While at Lourdes recently, Pope Benedict XVI continued a liturgical initiative he started last May when he decreed that all his communicants should kneel and receive Holy Communion on their tongues. The present option or permission of receiving Holy Communion standing and in the hand has largely contributed to a crisis of faith and a loss of the sense of the sacred.
The pope is now trying to reverse this trend by calling all Catholics back to a strong sense of their own identity.
St Thomas Aquinas and Pope John Paul II have both stated that, except in cases of rare necessity, only the priest, who stands as a intermediary between God and the people, should touch the Sacred Host because only his hands are especially anointed for this task at his ordination.
Pope Benedict XVI has also indicated how kneeling is an important expression of Christian culture, possessing the capacity to transform our existing culture through a new and deeper knowledge and experience of God.
Most bishops prefer the practice of standing for Holy Communion because they claim it expresses our rising with Christ who liberated us from sin.
It is highly presumptuous, however, to assume and act as if we have already received our heavenly reward before we have actually earned it.
Though the bishops deny that pride is eminent, I believe this is nonetheless the Catholic "sin of presumption" rearing its ugly head.
St Paul (Phil 2; 12) tells us that we should work out our salvation in fear and trembling.
Receiving Holy Communion kneeling and on the tongue helps the devotion of the faithful and introduces the sense of mystery of the Mass more easily.
There can be no doubt that Pope Benedict XVI, by his courageous liturgical initiative, is sending a strong message to his brother bishops, priests and laity as to the manner in which he would like to see Holy Communion distributed and received at all Masses.
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Sotto Voce
(Source: IE)