Thursday 1 July 2010

My vocation: Patristics nerd

Lest anyone think that I've given up on God, Christianity or Theology, don't be fooled by this blog's inactivity. I still read dozens of other blogs, pray for those of you who I know personally, and continue to waste huge amounts of time and money on reading a variety of theological/ecclesiological/devotional bits and pieces.


In doing so, I have discovered my true vocation in life, a calling (if you will forgive the comic hyperbole) higher than marriage, the priesthood, public life or indeed anything else on God's green earth. I was born to be a Patristics nerd.


How do I know this? Today I received, fresh from the vast crypt of Blackwell's Oxford, a copy of Irenaeus's On the Apostolic Preaching. As I received my new reading matter, a gloriously geeky grin of delight spread across my face. Perhaps it's the minimalist icon on the front cover. Perhaps it's the classical aura second century literature. Perhaps it's the sheer eccentric joy of reading something "translated from the Armenian". Who knows?

At this point, I realised this is part of a growing trend, in fact I even own another book in the same Popular Patristics Series from the SVS Press, a series which I would recommend to any potential early-church anorak. Perhaps Calvin is right about the whole predestination malarkey. Obviously some of us are predestined to be Patristics nerds.


So there we have it. A Patristics nerd. Prententious? Probably. Edifying? Hopefully. Immense fun? Definitely.

Monday 22 February 2010

How we receive communion


Once again, controversy in the Catholic blogosphere has roused me from the sleep of internet inactivity, and I reluctantly take up my keyboard. The much-debated issue of how one ought to receive the Sacrament, a particularly virulent argument in traditionalist Catholic circles, involves both the highest theological principles, and also the lowest forms of superstition and dogmatic narrow-mindedness.

First things first. I'm no namby-pamby Liberal. Neither am I a card-carrying Traditionalist (with a pointedly capital 'T'). I try to be simply orthodox when it comes to sacramental theology. Since, however, it is so easy to be misunderstood online, especially when dealing with issues which arouse odium theologicum of the most ignorant and bigoted nature. So let me make myself very clear:

The Church has ALWAYS, from the first century onwards, taught that Christ is objectively present in the Eucharistic elements. The host, the body of Christ, is given and received. It should be received with proper reverence.

I should also like to point out that there is nothing wrong with receiving 'on the tongue.' This has been a holy and venerable practice in the Latin Church for centuries, and I'm not for one minute suggesting that we reject it. Equally holy and beautiful is the Eastern Churches' practice of administering the Lamb, soaked in the precious blood, on a spoon.

Yet in recent years, it has become fashionable among some Catholics to criticse the practice of receiving communion 'in the hand'. There seem to be three main objections to this:

1. One might lose crumbs of the host in one's palm.
2. Only a priest's hands have been consecrated to hold the Sacrament.
3. It is a recent innovation.

Let me deal with each of these in turn:

1. Obviously, due care and attention must be given to the Sacrament. We must take care not to break it, lose it, drop it etc. However, it seems to me perfectly possible to avoid all of this. If one receives in the hand, in the middle of the palm, correct practice is to simply raise that palm (the left hand supporting the right hand, or vice versa) to the mouth, and consume the host without faffing around trying to pick up a morsel of bread in one's fingers. It's only then that the host breaks, or is dropped, or leaves crumbs behind.

2. I've heard this one a few times. A priests hands are consecrated that they might touch the Sacrament; ours are not. What nonsense! As some point both priests and laity swallow the Holy Eucharist, but I don't remember anyone anointing my mouth and digestive system, or any priest's for that matter. To suggest that only consecrated hands may touch the Sacrament is superstitious nonsense.

3. Many traditionalists can remember communion in the hand being forbidden in the past. It is therefore, an innovation, right? Wrong. Here's a quote from the Catechetical Lectures of the holy and orthodox St. Cyril of Jerusalem, writing in the fourth century:

When thou goest to receive communion go not with thy wrists extended, nor with thy fingers separated, but placing thy left hand as a throne for thy right, which is to receive so great a King, and in the hollow of the palm receive the body of Christ, saying, Amen.


If you prefer to receive communion on the tongue, so be it. If the Church decides to insist on communion on the tongue, so be it. It is a good and holy thing. Just please, oh please, stop portraying communion 'in the hand' as some kind of 'modernist' liturgical abuse!