Fr. Mitch Pacwa: I stand up, sit down, kneel, stand up, sit down, kneel. As Catholics, what we do with our bodies matters. We worship with our entire person, our bodies as well as our minds and souls, because Christ gave His body for us, and we’ll talk about that tonight. So please stay with us.
Welcome. I’m Father Mitch Pacwa, and welcome to EWTN Live, our chance to bring you guests from all over the world. And before we get to tonight’s guest, I just want to offer a little bit of congratulations to the cruise in University of Alabama just won the championship. Coach Saban and his young men did a great job, and I want to congratulate them on the good work they did. Salute!
Now, I want to talk about our guest tonight. He comes all the way from the country of Kazakhstan, where he is the Auxiliary Bishop of the Diocese of Astana in Kazakhstan, and he is here to help us come to a deeper understanding of adoring Christ in the Eucharist, something he focuses on in his book Dominus est, which is The Lord. So please welcome Bishop Athanasius Schneider.
Now, a number of folks are going to be a little confused, because Schneider doesn’t sound too much like a Kazakh name your family is from there, though. How did that happen?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: It’s a long story, but 200 years ago, there was an emigration of Germans to the Russian Empire, and they made some settlements and villages German, completely German. My ancestors in the Black Sea shore near Odessa. And there was another place of settlement, the Volga. And so there were two groups of Germans in Russia, the so-called Volga Germans and the Black Sea Germans. I’m descended from the Black Sea Germans. And so we kept our nationality and but especially we kept our faith, our Catholic faith, through these 200 years almost. And so after the Second World War, Stalin deported all Germans who were living in Russia to different places to make a kind of forced labor. And my parents came first to the Ural Mountains, and then they went to Central Asia, where I was born.
Fr. Mitch Pacwa: Now that’s why you are, though, obviously German, ethnically you were born over in Central Asia, and now you’re the Auxiliary Bishop of the Diocese of Astana in Kazakhstan, and this gives you a great role, because you know, bishops are not only local priests, they are bishops for the whole church. And your writing about the Eucharist is something that, in our conversation, is certainly influenced by your experience in Kazakhstan and the sense of the sacred that you come across there, which is not always present in the West. Tell us a little bit about how important that sense of what is sacred is, especially that episode with the mullah and the Quran.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Yes, the Holy Eucharist, and specifically the Holy Communion. The sacred host is not an idea, and is not even a sacred thing, but a sacred person, even a divine person, Jesus, Christ, our Lord, who is present really substantially and with all his divinity in this little sacred host. And my concern is that too, that we should be ever more aware and conscious when people approach to receive Holy Communion, that here is the Lord of the universe, God in His unending majesty, who humiliated Himself so much. It is not only that he incarnated in this, to accept and assume our human nature. But he went even further. He humiliated himself to this state of being in Eucharist, defenseless, and so he was delivered into our hands; we can do with him what we want. And so I think especially in the moment, the moment of Holy Communion, is the moment of the most intimate possible encounter, meeting with the Lord on this earth. This earth with our God incarnated. And so this moment of Holy Communion has to be a very sacred moment, a very we have to pay so much attention to take time, and this moment has to be solemn, sacred. But unfortunately, when I came to the Western world from the experience of the underground church for my family, for my mother, and all, it was a great shock and a very great sadness that we noticed that especially the moment of Holy Communion, became so superficially, so banal, especially with the form of receiving Holy Communion directly in the hand and touching the holy host with the fingers from the palm of your hand, and then to put yourself the Holy Communion In your mouth. And then all the consequences that flow from these, I would only say four, which were, which are evident and which you cannot deny.
Firstly, the loss of the fragments of the little fragments of the host. This loss is very big. It is, and so we expose our Lord in every little fragment, is the whole divinity, present, real, present.
Fr. Mitch Pacwa: That’s one important thing to focus on. Sometimes you almost get a sense that people think, if it breaks off, a fragment breaks off from the host, then it’s not really the Eucharist anymore.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: It is, and it is the Eucharist because this is a dogma of our faith in the Council of Trent. It is a dogma that in each even little, most little part of the host is the whole Christ present. And therefore this is a dogma. We have to behave according to our dogma. And in this manner of receiving Holy Communion in hand, with this, we expose our lot to so great a loss of fragments. So that they can be attached to the palm of the hand, in the two fingers, and then between the priest and the communicant. There is no plate that falls all down. Even in our country, we have no communion in hand. Thanks be to God, and we are using only, always a plate, a pattern, a pattern. And after even my experience, after each mass, I have some fragments of the pattern. It’s often my experience. But when there is no pattern like in the communion, hands fall down, and so our Lord is Christ by the feet in his church.
In so many places, this cannot be. We cannot be silent about this and say, Okay, we can continue. It is licit. Okay. It is legally licit. But we have to reflect upon this, and then there is the first very grave consequence, very grave.
Fr. Mitch Pacwa: And if I might just add something from a priest I met who had been in a Communist Chinese prison and hosts had been smuggled into him, and what he would do is consecrate the he was given wine and bread smuggled by his mother, and he would break off into tiniest fragments to make sure each priest could receive even a fragment of Holy Communion. And this was all, and it took years to be able to get that. And so this was very precious for their experience. They treat each fragment, yes, and with their lives doing it,
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: It’s very impressive for this example of you. Then I continue. This was the first grave consequence of this manner of receiving Holy Communion, which is today spread all over the world.
And the second one, the stealing of the host increasing in so many countries, really astonishingly. And so we expose our Lord to stealing the host. And then the next consequence, objectively, I speak, I do not speak about the interior attitude of the people who receive Holy Communion in hand, to be clear, I speak on the objective situation. The third consequence is that this form of receiving the Lord, the holiest of holy, in this manner as we have today, so much spread, standing in the hand and taking with your fingers and so on here. Here is a minimalism, a minimum of gestures of adoration, a minimum. But when this is the holiest of holy, we have to give the maximum. It is a logical consequence of our faith. And the first consequence is that this manner to put the holiest of holy in the palm of the hand, and then to allow that the faithful take with both fingers himself the holy host and put himself in his mouth. This gesture is very similar to taking common food from the kitchen, in a cafeteria, or in your house. You can observe this. And so we have a situation of absence in this manner of real, clear, unequivocal, sacred gesture. And so I have, I think we have to reflect very seriously about these.
Fr. Mitch Pacwa: As a matter of fact, another relates to both points you just made in the last couple of years, a man had gone to a mass that had been celebrated by Blessed John Paul, and after his beatification, he said, Oh, I’ve got that piece of bread they gave me. And he was selling it on eBay, and he wasn’t trying to steal it. He thought of it as a souvenir, and the Knights of Columbus paid him. But they also talked to the eBay people said, Please do not put such things as you said. This is too sacred for us to have put on eBay for sale.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: But this is one of the examples. But these examples are so countless, and therefore I think we have to wake up, wake up, stop, kneel down, adore your Lord. It is logical, when the angels in heaven in the Apocalypse prostrate themselves in front of the lamp, but we have the lamp of God in the host, they prostrate themselves. We not. Why? Not? When the angels prostrate themselves in front of the Lord. Then these three wise men, the Magi, came to Bethlehem, and it is written in the Holy Scripture, they made a proskynesis. This is an expression in Greek of a special gesture of adoration, to kneel down and to bow with the head unto the earth, right? And so the three Magi adopt the body of Christ in this manner. As a matter of fact, very frequently, the Greek word prone simply means worship, yes, and why we do not. And then the three women on the morning of the resurrection of our Lord. When they met the risen Lord, what they did spontaneously, they fall down and kiss His feet and bow down. Adored them. It is also written, adorned with the gesture of proschinicism in this case, and so did our fathers, our grandparents. And so this form of receiving and honoring our Lord during Holy Communion was kneeling in the Latin rite and receiving in the tongue for more than 1000 years. And such a pressure tradition, more than 1000 years has no sense to abolish this, because when it is at stake, the honor of the Lord. They have to try to find the maximum of adoration, of cautions, of protection, of defense of him, and not the minimum.
Fr. Mitch Pacwa: Now, some people among them’ve heard Western liturgists point out that in the Byzantine church, in the Orthodox Church, they stand when they receive Holy Communion. Is that correct?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Yes, they stand, but they have other gestures, because they are two different liturgies. We have to keep this in mind also. And the form of the Eastern Rites is to make adoration. This is the prostration or metanoia, right? But they do prostrations during the liturgy, even until they touch the floor with their head the floor, but we know, in Latin, right? We know, we know we don’t make prostration and touch the floor with the head the floor, but we kneel down. At least, it was so for more than 1000 years at least, kneel down. And so this is a form. Our Latin form of proschinics is of metanoia. But prosnesis adoration and bowing and kneeling have to be, and this is in the Eastern Rite also.
Fr. Mitch Pacwa: Yes, in fact, you know, the bishops in the United States have been giving instruction that when somebody comes up to Holy Communion, they should make at least a slight bow or some sign of adoration that was not talked about. You know, 10 more years ago now, the bishops have been saying, This is what we should do, and I’ve certainly seen that changing considerably. You know, around the country,
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Thanks be to God. But to make a slight bow, it’s minimal. Why do we do minimal?
We have to do our best. When is the Lord, and thanks be to God, our Pope, Benedict, the 16th, already almost five years given the whole church an example and practical Magisterium that he has decided when he gives Holy Communion as Pope that the people receive from his hands only kneeling and on the tongue. This is a clear sign of the Vicar of Christ on earth. And I think a very clear sign, and we have to. Even as faithful, but I speak to the bishops in the first place, have to react positively to this example of our Holy Father, and why not to establish in their dioceses the same as the pope makes it would be, logically,
Fr. Mitch Pacwa: It’s now on one hand, you know, at this point, there is an indult that the know, the American bishops and some of the other bishops conferences, but not all bishops conferences in the world, but some of them, like the Americans, have gotten permission to allow Communion in the hand. So it’s not something that people are doing in disobedience at this stage. They’re doing it with that indulgence, but you’re saying, you’re more saying, let’s call ourselves to a greater sense of worship and show signs of adoration as we come to receive Holy Communion?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Yes, I would say, not some conferences, almost all conferences in the world already ask this in dual for communion hand. It’s sad. It is very sad. But the issue is not this. The issue is the arguments; the situation is objectively really problematic. It is the Lord at stake, his honor, and we have not to deal first with laws or licit, even if it is licit. But it is showing objectively that this permission is damaging the honor of the Lord, so faith, and therefore I am speaking to help also the faithful and the brother bishops to start to reflect, because the pope already changed for him, this is a sign. And why not the bishops? And therefore we are speaking about this. We have to start in the church, an open discussion about this issue without taboos, right? It is, but in the history of the church, there were also some things that were allowed and visited, but which were revealed as damage.
Fr. Mitch Pacwa: And on reflection, they were permitted at a certain time, but later reflection showed that this was not accomplishing what they may have intended. It had some secondary effects that did not really fit into the faith.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Yes, and so I think it is time for the church, and we have to, when we really believe, what is the Lord? Who is the Lord who is the sacred host? I say Who is the sacred host, not what is the sacred host? Who is the sacred host? And when we take the consequence, ultimately in the depth of this reality, I cannot imagine that we will be content with this situation of communion in hand and standing. It is impossible.
Fr. Mitch Pacwa: One, two things that also strike me. It became very common for people to speak about receiving the bread and the wine and not focus on the fact that, by our faith, it is not bread or wine. It is the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, and that the change in substance is is real, effected by the Holy Spirit coming over the bread and wine, and then the words of Christ, spoken by the priest, in the person of Christ, this makes a transformation, and I’m again beginning to see that people are catching themselves. So that there’s, you know, they became a habit of talking with the bread and wine, and now they’re saying, you know, even priests and deacons, and now they’re focusing on, it’s the body and the blood of Christ. And said that this is part of a transition where we’re coming back to what this means?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Yes, because what we believe and what we do, or what how we worship, we know it is connected and separately, and so in the measure, what, how I believe in this measure, I behave also exteriorly, and therefore on the other side, when I do some exterior behavior, some gestures, continuously, habitually. This has an effect on my interior life, on my thinking. And so when I continuously take the holy, the holiest of holy, like our common food, with this gesture of communion in hand, continuously, then this has an effect over time on me that is comparable to common food. And therefore they start to speak of bread, holy bread. But we have to. And this is, therefore, when we begin to improve these gestures of adoration and of sacredness during Holy Communion, this will be an effect on the faith
Fr. Mitch Pacwa: In its again, something I mentioned at the beginning, you observed how Muslim clerics are considered blasphemers. Well, you tell the story about the minister.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: In a meeting, an interreligious meeting, and there were several representatives of different confessions and religions, and we spoke about what is sacred reality in your religion? And the Muslim said, for us, the holiest of holy. So he spoke, the holiest of holy is the Quran, the book of the Quran, and he once observed that a Protestant pastor wanted to greet him and took the Quran without washing his hands. And it was for this cleric, for this Imam, a blasphemy. He was hurt in his heart, and he spoke publicly. This is a blasphemy for us Muslims, because to touch the Quran in Arabic, you have to wash your hands, because this is the holiest of holy right?
Fr. Mitch Pacwa: If it’s a translation into English or some other language, they don’t feel that way. But if it’s Arabic, yes, this Arabic, translate the Arabic,
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Yes, it is the holiest of holy. And so I was thinking about this man, we have the holiest of holy, the Lord in the sacred host. And when this Imam would arrive in a Catholic church in the Western world, where was common, or exclusively, in hand. And he will observe a line of people going and touching with their fingers, and in a hurry. Sometimes it is very hurried, fast, quick. And then he will ask the Catholic, What is this little bread there, this white and the Catholic will say, This is our God. And He will say, No, it is symbolically our God, Your God. No, it is not symbolic. It is really Christ who is present with the substance of his body, blood, and with his divinity. And the Muslim will say, Oh, he is present only spiritually, in the host, in his bread. And the Catholic will answer, No, not spiritually, only really substantially. And then the Muslim will say, and so you treat your god the holiest of holy. I am not able to believe that you believe in these. And so I think we have to, sometimes today, we have to learn about the attitude. Church of reverence for other religions, of other confessions, especially the Orthodox. Another example, I have a friend, an orthodox friend, a woman, a very nice, pious lady, and she did the Orthodox Church, they give after the Holy Mass, they distribute holy bread. It is called, it’s not consecrated, it’s blessed. It is only blessed antidoron. And they take this in the hand because it is not the body of Christ, she told me, and this lady had seen a reverence to this only blessed bread that once fell down a fragment. And she was so weeping that this, this happened, but she had known that it was not the body of Christ, because she also received Holy Communion. She explained this, and she complained. And so I had to console her. And then another time, she took this only blessed bread in a paper home; it is also possible, and then she consumed this holy bread in her home, and the paper remained, yes. And then she phoned me and asked me what I could do with this paper. The paper touched the holy bread.
It is, it is holy, and I cannot throw, throw the paper in the garbage. And she said to me, I will burn this out of reverence. And this is the attitude of an orthodox believer towards only the blessed bread, not towards the body of Christ. What will this pious lady say when she observes how we treat our Lord in the communion in hand?
Fr. Mitch Pacwa: Well, we, you know, you’ve given us again, something to very much consider, and we’ll think about that, and we’d like to get some of your phone calls and comments, and questions. So please stay with us.
Welcome back. First of all, we want to invite you to come down here to be part of our studio audience. If you can make a pilgrimage down here, please contact our pilgrimage department. You can do that at 205-271-2966, or you can go to the website, www.ewtn.com, and they’ll give you information about the scheduling of the programs, the and what’s available for to come to visit, as well as schedule of masses of Course and tours of the studios, information how to drive up to Hanceville and visit the sisters in the shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament. And that’s a great thing to do.
Excellency, you were able to get up to Hanceville to celebrate mass this morning. Correct?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: It’s very pretty up there, isn’t it a beautiful church?
Fr. Mitch Pacwa: Are you ready for some questions? Let’s start off with a caller.
Joan: Hi, Father. Pacwa, how are you?
Fr. Mitch Pacwa: Where are you from?
Joan: I’m calling from New York. Happy New Year. You and Bishop Schneider and all your viewers. Thank you.
Fr. Mitch Pacwa: Your question.
Question: I was just asking, wondering about Bishop Schneider. How can he help? Is there any information you can give the lady and how to prepare to receive Holy Communion? And number two, I was just wondering, how come your diocese, Bishop people come up to receive Holy Communion on the tongue and kneeling. And how come it’s not made mandatory here in America with the bishops and cardinals? I mean, you know, it should be mandatory if, if you’re going to receive Holy Communion, to the Holy Father, and he’s been doing it for the last five years, you have to kneel and take Holy Communion on the tongue. How come the bishops and the Cardinals aren’t making it mandatory? And maybe you could stop off here on your way back to home and stop off in New York and pop into Cardinal Dolan and ask him, because, you know, I kneel when I receive Holy Communion, and I’ve had elderly people come up to me and tell me that they would love to kneel, but they can’t kneel because there’s no kneelers for them to kneel. So I’ll hang up and wait for your answer.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Yes, it’s a good question, but I already explained that this habit came not as a sign of increasing devotion and adoration, but to reduce all signs of adoration, and this is a fact, we have to consider this. But this is our crisis, and this is a problem, and we have to be, we have to be the church, so honest to acknowledge this. This is a crisis in the church, and we because 100 years after our death, they will say this was a problem, a crisis. Why they? Why were they silenced? And so I’m speaking. But the question of the lady was the first; the Holy Father already gave an example. And I know some bishops who introduced in their dioceses the same manner as the Holy Father is making kneeling under the tongue.
And so in Kazakhstan. Thanks be to God, we have never had communion in hand and standing; we have kept the tradition of our fathers and grandfathers, these clear signs of devotion. Why reduce them? There is no reason. And therefore, I hope that the bishops will reflect and imitate the Holy Father. And the next step, I hope that the Holy See will publish a document clearly to invite all the bishops in the world to imitate the Holy Father.
Fr. Mitch Pacwa: Certainly, when I’m in the Holy Land, the Chancellor of the Diocese of Jerusalem made it very clear that there’s no permission to receive in the hand there, and that he asked us to comply with what is local. And so I always insist on that when I’m in the Holy Land, certainly, I insist that all the Pilgrims receive in the native tongue, as is the requirement of that diocese. We have questions from our students, ma’am. Where are you from?
Audience: I’m right here in Birmingham. Father, when I was growing up in the 50s, we were taught to never touch the sacred body with our teeth, even if it was, you know, you had to try to get it down just with your tongue.
I was away from the Church for 28 years, but when I came back and they were receiving on the hand, at what point did they change to receiving on the hand, and why? What was the thought behind doing that?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Yes, this issue to change the traditional manner of reverence and to stand and to receive in hand came from the Netherlands during the Second Vatican Council, and they introduced this without permission of the church. The bishops and clerics in the Netherlands introduced this new manner, illicitly and spreading all over the North Europe, countries, Belgium, Germany, France, and Austria. It was spreading like a cancer. And then Pope Paul the sixth had forbidden this in 60 67, but the bishops of these countries continued to press the Pope, and then the Holy Father made he asked all the bishops of the world, everyone their opinion about this new manner of receiving Holy Communion in the hand. The qualitative majority of the bishops all over the world rejected this new manner of receiving in hand because of the danger of loss of fragments or a decrease of faith or devotion. And so the qualitative majority of all the bishops of the world, 68, rejected this as dangerous, and even so, one year later, 69, the pope gave permission to these bishops. Even so, the Pope was not so content with this. This is a fact you can read. There are books published with all the documentation about this.
Fr. Mitch Pacwa: I certainly remember when I first saw it introduced, when it was still illicit. The ideology was that we are adults and not children. So we should receive the Eucharist the way adults receive food and feed themselves. So that was also part of the ideology, at least in some areas here in the United States,
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Yes, but our Lord, Jesus Christ, said, Unless you become a child, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Our Lord did not say, Unless you become adult.
Fr. Mitch Pacwa: So let’s take another caller. Hello, Neil.
Neil: My question would be, is to the bishop and to you, Father Mitch, by the way, God, God bless you, is both in a happy new year. I’ve been told by a couple of priests in our diocese that they will not give me communion anymore if I kneel. Plus, I was also singled out by a priest prior to the closing prayer singled me out personally by saying that he doesn’t want me no more kneeling anymore because he wants uniformity in the church and receiving Communion. My question would be, how do I react to that? Do I continue being reverent by kneeling, or do I just go with obeying what the church asks me to do, as being, you know, I want to be reverend? I want to kneel. How do I react to it? Because it is a deep concern to me, and it feels like a takeaway from the old school way that we were brought up, such as a bishop, is talking about. And so I would like to know, please inform me how I should react to this continuously from here on in. God bless you as well. Thank you.
Fr. Mitch Pacwa: Thank you very much. I mean, this is a quandary, and the priest is telling him he will give him communion, yes, if he kneels, yes, I understand. And so how do you deal with that?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Firstly, every Catholic has the right to receive Holy Communion. Kneeling. The Church gives the right, and the Holy See recently frequently stated this, that no cleric, even no Bishop, has the right to deny a faithful to receive Holy Communion kneeling, and when a priest does not give communion to a person who is kneeling, then he is committing an injustice. He is unjust. This is against justice. And even so, I would say this behavior of the priest is against good education and behavior.
Fr. Mitch Pacwa: It would certainly it would be within Neil’s rights to write down in the letter to the bishop and saying, I’m being threatened with not being given Holy Communion because I kneel. But as Pope Benedict has explicitly stated, you have a right to kneel down. I remember one time when I was in Dallas, a boy, a college boy, had knelt down, and the priest grabbed him, and then at the end of mass, he was shaking him. I mean, you know, at that point, lawyers were called in, because this was totally unacceptable. And you know that, you know, becoming, you know, making this into an ideological all. The fight against a person’s piety is not legally correct under canon law, and so the priest has no right to do that, and he should go to the local bishop. We have another question, must you do? Audience, ma’am, where are you from?
Audience: I’m from Spring, Texas, spring. What’s your question, Ma’am? My question, Bishop, is, when our Lord, on that first Holy Thursday, that Passover meal, handed his body to each apostle, why? And that was reverent. Why would it not be reverent to receive in the hand?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Okay, good question. It’s a good question. First, first, it is not proved that Our Lord gave the consecrated bread in the hand. It is not proof that, in fact, (the text is silent on that issue), and therefore, in the mouth or in the hand, it is not the one is needs proof. Therefore, we cannot use this argument in the second, that the second important distinction is that these were priests of the New Testament covenant. They were all priests; the apostles and the lay people are not priests in this manner as the apostles. And therefore it was always, and therefore the Lord said, Take and eat it. The translation, take, it’s not correct, because the Greek says labethe. Labbein in Greek means not take touch with the hand, but to receive. The Lord also used the same word, the Greek word labbete, when he said, Receive the Holy Ghost. And we receive the Holy Ghost. We cannot touch him with our hands. And the Holy Communion is not an event of touching something. The Holy Communion is not receiving, I would say, firstly, something materially, but deeply spiritual. You receive your love, firstly, in your soul. This is on a high spiritual event, and therefore, take it. It is not meant to touch it. It would be better to translate, as in the Slavonic languages and in our missal in Russia, which is translated. Receive it all and eat it, receive. And now we have to make these distinctions.
Fr. Mitch Pacwa: I’m trying to think of the Aramaic, you know, sabachul, and that also can be well translated as receive. Sorry, I got distracted, because in the Maronite liturgy, we used Aramaic and its sabul, which can be easily translated as receive, just like in the Hebrew cognate.
Anyway, another question, sir, where are you from? Fairfax, Virginia. Fairfax, Virginia, so in the Washington area. Absolutely. And your question.
Audience: Thank you for taking my question. I remember reading in an early church document, which I think is called the Didache the which possibly was written by the apostles, that it says to receive the body of Christ in the hand like a throne. And if that’s true, then why can’t we receive the body of Christ in the hand?
Fr. Mitch Pacwa: I don’t think that was the dedicate pardon. That’s not in the Didache.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: No, that’s in the Clement of Alexandria. No, this text is not from the apostles, but this text is only from the fourth century, not from the apostles. It is from St. Cyril of Jerusalem, and he said yes to make a throne. It was really in the first centuries in the church, the practice of receiving the Holy. Communion in some way in hand, but I will now explain it was essentially different gesture as now, because the body of Christ was placed on the right palm of the hand, not on the left, as now on the right hand, and then the communicant had to bow deeply with his head until the palm of the hand of the hand, and receive immediately with the mouth the sacrament, not touching with the fingers. Moreover, it was not permitted to touch with fingers, and so it was at the same time a gesture of adoration. So you have to bow down deeply with your head and take immediately the Holy Sacrament, and then to have to kiss with your tongue your palm so that no fragment will perish. The same quotient is written the same text of San Cyril. And the ladies had always received in that they had to cover the palm of the hand with a white sheet called a domino. And they had also, in the same gesture, to bow deeply, bow, and then immediately, with the tongue, received, and then they had purified the sheet of dominicale so that no fragment would be loose. But even so, the church noticed that some fragments could be lost. And so the church, instantly, in the West and in the East, began to put the Holy Sacrament directly in the mouth.
It was a natural process of deepening the reverence. It was a growing organic growth deeper in the face.
Fr. Mitch Pacwa: We have another caller coming. Hello, Mary Ann, yes, good evening. Hi. Where are you from? I’m from New Jersey, Toms River, New Jersey. And your question is,
Mary Ann: I really am the bishop in listening to him speak. I’m from the old school, and 50 years ago, when we received the Blessed Sacrament, we had the altar rail, we had the altar boy holding the plate. And when everything changed, Vatican two and they turned the altar around for the people, and everything was taken away from us. And I feel that he’s correct in saying that the reverence for the Holy Sacrament has been diminished, because in those days, we fasted before we went to receive Communion. We received it under the tongue we received it. It was whipping off the boy holding the plate in case anybody dropped it. It was done with reverence, respect, and today, I feel all that has been taken away from us. It’s like this big, long line that rushes people through, and people who are Eucharistic ministers, God bless them. But you’re taking ordinary people now that have the right to touch the Blessed Sacrament with their hands, which was never, ever allowed; only a priest was allowed to do that.
Fr. Mitch Pacwa: We have a short minute. Do you want to make a reaction?
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Yes, we already spoke about this, what the lady told us. And it is true that even in the times in the first centuries when the people could when the Holy Sacrament on the palm of the hand, it was not allowed to touch the Holy Sacrament with the fingers the Holy Sacrament. Not only does the priest have to touch this with his fingers. It is right to because the priest is in the Holy Mass acting in the person of Christ. In Persona Christi, as Vatican two says, very frequent, yes. And so this manner of receiving Holy Communion, in this very minimalistic manner of devotion and adoration, it is not from Vatican two, on the contrary, it was against Vatican two, right, right.
Fr. Mitch Pacwa: And we certainly urge people to read the Constitution on the liturgy in Vatican, two sacrosanct and concilium, but also afraid to have to urge us on. We’ve run out of time. I want to thank you very much for coming all the way from Kazakhstan. Thank you for being here with us.
If you would join me in blessing the audience, may God bless you, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
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