Guest Post by David Martin
With the crisis of faith ever intensifying, it somehow has evaded the Catholic hierarchy that the crux of the problem has been our casual and disparaging regard for the Holy Eucharist, reflected most especially by today’s errant practice of receiving Communion in the hand.
This is a Protestant practice that was introduced in the late-sixties by renegade bishops to detract from Christ’s divinity and to foment a false empowerment among the laity.
However, the faithful are not empowered to touch the Body of Christ as if they were priests. And whereas this is allowed today as common law, no pope to date has formally approved Communion in the hand. Lay people simply are not consecrated to handle the Blessed Sacrament, so that should they do so, a sacrilege is committed.
This in turn brings on spiritual repercussions and draws the plague of the devil upon the church, so that what is nurtured is an adulterated mindset (evidenced by all the profanation and display of indecency in church), as well as heretical notions about the Sacrament and the Holy Sacrifice (i.e. the Eucharist is holy bread, the Mass is a meal, the Mass is a community gathering, etc.) If Catholics today no longer believe that the Eucharist is the Creator Himself in person, it is because of this diabolical practice that has cheapened their religion and nurtured this apostate mentality.
It was for reason that Pope Paul VI in his instruction Memoriale Domini (May 29, 1969), warned that Communion in the hand “carries certain dangers with it… the danger of a loss of reverence for the August Sacrament of the altar, of profanation, of adulterating the true doctrine."
The late Fr. John Hardon, speaking at the Call to Holiness Conference in Detroit, Michigan, on November 1, 1997, told his audience: “Behind Communion in the hand—I wish to repeat and make as plain as I can—is a weakening, a conscious, deliberate weakening of faith in the Real Presence…. Whatever you can do to stop Communion in the hand will be blessed by God.”
Communion in the hand indeed caters to human pride and warps our conception of Jesus Christ. It serves no other purpose than to nourish contempt for Christ in the Eucharist. It promotes personal uncleanness and fosters the general mentality of transgressing into forbidden realms (touching that which we ought not), which calls to mind the transgression of Eve when she rose up in her pride and partook of the forbidden fruit.
However, the author of both is the devil, who is given great strength to work among us in the Church through this practice. His objective is to destroy the monarchical concept of the Church where Christ is no longer seen as the King of kings in His palace. The ancient serpent seeks to cast mockery on Christ’s divinity where he is reduced to a mere man, “symbolized” by bread and wine, and Communion in the hand has been an effective tool in hand to advance this heresy.
Hence, Pope Paul in his 1969 pastoral letter reaffirmed the Church’s teaching on the reception of Communion, stating, “This method [on the tongue] must be retained.” This was in response to the Dutch bishops who were clamoring for Communion in the hand against his wishes and in defiance of the centuries-old prohibition against it.
The prohibitions against Communion in the hand go back to the early Church. Pope St. Sixtus I (115-125) issued the following decree: "It is prohibited for the faithful to even touch the sacred vessels, or receive in the hand.”
Communion in the hand has in fact received several ecclesiastical condemnations. The Council of Saragossa (380 AD) excommunicated anyone who dared continue receiving Communion in the hand. This was confirmed by the Synod of Toledo (589), known for its staunch defense of Christ’s divinity.
The Sixth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople (680-81) likewise forbade the faithful from taking the Host in their hand, even threatening transgressors with excommunication.
The Synod of Rouen (650) condemned Communion in the hand to halt widespread abuses that occurred through this practice, and as a safeguard against sacrilege. The Council decreed:
“Do not put the Eucharist in the hands of any layman or laywoman, but only in their mouths.”
The foregoing prohibitions have never been legally overturned. Communion in the hand is simply carried on today as “common law,” and has served no other purpose than to nurture contempt for Christ in the Eucharist. It is no wonder that St. Basil the Great regarded Communion in the hand as “a grave fault.” (Letter 93)
Communion in the hand indeed reflects a lamentable blindness of spirit in not acknowledging the physical and supernatural presence of the Son of God under the species of bread and wine. The light of holy dogma is urgently needed today to dispel this ignorance which is alienating the faithful from their Eucharistic King.
During the Consecration of Holy Mass, the Sacrifice of Christ is reenacted on the altar through the commemorative formula commanded by Christ to his Apostles—
This is My Body, This is My Blood—so that upon pronouncing these words during the elevation of the bread and chalice, the substance of bread and wine is changed into the very substance of Jesus Christ, whereby the substance of bread and wine ceases to exist. It is now the substance of Jesus Christ, only and entirely, without any other substance mingling with it.
The acknowledgment of this supernatural Mystery is the first and foremost requirement placed on us by the Church to receive Holy Communion, without which one may not receive. To this end, the Church has always taught that communicants not touch the Host, since it is the very substance of the Creator Himself which only the consecrated hands of a priest may touch.
Hence by allowing lay persons to handle the Host, it tends to erase this dogmatic fact from mind and suggests mightily that Holy Communion is just a formality, i.e. a holy meal, a community gathering, where people can come up in cafeteria fashion to have their “blessed bread.” Yea, it promotes all manner of disrespect, i.e. women coming up in promiscuous attire with holes in their jeans.
Gallop surveys indicate that a mere 30 percent of America’s Catholics believe in the True Presence. And whereas Pope Francis may see the tenacious adherence to dogma as “idolatry,” he needs to understand that his failure to teach dogma is causing his church to fall into the idolatry of human worship where the people at Mass turn to each other instead of to their God in the Eucharist. It’s now become a “peace be with you” church, instead of a place of adoration.
The faithful would do well to consider the conduct of Moses when he approached the burning bush in the mount. The Lord ordered him to put off his sandals because he was on holy ground. And "Moses hid his face: for he durst not look at God." (Exodus 3:6) And to think that this was only a manifestation of God's presence, not an actual physical presence.
With how much greater reverence must we approach the altar where the Creator Himself dwells day and night in full Body and Spirit? Shall we mock Him and do a little dance (guitar Mass), and then stick our dirty hands out and try to make the Lord of Hosts our pet wafer? God forbid!
Thanks to Communion in the hand, members of satanic cults are given easy access to enter the Church and take the Host, so that they bring it back to their covens where it is abused and brutalized in the ritualistic Black Mass to Satan. They defecate on the Host and crush it under their shoes as a mockery to the living God, and we do nothing to stop this? Among themselves satanists declare that Communion in the hand is the greatest thing that ever happened to them, and we assist them with our casual practice?
Mike Warnke, a former satanic high priest who converted to Christianity, warned the U.S. bishops that allowing Communion in the hand was a mistake, pointing out how this allows satanists easy access in procuring the host, which they desecrate in their satanic rituals.
This is confirmed by Fr. Andrew Trapp of South Carolina, who posted a web-story about a former satanist in his prayer group [Nicholas] who revealed to him how they steal consecrated Hosts from Catholic Churches for the purpose of desecrating them in the satanic Black Mass.
It was for reason that Benedict XVI attempted to reverse this practice during his pontificate.
Cardinal Llovera, the former Prefect for the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, stated in 2009, “It is the mission of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Sacraments to work to promote Pope Benedict’s emphasis on the traditional practices of liturgy, such as reception of Communion on the tongue while kneeling.”
The pope was clear that he did not want Catholics receiving Communion in the hand, nor did he want them standing to receive, for which reason the faithful at his Masses were required to kneel and receive on the tongue. Benedict’s objective was to foster renewed love for the Eucharist and to offset the various trends of our time (guitar liturgy, altar girls, lay ministers, Communion in the hand) that have worked together to destroy our regard for the Sacred Mysteries.
The centuries-old ordinance allowing only the consecrated hands of a priest to handle the Body of Christ rules out lay “Eucharistic Ministers” as well. The Council of Trent puts to shame today’s burlesque practice of allowing lay people to distribute Communion.
“To priests alone has been given power to consecrate and administer to the faithful, the Holy Eucharist.” (The Council of Trent)
Pope John Paul II, lenient as he was in enforcing the rule, made it clear that the Sacred Host is not something that lay persons can touch. “To touch the sacred species and to distribute them with their own hands is a privilege of the ordained.” (Dominicae Cenae, Feb. 1980)
This stems from the fact that lay people’s hands are not anointed to touch the Eucharist, unlike the hands of a priest. St. Thomas Aquinas beautifully articulates this point in his Summa Theologica.
“Because out of reverence towards this Sacrament, nothing touches it, but what is consecrated; hence the corporal and the chalice are consecrated, and likewise the priest’s hands, for touching this Sacrament.”
It suffices to say that Communion in the hand is illicit, despite the flippant approbation of today’s wayward bishops. Father John Hardon explains: “Communion in the hand began with the publication of the Dutch Catechism with nobody's permission except the bishops—in effect, in principle separated themselves from the Holy See. One country after another began then to ask for permission, which the Dutch bishops never asked for.” (Speaking at the Call to Holiness Conference, Nov. 1, 1997)
Communion in the hand, more specifically, is tied to the late Cardinal Suenens of Belgium, a known heretic and initiated Freemason (initiated 6-15-67, code-name “LESU”) who introduced this practice to the Dutch bishops in the mid-sixties. Suenens, who oversaw the implementation of the worldwide charismatic “renewal” in the Catholic Church and who advocated married priests, was all about defaming the Eucharist and the priesthood.
However, Communion in the hand goes back to the heretical Arians of the third century who introduced this practice as a means of expressing their belief that Christ was not divine. Unfortunately, it has served to express the same in our time and has been at the very heart of the present heresy and desecration that is rampant throughout the universal Church. If we have “abuse” problems today, it is because we're abusing the sacrament—it’s backfiring on us!
Hence Pope Benedict did his part to try to purge the Church of this abuse, seeing how it has contributed mightily to the loss of the awareness of the supernatural presence of Christ in his tabernacle. We might say that a form of Eucharistic atheism has set in. Poor liturgical discipline has given way to apostasy, so the remedy is to return to our knees and receive the Eucharist on the tongue. Without this basic humility before the Eucharist, our efforts at restoring the Church are vain.
Those who approach the Eucharist in a casual, nonchalant manner would do well to consider this warning from St. Paul in Holy Scripture:
“Whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the Body and of the Blood of the Lord... For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the Body of the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 11:27, 28)
Comment by A Catholic Life - For more information, please see my prior post entitled
Mission: Restore Eucharistic Reverence
