Wednesday 3 July 2019
FR BRYAN BUENGER ON BLESSING PEOPLE IN THE COMMUNION QUEUE
Communion queues freighted with people wanting blessings instead of the Sacrament can be problematical. Talking with Fr Bryan Buenger, late of St Joseph's Dannevirke and now back home in the US in the Diocese of Phoenix Arizona, Bob Gill of St Joseph's (where children receiving blessings were recently give precedence over people receiving the Sacrament) asked about the best way for priests to cope. Fr Bryan's bishop, +Thomas Olmstead, doesn’t like those blessing requests, but puts up with them. He has a procedure which Father Bryan now follows – and he did indeed demonstrate that procedure during the children’s Mass yesterday at St Joseph’s.
Without touching an approaching person, the celebrant simply bows, raises a hand above the person, then says a prayer: "Receive the Lord Jesus into your heart." The whole blessing process Bob says, "thankfully is in sync with the distribution of the Blessed Sacrament".
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My wife and I went to Raro for a week recently. Sunday Mass at the cathedral turned out to be a First Holy Communion occasion.
ReplyDeleteThe bishop demeaned himself in a number of ways, but perhaps the worst was when he abstained from distributing Holy Communion, preferring instead to stand next to an Extraordinary Minister of the Eucharist and impart blessings.
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ReplyDeleteThe Instruction Redemptionis Sacramentum clearly states that "It is the Priest celebrant's responsibility to minister Communion, perhaps assisted by other Priests and Deacons ...Only when there is a necessity may extraordinary ministers assist the Priest celebrant in accordance with the norm of law (2. The distribution of Holy Communion (88).
ReplyDelete"The practice of those Priests is reprobated who, even though present at the celebration, abstain from distributing Communion and hand this function over to laypersons.(157)
"Indeed, the extraordinary minister of Holy Communion may administer Communion only when the Priest and Deacon are lacking, when the Priest is prevented by weakness or advanced age or some other genuine reason, or when the number of faithful coming to Communion is so great that the very celebration of Mass would be unduly prolonged .(259)
"This, however, is to be understood in such a way that a brief prolongation, considering the circumstances and culture of the place, is not at all a sufficient reason.
"4. The Diocesan Bishop (177)"The Bishop is bound to promote the discipline common to the entire Church and therefore to insist upon the observance of all ecclesiastical laws. He is to be watchful lest abuses encroach upon the ecclesiastical discipline, especially as regards the ministry of the Word, the celebration of the Sacraments and sacramentals, the worship of God and the veneration of the Saints."
I feel another blog post coming on ...
Inaestimabile Donum says (para 10) "a reprehensible attitude is shown by those priests who, though present at the celebration, refrain from distributing Communion, and leave this task to the laity". Much more reprehensible that a bishop should do so.
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