COVID Changed Communion Should the Precious Blood Return (Ken & Fr Cristino)

COVID-19 drastically changed how we receive Communion, especially the practice of offering the Precious Blood. With restrictions lifted, many dioceses are taking different approaches—some reintroducing the chalice, while others are not. Should the cup return? Join Fr Cristino and I for this candid discussion surrounding Communion under both species.

Transcript

if Jesus said to eat and drink how come we're only eating and not drinking the sign of the Eucharist is more complete that is not the right way to say that the sign of the Eucharist is the Eucharist watch we be receiving communion under both species so how did we get to that point cuz that was who knows that is the question of the last 60 years

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father Christina welcome back thank you Ken appreciate your time um talking about the Eucharist today receiving the Eucharist under both species so during covid many places probably almost everywhere at least in Canada in United States stopped offering the Holy Eucharist under the species in in the with the precious blood with the precious blood um now that Co restrictions have come and gone dases are now approaching this a little bit differently in different places some are certain to re introduce the cup others are not and it's I feel like there's some confusion with with people of like uh well ought we be receiving communion under both species or should we not what was the church's intention and I got a specific question and I'll I'll just read part of it to you but the person said the sign of communion is more complete when both the body and blood of Christ are present as it more clearly expresses the Eucharistic meal while communion can be received under one species the practice of sharing both species enriches the understanding and experience of this Sacrament did not Jesus invite us to eat his body and drink his blood not eat but only drink in certain situations so your response to that if Jesus said to eat and drink how come we're only eating and not drinking right well first of all at the Last Supper Jesus was speaking to specific individuals who were seated at a table with him so there's a context there that does not change what we teach and believe about the Eucharist but what he said to them in that historical moment meant something different they were participating in a Passover meal where you drink from a chalice or from from a common cup so there was an action that was taking place there that does not necessarily just because it was said in the gospel at that time to those people now mean the exact literal same thing all the way down through the rest of time case in point the introduction of the common chalice to the faithful uh really was something only introduced after the second Vatican Council surely there was a period of time in the early stages of the life of the church where eating and drinking was happening at the Eucharist because the Eucharist was still happening in the context of a common meal we can't conceive of that but in the first two centuries of the church the Liturgy being broken out of breaking bread together on Sunday afternoon with your community which actually meant having a meal together in the middle of which you performed this ritual of communion through the consecration of and consumption of bread and wine that took time to develop and break itself out from being a ritual lurgical action uh and as that began to happen uh it became increasingly common until it was the standard and Norm that communion was received only by consuming the Eucharistic bread and that endured for many many centuries so to suppose that by not having resumed drinking from The Chalice after covid we are now not participating in the Eucharist as fully as we can be as a misunderstanding when this quote that you gave or the the the question that you asked if I if I heard it correctly I think I take issue with with something that was implied which is that the sign of the Eucharist is more complete and enriched that is not the right way to say that because the sign of the Eucharist is the Eucharist if you mean the symbolism of the meal is more enriched or is more complete when you have both consecrated Bread and Wine to consume yes of course I can admit that it's not normal to eat a meal where you don't have anything to drink at all so if that's what we're talking about the imagery and symbolism of the Eucharist as a banquet is more complete or enriched when both are done I would grant that but the sign of the Eucharist is not more complete the the Eucharist is the total giving of Christ sacrifice on the cross to the father you you you can't enrich that you can't add to that the Eucharist is in itself full and complete the imagery which surrounds the Eucharist that helps us better understand what it is meant to convey yes of course it can always be done uh in a in a more highly exalted way but nothing is added to the Eucharist itself or to my participation in the grace that is meant to be communicated To Us by our personal reception of Holy Communion ion by additionally receiving the precious blood uh to just only receiving the the Eucharistic host so you have to be careful about how you describe what you're calling enriched or more complete it's not the Eucharist that is more enriched by being offered under both species it's the symbol of the banquet that is more enriched if both were offered what if they meant uh their experience personal experience is more enriched by receiving under both speci that may well be the case but your personal experience is not what the Liturgy is about I I feel like I'm hijacking your channel and talking about this over and over again because I don't know how many times I've I've made reference to this what we do at the Liturgy is not about us it is about God we are there to worship Him and we worship him in the manner in which he has asked to be worshiped which is communicated To Us by the church so we do not impose our preferences on the Liturgy and we don't go there looking to get something from it that makes me feel different or better we go there only looking to give and what we give is our worship and how we have been asked to worship is to return to the Father the sacrifice of his son made present to us through the Eucharistic sacrifice of the bread and the wine consecrated into the body and blood of Christ okay Circle back uh so a person may have a preference to receive under both species your point is your preference is irrelevant when it comes to worshiping God because we worship God in the manner of which he is uh led us to worship him yes and he's he's given us the Eucharist to give back to him it's not up to us to determine

personally ways or impose our preferences upon that that expression exactly yeah and and part of the problem if if we do that is we quickly forget why we're there uh and then if you're in a context where you are enjoying and seem to be getting something from out of it people experience this in parishes all the time when the priest changes under this priest maybe you liked AB c and d uh then the priest changes and he doesn't do ABC or D oh well uh we're going someplace else now and when you live in a big city and you've got lots of options well then that's fine good for you you can drive around until you find the parish and the priest that you like and however long that lasts and then you'll move on to the next one uh we have to exercise caution around practicing our faith in that way it's one thing if we are trying to avoid seeing or subjecting our children to things that are being done wrong and I and I fully acknowledge that that happens and when that happens parents are left with a difficult choice that they need to make uh because there's no excuse for things being done wrong the book can't be misinterpreted it's very clear what is to be happening in the celebration of the Holy Mass where Innovations are inserted or Liberties are taken that is inexcusable and unacceptable but we can't allow ourselves to Foster an attitude of I like this and I don't like that if that's what's driving our decision to shop around for finding a place to go to mass that we prefer we are we are really missing the point of our worship okay but regarding reception of the Eucharist under both species what ought to be done you said I haven't read the book priest reads the book you're referring to at master um I forget the official name of the book the Roman missile it's it's not even indicated in the Roman missile it's this was first communicated in the commentaries following the publication of a document from the second Vatican Council called Sacro consilium uh and there is another document that was published a few years afterwards called inter aumen in which it goes through a lot of the Practical applications of the general lurgical Norms that were implemented by that Apostolic Constitution from Vatican 2 sacrosanctum consilium which has as its most common catchphrase that people know uh the full conscious and active participation of the Ley in the celebration ation of the Holy Mass and of course that's a good and important thing what does that mean and so then these subsequent documents that came from the congregation for divine worship were trying to outline specific ways in which that could be realized one of them was with Vatican approval the possibility of restoring the reception of the Eucharist under the species of the precious blood to the faithful because it would have happened at some point in the very ancient church and so I emphasized earlier why that was happening because the Eucharist was being celebrated at Sunday dinner I know it's hard to to wrap our minds around but that's what was going on in the early church talk about very early first century okay so this is not a practice that's been happening for a thousand years within the church this is something that happened after the second Vatican Council and then further Direction came and and I think the the further direction is what was lacking and so then we began to see this phenomenon of the multiplication of all of these vessels where now you have eight chales on an altar all filled with wine and they all get consecrated and now you've got umine extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion lined up across the front of the sanctuary and people going up in a in a second line after receiving the consecrated host to now go and drink from this chalice it I think it really turned into something that it was not originally envisioned to be the Eastern churches have preserved uh the practice of Distributing under both species in a common manner but that involves having the host submerged in the consecrated wine and being taken by a spoon and put on directly into the mouth of each communicant that's how uh the Eucharist under both speci traditionally when still distributed in that manner was done we have a practice that is has has been allowed since the restoration of the possibility of Distributing Precious Blood to the faithful which is called intinction where you take the consecrated host and by uh I hate to sound irreverent but dipping the body of Christ into the blood of Christ then you directly place the host on the tongue of the communicant cannot be put into someone's hand and you are not allowed to be the person to take the host and dip it yourself and put it in your mouth so a person shouldn't be doing that it's forbidden it's forbidden that is forbidden the practice of intinction is reserved only to the priest and the communicant must receive it on the tongue and so no one can dip their own and put it in their mouth except a priest uh and when you have a con celebrated Mass where you have many priests around an altar where the celebrant has been one and typically it happens to be at a mass in our Cathedral with our bishop and he's the celebrant of the mass the mass that I offer at that occasion I am offering the sacrifice of the mass myself but then that means that in order for the sacrifice to be complete I must also consume the precious blood and it has been not at least in our dicese we have retained the practice that we had while still exercising caution during the pandemic of not all drinking out of the same chalice but by incing the host into the precious blood and consuming the precious blood that way you're speaking as a priest you would do that as a priest we would do that if the faithful want to receive the precious blood then I would suggest that that is the really the only manner in which it should actually be being done having a bunch of chales which should be properly consecrated and therefore need to be handled with care and due respect and reverence not subjecting the precious blood to the possibility of being spilled and I regret to say that I have never served in a parish where we distributed the precious blood that I did not personally witness the precious blood be spilled to the floor because of someone certainly accidentally but nevertheless mishandling the cup and it dropping and the what is meant to be done you're supposed to cut out the portion of of the carpet and burn it if the precious blood has hap has happened to fall to the ground why are we subjecting the Eucharist to such possibilities I I think I understand from the perspective of the more enriched symbol of the meal that on some occasions which is what the second Vatican Council called for some occasions it did not suggest that every Sunday eight extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion would be standing there with 150 Mill liters of precious blood for everybody to come and drink from until all the cups had run out so how did we get to that point because that was at least in can this is this is our experience in Canada yes who knows that is that is the question of the last 60 years how did what we are doing now happen and just you could ask that about more things than I think you could appreciate them that question because that's how the mass has been celebrated in almost every Parish across Canada for two generations and so that's all you've known and I can fully appreciate that during covid people understood why it wasn't happening and now most dioceses including my own has said you may restore doing it and quite frankly I haven't heard about almost anywhere that's asking to have it back I asked a lot of my brother priests at the time that we were allowed to restore it to I didn't want to be the only guy who wasn't doing something in the dicese so I asked a lot and I didn't speak to one priest who said that they were restoring it and numerous of them asked who would be comfortable doing this again and quite frankly following the trauma that everyone was subjected to during covid I think no one felt that comfortable about all marching up in a line and drinking out of the same cup as the person ahead of you uh and so I don't see it being reinstituted on a WID spread basis across Canada or across any particular dases but I would suggest that for those who thought it ought to be I would ask them to consider if they would still feel the same if they were not grabbing a cup and drinking from it rather than having the Precious Blood on the host that gets placed in their mouth so the priest would have to do that for that person that's right well that would realistically that's not going to happen in parishes no and I I maintain that that is the real only proper way that it should be being done but obviously permission is granted how in the world you do that you got a you're holding a host in one hand you have someone else holding the Chalice for you adter boy that's what deacons in some of the Eastern churches do actually is they're holding a they're holding a cup or it's all already immersed in there but then it works for them who use leavened bread because they stay in they look like croutons so could an alter boy do that well then you have an alter boy handling the Eucharist or an alter girl or an alter girl whoever a lay extr minister fly communion you could have you could have that because we have auxiliary ministers who are appointed and commissioned to do that but I I don't I've gotten pretty good at uh at weddings I always offer because a weddings are an example of an occasion where it was said that perhaps the precious blood could be offered to the bride and groom and so when I celebrate a wedding Mass I always offer now after the uh restrictions were lifted if the bride and Grom would like to receive and often they say they would and then I tell them if you would like to this is how I will do it I hold the Chalice with the patn in between my fingers while holding the cup with uh the the precious blood in it and then I take the host off of the plate dip it and then put it on their tongue okay and if they feel that they have now participated in a a more enriched experience of the Eucharist as a banquet which it is meant to convey that meaning because that's what we say the the wedding supper of the Lamb that's what we say the mass is so I'm not trying to diminish the the imagery of the banquet I acknowledge that that is part of our Theology and our tradition and it's the way we describe what heaven will be is going to this eternal banquet but the Eucharist cannot be enriched by virtue of receiving under both species versus only the one species just in case the point hasn't already been made the full sacramental graces are present just by receiving the Eucharist under one species such as the host that is the teaching of St Thomas aquinus under what he refers to as the principle of concomitance he he's saying that because Jesus is raised from the dead in his glorified body it is his glorified body that we receive in the Eucharist and that's why we refer to the Eucharist as the body and blood soul and Divinity of Jesus Jesus's body and blood are not separated in heaven his body and blood and his glorified body are one because he is raised from the dead so pretty important point I wanted to make sure we covered there the other one was going back to the initial question did not Jesus say we should both drink and eat uh you did respond but I would point out that we yes we still do eat and drink and the priest does and that's that's what is a very important thing to remember about the Holy Mass is that the sacrifice of the mass is complete when the priest consumes both species that's why the mass must have bread and wine consecrated and the priest must consume under both species irrelevant of what the lay people do precisely because it's entirely possible uh highly unlikely but it's entirely possible that you would celebrate a mass at which no one received Holy Communion if everyone in that church felt like they weren't prepared to receive communion that day they all all fulfilled their Sunday obligation they all participated in the uh August mystery of the Holy sacrifice of the mass and the sacrifice was complete by virtue of the priest consuming the Eucharist himself I want you to repeat that because I think some people think that for their Sunday obligation they have to receive the Eucharist and the answer is no you must participate in the celebration of the mass by simply being present and attentive to the Liturgy uh so you can't show up 25 minutes late and say that you fulfilled your Sunday obligation and if the entire time that you've been sitting at Mass you've been on your phone checking the football score then you have not fulfilled your Sunday obligation but if you have been there you have entered into prayer you have tried your best to be attentive and you just personally for whatever reason abstained from receiving Holy Communion for sure you have fulfilled your Sunday obligation now there be some that would say that uh well in the early church again didn't we eat and didn't they also drink but cannot we say that just because the early church did something doesn't mean that we have to do that now that that the the Lord by the holy power of the Holy Spirit leads the church and just because it was done in the first century doesn't we we do it today well I remind people that in the first for several centuries you had the public uh confession of your sins where you stood in front of the congregation and told everybody what you had done wrong and then your Penance was imposed publicly as well and so if you got set outside the church and weren't allowed to come in for a year as your Penance uh everybody knew why and and for how long I was going to to last so if we have this idea that we should do everything like they did in the ancient church I look forward to restoring a public Penance in front of the whole congregation so that everyone else can hear the juicy details of your life instead of whispering them to me in the privacy of the confessional Booth I appreciate that development It's a Wonderful development the Holy Spirit helps develop our theology because with more time we have deeper understanding and so just because we do things differently than they had been done in the early church does not mean it's a departure from our tradition if I should use the word enrichment perhaps we could say it's an enrichment of our tradition because we have had the luxury of a longer period of time to reflect upon where we have come from okay so wrapped up any any final words or we cover I commend anyone who loves and desires to receive the Eucharist in as enriched a manner as they can I assure them that to receive the Body of Christ in the one species of the consecrated bread is to receive Jesus fully and perfectly and completely and no more is not added or needed to enrich that experience but it is perfectly understandable to wish that the imagery of the banquet be more properly enriched and if that's the case then I think we should consider whether or not we would be comfortable having reception by intinction made possible for the faithful in our parishes to summarize briefly what I've just spent 20 minutes rambling about thanks thanks father I appreciate it thank you