Wednesday, May 06, 2009

A species is facing intinction? And my Dutch experience

You may be shocked to learn a species is facing intinction. Wait. Do I mean extinction? No, I am referring to the practice of dipping the Eucharistic host into the Most Precious Blood, known as intinction. The species I am referring to is the Eucharist, under the species of bread, being dipped in the Eucharist under the species of wine and then given to the communicant. Is this valid and licit?

It is legitimate to receive the Eucharist via intinction, however there are some guidelines. One cannot dip the Host into the Precious Blood on their own and communicate themselves. This is forbidden. However, the Eucharistic Minister may dip the Eucharistic Host into the Precious Blood and give this to the communicant. I would advise this be done directly into the mouth, rather than passing the Body of Christ back and forth often.

When I was in the Netherlands several years ago, during our small youth Mass, many would intinct themselves and receive. This is a violation. I received many false teachings from the priest there. He allowed people to self-intinct. Every second week, a Catholic priest would not be available to perform Mass. I asked him if the bread prayer over by a non-Catholic and sometimes female minister could be received by Catholics. He basically said well, they say the same words of consecration. He did not indicate that Catholics are not to receive bread prayed over by non-Catholic ministers. Another point is that he argued for gay marriage, rather than against it in a private meeting with several students. He was a good man, but I think much of his philosophy was quite heterodox. Let us pray for this priest that he shares the true faith that comes to us from Christ.

4 comments:

  1. "However, the Eucharistic Minister may dip the Eucharistic Host into the Precious Blood and give this to the communicant." In the Roman Liturgy? Where does it say that...?

    That opening quote is lamely-funny. First I shook my head. It took a few minutes before I laughed at it. :)

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  2. By the way, Publish the comments. Filtering them is lame...

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  3. In response to your first posting Theodoric, I made a mistake when typing the title of the blog, I typed extinction in the title, whereas I meant to type intinction. As far as I know, intinction is permitted in the Latin rite, however I will try to find documentation to support this.

    As for your second comment, I publish nearly all comments which are made, but I filter them for good reason. First of all, I want to make sure they are legitimate comments, and not something selling pharmaceuticals or some other type of spam. Secondly, comments which use profanity, could cause scandal or are simply spewing hatred will sometimes not be posted.

    As you can see, my rules are very lenient, since I post your comments!

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  4. "However, the Eucharistic Minister may dip the Eucharistic Host into the Precious Blood and give this to the communicant." DOes this mean that the Minsiter MUST allow intinction? Further, if the minister must dip, but the Minister distributing communion is far from the Minister with the Chalice, does the communicant have the RIGHT to recieve in the hand from one Minister, walk over to the other Minister, pass it back to that minister, who then dips and places in the cup? Is the GIRM permissive... intinction may be permitted by the Minister, but the communicant lacks the RIGHT to receive in that manner...???

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