If you go to a different church parish for the next 8 weeks, you’ll probably see 8 different ways the congregation handles the whole process of receiving Communion and returning to their pews. And since Christmas will be in that mix, you’ll have those twice-a-year Catholics who only go on Christmas and Easter that are going to make this process a REAL mess. So what should and shouldn’t happen during this time? To quote Spud McConnell, "Get a cup of coffee, we gotta talk:"
Some congregations all get up right when the priest and any other ministers come down to distribute Communion, and stay standing until they return to their pews, then kneel until priest sits down, and they, in turn sit down. Other congregations kneel until the pew in front of them gets up to receive Communion, then they get up, but stay sitting on the edge of their pew like they’re perched and ready to strike until it’s their pew’s turn to go up, then they come back and kneel until the priest puts the remaining Eucharistic Hosts in the Tabernacle, then they sit. Still Other congregations all stand at the beginning of Communion and stay standing until the Prayer After Communion.
So who’s right? Well, they all are…..and none are. I’ll explain by first giving you the General Instruction of the Roman Missal’s guidelines for when to kneel, stand, receive Communion, kneel again, and sit again; then I’ll give you MY take on the whole thing.
So here’s the GIRM’s guidance for how to handle the flow of Communion…ready? Here it is:
Ok, got that? Now there should be no question about how to handle Communion, right? Oh, wait, you didn’t see any guidance? No, it’s not an “Emperor’s New Clothes” sort of deal—there IS no guidance. Well, almost none. There’s a short reference in GIRM 43 that says, “The faithful should sit, on the other hand, during the readings before the Gospel and the Responsorial Psalm and for the Homily and during the Preparation of the Gifts at the Offertory; and, if appropriate, they may sit or kneel during the period of sacred silence after Communion.” This, however, HARDLY clears anything up.
Ultimately, it’s left up to individuals, congregations, or even the bishop to establish a “norm” for the flow Communion. So before I go any further, let me throw a disclaimer out there: the rest of this post is my PERSONAL thoughts on this matter. This is in no way, shape, or form reflective of what the church officially says SHOULD or SHOULD NOT be the way to handle the flow of Communion. It’s just what I find makes the most sense.
First, let’s take the “standing the whole time” route. Our posture (the way we situate our whole bodies) at Mass are directly reflective of the level of respect and honor we give to what’s happening at the time. The Eucharist, being the source and summit of the Christian life, should be given the utmost respect and honor. For practical purposes at Mass, we best show respect for the Eucharist in the form of kneeling. So while I understand and appreciate the goal of everyone standing the entire time—that being that it is the only way to have everyone do the same thing the entire time as one body and one community—I believe that it lacks the level of respect we should be showing God and his gift of himself that we get to experience in the Eucharist. Nice thought, but I’d argue that it’s not the “best” option here.
The other options are all fairly similar in that you begin by kneeling, then at some point you stand, follow the line to receive Communion, and then return back to your pew to kneel until some later time in the Mass. Whether everyone stands all at once or stands row-by-row really doesn’t bother me, although if I had to pick one, I’d say that kneeling longer and getting up row-by-row would be “best.” (Again, this is just my opinion, and in no way reflects any “official position” of the Catholic Church...because there IS no “official position” on this subject.) Either way, you go up to receive Communion, then return to your pew and kneel for a time of private prayer.
The next big question is when to get up after your time of private prayer following Communion. Again, there is absolutely no guidance on this, so we have to think it through and decide what makes the most “sense.” To me, if we’re deciding the best time to get up from our kneeling posture, we should pinpoint why we were kneeling in the first place. The answer is the Eucharist. So it seems fair to say that the point we should stop kneeling is the point when the Eucharist is no longer present. Now, theologically, this is an incredibly tricky concept, because technically (and realistically), God never “leaves” the room just because we lock up the Eucharist in the Tabernacle for safe and respectful keeping until the next Mass. God is always present. But it’s not realistic to think that we should go through life constantly on our knees. If that’s what God wanted, why would he have given us feet? For our purposes, though, I’d say that the separation of events at this point in the Mass happens when the Priest takes the remaining Eucharistic hosts over to the Tabernacle, closes it, then genuflects. The priest getting up after genuflecting is what I’d say is our signal to break that kneeling posture and sit back down in our pews. Plenty of churches I’ve been to wait for the priest to sit down in the presider’s chair before sitting back down. To me, this seems like we’ve been giving the respect to the PRIEST the whole time, and that now that he’s decided to sit, we can do the same. Don’t get me wrong…I like priests…but I like the Eucharist more. It just doesn’t make sense to make the priest sitting down our cue to do the same. Even worse is when the “norm” for the parish is to sit when the priest does, but people can’t even seem to make it that far, so they just start randomly sitting down when the priest is walking to his chair. Wouldn’t those congregations feel a little ridiculous if they THOUGHT he was walking to his chair, but he took a quick detour to the Sacristy to get a sip of water? So my summarized suggestion is to kneel until your pew gets up for Communion, receive Communion, then go back to your pew and kneel in silent prayer until the priest genuflects after reverently storing the Eucharist in the Tabernacle. Again, there is no official guidance from the church on how to handle this…this is just my suggestion as to what makes the most sense. And if you couldn’t tell by the slight presence of frustration in my tone, I (usually) attend a church that kneels when the priest is on his way to his chair to sit down after all this goes down, and I’ve never been ever to figure out the reasoning for this.
Whatever you decide to do, just remember to have a REASON for doing it OTHER THAN the sheer fact that it’s what everyone else does and has been doing for as long as you can remember.
I think this is a great topic to touch on in this year of evangelization. I'd have to say that some forget. or really haven't come into the full understanding of what's really taking place on the alter. It was observed by Fr. Robert Barron (who did the recently released 10 part Catholicism series) that 40% of Catholics in the U.S. don't accept the doctrine on the Eucharist. Granted, not every Catholic in the U.S. took the poll, but it goes to show that it something of concern. Many of the conversion stories I read often refer to how much we, as cradle Catholics, take the Eucharist for granted... I do agree with you that it would be okay to sit after the priest genuflects at the Tabernacle, and the "row-by-row" approach. I can tell you that that way is more commonly accepted based on the Masses I've attended abroad in Montana, California, Texas, Minnesota (with over 200 Catholics from across the country and a few from Ireland)3 NCYC's, Kuwait, and Iraq.
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