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Tuesday 11 December 2012

Adoration Before Communion


Some of us do this spontaneously, with grace, but the proper disposition before receiving Christ in the Host is adoration. Pope Benedict XVI quoted St. Augustine  (both ubiquitous on this blog in the past few days), from Ennarrationes in Psalmos 98, 9) "No one eats that flesh without first adoring it; we should sin were we not to adore it.""

Adoration would be encouraged if there were not songs being sung on the way to Communion, but only a choir selection of Gregorian Chant, or even an organ piece sans voices. The same is true after Communion, where I find celebrants and congregation cannot seem to maintain silence. Here, most of the NO priest do not allow enough time after Communion for adoration and contemplation. Thankfully, in the several parishes I have attended in Dublin, people do not talk in the Church after Mass, which is a great blessing. They do in other areas of Ireland, however.

In this Year of Faith, it seems to me that we could be reminding each other and even our local priests, if needed, that the centre of our Faith is the Eucharist and that we need quiet surrounding the reception of Christ into our bodies and souls.

By the way, a quotation from St. Thomas Aquinas seems fitting as well from the Summa Theologica III 82:31; that no one should touch the Host, "which has not been consecrated and so the corporal, the chalice,and even the hands of the priest are consecrated, so as to be able to touch this sacrament."

We have lost the ability to adore Christ as we do not understand, as a people, the sacredness of what we are receiving. The Vatican Website has provided these quotations from a section titled, Communion received on the tongue and while kneeling, which one can print off and put in the back of churches.

 http://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/details/ns_lit_doc_20100526_communion_en.html