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By Paul Collins
January 4, 2009
The previous news item ("The Pictures Tell You Everything", 15 December 2008 ) contains interesting and revealing pictures of Cardinal Antonio Canizares Llovera, the new Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, the Vatican department that supervises everything to do with Catholic worship. In late December the cardinal was interviewed by a Madrid newspaper. This is what he had to say about the reception of Communion - and remember this man is in charge of all Catholic worship:
"What does it mean to receive Communion in the mouth? What does it mean to kneel before the Most holy Sacrament? What does it meman to kneel during the consecration at Mass? It means adoration, it means recognizing the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist; it means respect and an attitude of faith of a man who prostrates before God because he knows that everything comes from Him, and we feel speechless, dumbfounded before the wonder of His goodness and His mercy. That is why it is not the same to receive [Communion] in the hand, and receive Communion in any fashion, than doing it in a respectful way (sic); it is not the same to receive Communion kneeling or standing up, because all these signs indicate a profound meaning. What we have to grasp is that profound attitude of the man who prostrates himself before God, and that is what the Pope wants."
With a chap who does not know that the original and primal attitude of Christian prayer is standing, and that kneeling and prostrations were introduced into Christian worship from the Byzantine court, I thinkwe could expect to be in for a bad time worship-wise in Catholicism.