In my comment to an anonymous poster, I told him/her that I would get back to his/her question and put it in a post rather than in a comment. Anonymous poster asked the following question under this thread here. According to his/her comment, he/she asked (which is in red):
Yes, can you please clarify the following, with respect to the reception of communion in the communities.
When the Body of Christ enters your body, are you sitting or standing? Thanks
Also, what is the difference between a "saint", and a "holy saint"?
In the Neocatechumenal Way, the members receive the Body of Christ by hand standing up. After receiving the Body of Christ by hand standing up, we sit down still holding the Body of Christ. We do not consume the Body of Christ because the priest did not receive Holy Communion yet.
For those who do not believe what I just stated above or do not find my statement above credible, you are always welcome to go to the Eucharist of the Way this Saturday and see for yourself.
At any rate, we do not consume the Body of Christ immediately because the priest did not receive Holy Communion yet. Before consuming the Body of Christ, the priest proceeds to say "Behold the Body of Christ........" Then the members say, "Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof....." Then, we consume the Body of Christ together after the priest receives Holy Communion. And we consume the Body of Christ, sitting down.
If your next question is 'why we consume the Body of Christ sitting down, ' the answer is because we are told to do so by the Team Catechists. The members are obedient to the Team Catechists who is in communion with Kiko Arguello who is in communion with the Pope. According to the Team Catechists, these instructions came from Kiko who in turn received the same instructions from the Pope.
To answer your second question, the word "saint" refers to the members of the Church, and I will quote the Catechism of the Catholic Church to support what I just stated here:
CCC 823 "The Church.... is held, as a matter of faith, to be unfailingly holy. This is because Christ, the Son of God, who with the Father and the Spirit is hailed as 'alone holy,' loved the Church as his Bride, giving himself up for her so as to sanctify her; he joined her to himself as his body and endowed her with the gift of the Holy Spirit for the glory of God." The Church, then, is "the holy People of God," and her members are called "saints."
"Holy Saints", on the other hand, are those who are already in Heaven and canonized by the Catholic Church. They are the ones whom we would pray to for intercession such as St. Anthony, St. Paul, St. Theresa, etc. And again, I will refer to the Catechism of the Catholic Church to support what I said here:
CCC 828 By canonizing some of the faithful, i.e., by solemnly proclaiming that they practiced heroic virtue and lived in fidelity to God's grace, the Church recognizes the power of the Spirit of holiness within her and sustains the hope of believers by proposing the saints to them as models and intercessors.......
I hope that this answers your questions.
When did the Pope tell Kiko to consume the Body of Christ sitting down?
ReplyDeleteDear Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteIt was after the Pope celebrated the Way's Mass many years ago before 2007, The Pope never had a problem consuming the Body of Christ sitting down.
Dear Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteI accidentally deleted your comment, so I will post it here. You stated:
"If consuming the body of Christ sitting down is ok, why do your Statutes say: 'Regarding the distribution of Holy Communion under the two species, he neocatechumens receive it STANDING, remaining at their place,'?"
This is my answer:
The Statues said that we are to RECEIVE it standing. It did not say we are to CONSUME it standing. We are following the Statutes. As I said, we RECEIVE the Body of Christ by hand standing up, then we sit down and later CONSUME it sitting down.
Why should you receive standing then sit to consume? What is the benefit of this - what merit is there to give less honour to the Real Presence by sitting ? Why would the Statutes mention receiving, but not consuming, if in fact the Statutes were intended to resolve this matter that had been raised for many years prior (ie the way in which NCW members communicate the Blessed Sacrament)?
ReplyDeleteI think it is obvious that the Statutes were approved by the Vatican on the basis that they were understood in the way the Church has always spoken of "receiving" communion. I think that the wording of the Statutes in Article 13 clearly implies that the days of "consuming" sitting down were over. In fact you will recall the business with Cardinal Arinze? This matter of sitting was central to those discussions.
GIRM 161 clearly indicates that the Body of Christ should be consumed immediately after reception. The communities disobey this instruction. Moreover, when the GIRM refers, for example, to the priests "receiving" communion, it is clear that this also means the priest "consuming" the sacrament. IN a sense, the Church has always used the term "receive" to indicate that the sacrament is received into the communicants being. Before communion in the hand came about, this was not an issue. When the indult to "receive" communion in the hand was given, the historical context meant that this implied "consuming" immediately.
I think this is another example of how Kiko manipulates the instructions of the Church so the NCW can "get away with it" - like little children sometimes do - appealing to the literal instruction of the parents, rather than obeying the intent of the parent's instruction.
Dear Anonymous at 12:51,
ReplyDeleteAs I mentioned to you, the problem was never how we consumed the Body of Christ. The problem was how we received the Body of Christ. At first, we received the Body of Christ sitting down. This has been corrected. We now receive the Body of Christ standing up. According to the GIRM:
242. Once the prayer for Communion has been said, the principal celebrant genuflects and steps back a little. Then one after another the concelebrants come to the middle of the altar, genuflect, and reverently take the Body of Christ from the altar. Then holding it in their right hand, with the left hand placed underneath, they return to their places. However, the concelebrants may remain in their places and take the Body of Christ from the paten held for them by the principal celebrant or held by one or more of the concele-brants passing in front of them, or they may do so by handing the paten one to another, and so to the last of them.
243. Then the principal celebrant takes a host consecrated in the same Mass, holds it slightly raised above the paten or the chalice, and, facing the people, says the Ecce Agnus Dei (Behold the Lamb of God). With the concelebrants and the people he continues, saying the Domine, non sum dignus (Lord, I am not worthy).
244. Then the principal celebrant, facing the altar, says quietly, Corpus Christi custodiat me in vitam aeternam (May the Body of Christ keep me safe for eternal life), and reverently receives the Body of Christ. The concelebrants do likewise, giving themselves Communion. After them the Deacon receives the Body and Blood of the Lord from the principal celebrant.
http://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/the-mass/general-instruction-of-the-roman-missal/girm-chapter-4.cfm
As you can see from above, this is similar to how we do the Eucharist. The priest comes to us with the Body of Christ on the patent and gives it to us while we remain in our place. We do not consume the Body of Christ immediately just as these concelebrants do in the Concelebration Mass. They also wait until the main celebrant takes Holy Communion and together they consume the Body of Christ.
The GIRM lists THREE different forms of Mass. You are only familiar with one form and judge the Way using that one form of Mass that you know.
So, where in these paragraphs of the GIRM is there mention of sitting? Do the concelebrant (priests) sit while waiting for the distribution? Or do they stand? What was that about genuflection?
ReplyDeleteSo, once again, I'm left wondering - Why should you receive standing then sit to consume? What is the benefit of this - what merit is there to give less honour to the Real Presence by sitting ?
Dear Anonymous,
DeleteI already gave you the answer to that question. It is because the Team Catechist told us that they received those instructions from Kiko Arguello who in turn received it from the Pope. There were two Popes who celebrated the Mass in the Way - Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. And the only problem they had was how the members of the way received the Body of Christ sitting down.
While the priest continues to distribute the Body of Christ to others, others contemplate the Body of Christ, which they hold in their hand. We receive the Body of Christ standing because Christ is the Lord of Lords and King of Kings. Standing refers to respect. Consuming while sitting down symbolized the fact that the Eucharist was not only a sacrifice, but also a meal as St. Paul said in the Bible. This is the benefit of doing this. (See the weblink below on the Eucharist being a meal.)
http://www.catholic.org/clife/jesus/eucharist.php
In celebrating the Eucharist, the Early Christians sat down and ate together. Paintings of the first century found in catacombs showed the Early Christians seated around a table during the Eucharist. The earliest form of the Mass (which has changed over time) is found in the Holy Bible. However, there are certain parts in the Mass that cannot change because it came from God (for example, the words of our Lord spoken during the Passover meal.)
St. Paul gave these instructions to the Corinthians regarding the Eucharist:
1 Corithians 11:29-33 For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves.............So then, my brothers and sisters, when you gather to eat, you should all eat together.
During Apostolic times, the Early Church discerned seriously the Body of Christ and ate His body together. This is what we do. We contemplate the Body of Christ as we hold it in our hands and we consume His Body together after everyone has received His Body.
To those whom I did not publish their rude comments, here is my answer to you:
The Statutes says that we are to celebrate the Eucharist in small communities because the Pope recognized that we were imitating the Early Christians. Just as the Early Christians went through different stages from Pre-Catechumen to Catechumen, we also followed those similar stages. During the Early centuries, ALL Christians were considered concelebrants. It was not until the Middle Ages when the word "concelebrant" refers only to the bishops and priests. Reading Scripture, where the Apostle Paul tells the Church in Corinth to wait for each other and eat together during the Eucharist showed that the Apostles also believed that ALL Christians were concelebrants. I already pointed this out months ago.
Dear Diane,
DeleteRe your statements "During the early centuries, ALL Christians were considered concelebrants. It was not until the Middle Ages when the word "concelebrant" refers only to the bishops and priests. "
Reading Scripture and interpreting it to mean something that you want it to mean, does not make it valid.
Concelebrants were always priests who changed the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus.
Scripture does not say that all Christians were concelebrants. We as laypeople can NEVER and could NEVER change the bread and wine into the Body and Blood. One must be an ordained priest to be in the ministerial priesthood. Laypeople are the common priesthood. Your statement re eating together during the Eucharist "showed" that the Apostles believed that all Christians were "concelebrants" is not true. This is your interpretation which is not in line with Scripture, Holy Tradition or the Magisterium.
One of the mistakes that the NCW made was to say that a priest "needed" the laypeople to be able to say Mass; he could not say it by himself. This was WRONG - a priest can say the Mass by himself. This seems to be where the NCW get the idea that everyone was a concelebrant.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church #1120 says:
The ordained ministry or ministerial priesthood is at the service of the baptismal priesthood. The ordained priesthood guarantees that it really is Christ who acts in the sacraments through the Holy Spirit for the Church. The saving mission entrusted by the Father to his incarnate Son was committed to the apostles and through them to their successors; they receive the Spirit of Jesus to act in his name and in his person. The ordained minister is the sacramental bond that ties the liturgical action to what the apostles said and did and, through them, to the words and actions of Christ, the source and foundations of the sacraments."
Dear Anonymous at 3:53 p.m.,
DeleteIn Early Christianity, all Christians concelebrated. The word "concelebrate" had a different meaning in Early Christianity than it does today. By the Middle Ages, the word came to refer mainly to bishops and priests. I got this information from the Sunday's Visitors Catholic Encyclopedia.