited to the past. In 1975 American dioceses were given an indult by Rome to distribute holy Communion under both species, that is, the Sacred Body along with the Precious Blood. This indult was observed largely at the discretion of the local bishop. Few parishes in Rhode Island seem to have taken advantage of this laudable option, and when offered, the Precious Blood is accepted by a minimal number of area communicants. Both species has not been a major liturgical priority locally. Some pastors have no doubt hoped that succeeding generations would, given time, take advantage of this fuller expression of the meal aspect of the holy sacrifice of the Mass. Surely Jesus was just as serious when he said “Take and drink. …” as he was when he said, “Take and eat. …” Yet many pastors and many parishioners have been content with half a loaf, as it were.
In an embarrassing excess of conservative zeal, two American dioceses mistook the indult for the extension of holy Communion under both species, granted to the church in America, for the indult for allowing lay people to cleanse sacred vessels after Mass. This latter indult expired in 2005. The dioceses of Phoenix, Arizona and Madison, Wisconsin, eagerly curtailed the eucharistic opportunity to receive under both species. The cup would no longer have been extended to the laity in sunny Phoenix or in blustery Madison. Now, to much piscopal chagrin, these confused local decrees have to be revisited.
Reactionary as I can be in certain matters, I cannot grasp at all this pastoral and even hierarchical prejudice against the reception of the Precious Blood by the worshipping community. It is true that extending the cup to the laity was a practice for which the early Protestant reformers fought hard. Perhaps in the mind of some there is a residual bit of Protestantism about the cup. But communal hymn singing at Mass has much deeper roots in Protestantism than in Catholicism, yet no one is banning missalettes. Some argue that offering the cup has diminished respect at Communion time. Please. Let’s not blame the Precious Blood for society’s loss of manners, decorum and etiquette. People will still approach the altar in flip-flops and tank-tops regardless. Others maintain that the number of extra-ordinary ministers required for dual species lessens the reverence of the assembly for the personnel in the sanctuary. Too many lay people! Well then, ordain more deacons – or better yet, more priests! The old axiom, “Abuse should not limit use,” applies here.
Americans gather this week around their dining room tables to celebrate their many national blessings with food and drink – a laudable and instinctively human enterprise. American Catholics should not be denied the same fully human experience as they gather weekly to celebrate their many supernatural blessings around the table of the Lord.
