Approaching the Eucharistic Mystery

A call to rediscover the gestures that teach our hearts to love...

Moving on from yesterday’s post, where I tried to convey that our focus should be on the Eucharist not merely as a theological concept, but as the living heart of the Church’s worship—God made present among us in silence, mystery, and love. Today I offer a more experiential and liturgical meditation, showing how posture, history, and humble receptivity can form our hearts to recognise and respond to that presence with awe. Together, I hope that these two pieces form a single appeal: to let our knowledge, bodies, and affections converge in worship that is truly worthy of the One we receive.

A trembling joy

"Let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire." — Hebrews 12:28-29

Few moments in the Christian life should be as charged with quiet awe as the slow walk to the altar. There, the God who once thundered from Sinai now waits for us under the fragile appearance of bread. Nothing in our day is so exalted; nothing seems, at first glance, so ordinary. And because the extraordinary hides itself in the ordinary, we can drift into habit—receiving almost by reflex, scarcely aware that “the source and summit of the Christian life” ¹ is being placed in our hands or on our tongues.

More than a decade ago I began to feel that drift in myself. A single remark from an older student while I was studying Divinity at Maryvale pierced my complacency: “The more I understood the Eucharist, the less casual I could be.” His words set me on a journey that led, step by faltering step, from receiving in the hand to receiving on the tongue, kneeling. What follows is not a polemic but a pilgrimage story, interwoven with the Church’s own memory, offered in the hope that it will kindle in you the same trembling joy.

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What the body teaches the soul

Christianity is an incarnational faith; the body speaks. Long before a single word is uttered, posture and gesture proclaim what the heart believes. When we genuflect, trace the sign of the cross, or fold our hands, we are letting the body catechise the soul.

Kneeling to receive Communion and allowing the Sacred Host to rest on the tongue is, quite simply, a school of reverence. The very awkwardness many of us feel the first time we try it is instructive: love often asks us to step out of convenience into gift. As Pope Benedict XVI observed while distributing Communion kneeling and on the tongue during the Corpus Christi liturgy of 2008, humble posture can “teach by example” far better than directives alone. ²

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A legacy of love: history in brief

Contrary to a popular assumption, the Church did not casually abandon an ancient practice when Communion in the hand became widespread after 1969. From at least the sixth century onward, receiving on the tongue was the normative discipline of East and West, adopted chiefly to safeguard the Eucharistic species and to deepen adoration. ³

Yes, patristic evidence—especially a disputed fifth Mystagogical Catechesis attributed to St Cyril of Jerusalem—shows that Communion could, in exceptional circumstances, be received in the hand. ⁴ But the same Fathers also testify that this was tolerated chiefly:

1. In times of persecution when no priest could be present (St Basil, Epistle 93).

2. For hermits living far from liturgical celebrations.

Even here, St Basil warns that outside such cases the practice would be “grave immoderation.”⁵

With the close of the patristic era, the Church’s instinct settled decisively on reception directly on the tongue. That instinct endured for more than a millennium and still lives in the current universal law: Communion on the tongue requires no special permission and must always be available. ⁶

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Indults and innovations

How, then, did Communion in the hand spread so rapidly in the late twentieth century? In 1969 Pope Paul VI, responding to illicit experiments in parts of Western Europe, granted an indult—a limited exception—allowing bishops’ conferences to petition for the practice if two‑thirds of members agreed and Rome confirmed their vote (Memoriale Domini). It was a pastoral concession, not a universal norm, and the Holy See explicitly urged that “the traditional manner of distributing Holy Communion … be retained.” ⁷

Over time most conferences applied for the indult, and in many places the exception became the custom. Yet the canonical asymmetry remains: reception on the hand depends upon local permission; reception on the tongue does not.

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Facing sincere questions

After I first wrote about these discoveries, friends raised heartfelt concerns:

• “Isn’t judging another’s choice uncharitable?”
  Absolutely. The Church allows both manners of reception, and genuine devotion can flourish in either. What is at stake is not the validity of the sacrament but the expressive power of the gesture. Invitations must always be offered without condemnation.

• “Did the early Church really forbid Communion in the hand?”
  No—but it limited it. The few texts that describe the practice do so in contexts of danger or isolation, never as a liturgical ideal. Moreover, the oft‑quoted “make your hand a throne” passage not only comes from a questionable manuscript tradition but also instructs communicants to touch the Host to their eyes—hardly a rubric anyone proposes reviving today.

• “Does receiving on the tongue eliminate abuse?”
  It certainly reduces the risk of particles being lost or Hosts being taken away. No method can guarantee perfect reverence, but kneeling and receiving on the tongue place the Eucharist beyond casual handling and create a natural pause for adoration.

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Choosing the more loving way

Because the Eucharist is “the whole treasure of the Church” ⁸, the question every Catholic might ask is not simply What is allowed? but What most visibly proclaims the mystery? For many, the answer will be the ancient option that requires nothing more than surrender: kneel, open the mouth, let oneself be fed like a child (cf. Ps 81:10).

If frailty or local norms make kneeling impossible, a profound bow and steady stillness can also speak volumes. And when receiving in the hand, care for even the tiniest fragment, forming the palm as a throne and consuming reverently before stepping away, witnesses eloquently to faith in the Real Presence.

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Practical suggestions

1. Prepare interiorly: a brief examen and, when needed, sacramental confession restore the wedding garment (Mt 22:11‑14).

2. Fast gladly: one hour of hunger reminds the body whom it is about to receive.

3. Approach deliberately: slow your steps; fix your eyes on the Host.

4. Remain in thanksgiving: linger after Mass—love is never in a hurry.

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Let love kneel

In the end, our manner of receiving Holy Communion is a love‑letter written with the body. The Church, like a wise mother, permits more than one handwriting, yet she invites us to imitate the saints who, knowing their littleness, knelt and opened their mouths in child‑like trust.

To kneel is to confess with our knees what our tongue dares to whisper: “My Lord and my God!” To receive on the tongue is to let ourselves be fed, as Israel was fed with manna, in a desert that is passing away. May every gesture we make before this Sacrament preach to a watching world that Christ is here—and that nothing less than adoring love will do.

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Notes

1. Lumen Gentium 11; Catechism §1324.

2. Pope Benedict XVI, Corpus Christi homily, 22 May 2008.

3. See testimonies of St Leo the Great (Sermon 91) and St Gregory the Great (Dialogues 3).

4. Catechesis Mystagogica V (disputed), PG 33.1080.

5. St Basil, Epistle 93.

6. Redemptionis Sacramentum 92 (2004).

7. Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship, Memoriale Domini (1969).

8. St John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia 61.