Part of Mass I Secretly Dread

As I sat there last Saturday afternoon, waiting until it was time to put on my tie and head out the door to vigil Mass (Don’t pick on me for not going on Sunday; my wife and I were the scheduled readers for this week’s vigil), I slowly felt an uneasy feeling rising—something I contend with almost every time I go to Mass nowadays.

Truth be told…there’s a part of Mass I kind of dread. Wanna guess?

Sign of peace? Nah. Not really a big problem for me.

Heretical homilist? Nope. Our priests are rock solid.

Massacred music? Nope, again. We have a talented organist and decent cantors.

What I get uneasy about is Communion time, and not because I think I’m in a state of sin. I already KNOW I’m in a state of sin. The Confiteor is my friend and I pray it hoping I haven’t stupidly committed something mortal that has slipped my mind.

It’s the physics of Communion that get me nervous.

In my childhood parish, back in the mid-twentieth century, we still used an altar rail. Kneeling for Communion and having the priest simply drop the host on your tongue was an efficient and wonderfully liturgical Alter Christi experience.

Today, I’m not a kid. I’m 6’3” and unless I’m at an occasional TLM, in most instances, have to stand for Communion…and that makes me, as someone who prefers receiving on-the-tongue, nervous.

Yes, I know I don’t HAVE to stand, but I don’t feel right about holding things up while I drop to my knees on the Communion line—I’m also not at all confident I’d make it back up gracefully sans altar rail. 6 and 3 also happen to be my age, and to quote an ancient Catholic haiku:

When I genuflect,
my knees make certain noises
they didn’t use to.

So, I stand for Communion. And when I try to take Communion on the tongue, it rarely works out.

We’ve made Communion awkward for a lot of people.

Because I’ve put a ridiculous amount of thought into this, I’ve come up with three reasons why the distribution of Holy Communion ain’t what it used to be, especially when it comes to receiving on the tongue.

First: Communion on the tongue while standing is awkward. If we’re not going to kneel and let gravity help, how wide do we open our mouths? How far do we stick out our tongues? Help!

Second: Communion in the hand means priests don’t get much opportunity to work on their on-the-tongue technique. As a result, they’ve probably touched more tongues than a lot of dental students.

Third: If we’re not going to give the King of the Universe the honor of kneeling, let’s at least get the people distributing Communion ABOVE the people receiving it to give on-the-tongue people a break.

(Seriously. If I’m 6’3” and the distributor is 5’1”, I need to go in at what feels like a 90-degree angle.)

Hands and tongues can live in harmony.

Having done more gymnastics than I was ever taught in Catholic school, and accidentally licked more fingers than I care to recall, I’m very selective about whom I present my tongue to at Communion time. If I’m not sure about the distributor's technique, I reluctantly receive in the hand, which is most of the time. Until we do something sensible about how to offer Communion both in the hand AND on the tongue, I unfortunately foresee myself receiving in the hand a lot more often than I'd like.

There’s one parish near us where the pastor keeps a prie-dieu nearby during communion. You wanna kneel? You can kneel, easily and without disrupting the flow of traffic for everyone else.

There are ways around this awkward Communion problem.

Grumble. Grumble. Grumble. Get off my lawn!!!!