Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: mls@sfsup.att.com (Mike Siemon) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Receiving the host Message-ID: Date: 26 Jul 90 05:49:38 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 49 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article , hwt@.bnr.ca (Henry Troup) writes: > I'm slightly confused - are you saying that American Episcopal practice is > to place the bread in people's mouths? This is rather unlike the Episcopal > Church in Scotland, and the Anglican Church of Canada. Do you also receive > in both kinds? I would guess that majority practice is to receive the host or bread in one's hands (and fairly common practice to help the chalice bearer guide the cup :-)) But there are certainly high AngloCatholic types who *will* take host and wine only "without help of human hands." Certainly, if one is ill and wishes to take the wine by "intinction" (i.e., dipping the host into the wine, fairly common), one had better be prepared to grip the host firmly! Priests here have to be fairly alert, because they tend to be faced by quite determined practitioners of various forms. It can be, I am told, quite nervous-making, especially for the newly ordained. General Seminary runs a "Mass Class" taught by Father J. Robert Wright. Much of this is simple and direct instruction in the rite. but there is one wonderful segment of the class in which the students have to run a "practice mass" in which members of the community have been planted as ringers -- with secret instructions by J.Bob to do things like: - grab the chalice and (try to) drain it - go into fits at (?)appropriate places in the service - clutch at the priests robes and cry out "Help me, I have sinned!" at the aesthetically least opportune moment ... You get the idea. These things merely exaggerate on actual things that have happened to all too many priests in "normal" circumstances. One complicating factor is that "generic" policy is to admit any baptized Christian to communion who desires to take it. This can very often lead to novice communicants who simply have *no* idea what to do. They will usually be able to imitate those around them, and the priest can give a few good "cues" -- but chances for remarkable comedies always abound. Unless you have lived around a community of priests, you have *no idea* how many mind-boggling things can go wrong in a service! But openness to this is part, I think, of a proper humility and vulnerability before God. -- Michael L. Siemon We must know the truth, and we must m.siemon@ATT.COM love the truth we know, and we must ...!att!sfsup!mls act according to the measure of our love. standard disclaimer -- Thomas Merton [Have I told you about the incident in which an Episcopal priest managed to consecrate and serve shampoo? --clh]