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Among those Catholics of Constantinopolitan tradition the Romanians also receive by intinction.

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I know the Coptic Orthodox receive the Body and the Blood separately, lining up to receive the Body of Christ first (they use a cloth of some sort to cover their mouths as they masticate the transubstantiated bread), then forming a new line after receiving the Body of Christ they approach the chalice to receive the Blood. How they receive from the chalice, whether directly or by spoon, I'm not sure; I don't seem to recall.

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Originally Posted by Roman Interloper
As far as communicating in the hand in the Latin Rite, it was my understanding that the practice was actually an ancient one...the original method, in fact.
...
If so many organs come into contact with the Body of Christ, what is so terrible about skin contact, I wonder? Surely when he sojourned on the earth, people shook hands with the Lord or embraced him or otherwise touched His sacred body with their hands. I don't quite understand what the problem is.

I'm no expert, but I believe it has to do with self-communication. Ideally you're supposed to receive the Eucharist from someone above you in the hierarchy. You do receive it from a priest on the hand, but then you self-communicate. I think.

Didn't the Latin Church also used to specially bless four of the priest's fingers for the purpose of touching the Host? His other six unblessed fingers - and by extension all laymens' fingers - were not specially blessed. This makes some sense in the Latin theological idiom, I suppose.

Also, as far as ancient Eucharistic customs go, I read some churches used to hand out chunks of Eucharist for people to self-communicate during the week at home. (!!!) Maybe some extra sense of Eucharistic piety developed in the patristic age?

It could be one of those "genie out of the bottle" things. Once the custom is established that it is more reverent to do things one way, it's kind of hard to turn around and purposefully do them in a way that is now viewed as irreverent, without feeling a bit of that irreverent spirit yourself ... even if the act of its own nature was neutral.

Subjectively and aesthetically, it is more intimate to receive on the tongue. As a non-expert, it does seem more appropriate, also.

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The reason why you close the mouth around the spoon rather than wait for someone to drop it into a gaping orifice is quite obvious. Think of the spoon still dripping blood being moved away having been flipped over. Aside from that issue of not wanting particles or blood dripping who knows where, there's also a certain symbolism. The Eucharist is real food and drink, and we are not birds, but human beings. Come to the banquet like you mean it.

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Or another example is when you bless yourself right after receiving the body and blood right in front of the priest, and accidentally bumping into the gold plate or even the chalice... I've been there before, and wound up almost winning a ticket to the confessional for that. Lesson learned there. Also, blessing oneself after receiving is more of a "Latin" thing anyway, iirc...

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I'm no expert, but I believe it has to do with self-communication. Ideally you're supposed to receive the Eucharist from someone above you in the hierarchy. You do receive it from a priest on the hand, but then you self-communicate. I think.

Wrong.

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Originally Posted by Otsheylnik
The reason why you close the mouth around the spoon rather than wait for someone to drop it into a gaping orifice is quite obvious. Think of the spoon still dripping blood being moved away having been flipped over. Aside from that issue of not wanting particles or blood dripping who knows where, there's also a certain symbolism. The Eucharist is real food and drink, and we are not birds, but human beings. Come to the banquet like you mean it.

True, wound up doing this yesterday at the Vigil Divine Liturgy, and wound up with that metallic taste in my mouth afterwards. I *still* taste a bit of that metal. Mleh.

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