Communion On The Hand Is Anglican Patrimony And Catholic, Too

As the visitor who posed yesterday's question pointed out, Anglicans have traditionally received the Sacrament on the hand, and another visitor makes clear they've been doing this ever since there have been Anglicans:

I just looked at Cranmer's two Communion services, 1549 and 1552. In 1552 a rubric clearly stated that the bread shall be delivered "to the people in their handes kneling," while in 1549 the rubrics (the one before communion in the service itself and the one after mandating that the bread, although unleavened, be "more larger and thicker" than in the past) simply states that the priest "delivereth the Sacramente of the body of Christe." I suppose that this must mean in the mouth, since that was the universal and exceptionless custom all throughout the Latin Church. Certainly, Lutherans who wished to find fault with the Church of England in later times took reception "in the handes" as an indication that the Church of England was a Reformed church with which they could not be in sacramental communion. And i've already mentioned in the past that I take Article 29 of the 39 Articles as directed against Lutheran views, not Catholic ones.

The visitor provides more background on the early basis of the practice:

In the 16th Century (and beyond) receiving communion (the bread, I mean) in the hand was taken by just about everyone as a token of belief in (to oversimplify) "the real absence" of Christ's Body and blood from the communion, or from the communion elements. (I make this last distinction because both the "Radicals" - Anabaptists, Rationalists, and the like - as well as the Reformed, at least those of the reformed who followed Zwingli and Bullinger and their later followers, believed that the bread and wine was just bread and wine, . . . Calvin, however, believed that Christ was present uniquely to communicants, or at least to elect communicants, in the reception of the bread and wine, which remained just bread and wine, but which served as "implements" or "instruments" [his preferred terms] for a unique spiritual presence of Christ in the act of receiving them - as he once said, while the communicants were receiving bread and wine "in their mouths," they - or the elect among them - were receiving Christ "spiritually in the eyes of their minds."

But over four centuries later, I was told nothing of this in Episcopalian confirmation class, simply that you took communion in your hands, left hand cradled in your right, pretty much to avoid looking like a bumpkin, as you would if you wore plaid with stripes. What I see in this account is effectively a standard Anglican practice of calculated ambiguity and leaving specifics unsaid in order to avoid conflict, and if the TEC clergy who taught the confirmation classes had learned of the implications at Nashotah House or General, they left them unsaid.

By the 21st century, whether one receives on the hand, especially coming from an Anglican background, has no particular meaning, and trying to impute one would be like claiming the OK sign was a secret white supremacist gesture, a creature of the wannabe thought police. I don't believe Bp Barron, a theologically well informed man, urged believers to stop receiving on the hand even if he was worried they didn't understand the Real Presence.

Another visitor points out,

The practice of intinction, while very old in Catholic Church history, is not as old as communion under both species separately as evidenced by the actual ritual of the Last Supper. Communion in the form of bread alone was instituted by the Church in the 12th century and it primarily remained that way until after the council of Vatican II where both species distribution and intinction were revived. The USCCB website has a very thorough explanation of the norms for Holy Communion. If I am not mistaken, Bishop Lopes is a member of this Conference and therefore would be subject to its norms in America and the Canadian version for his parishes in Canada I would guess. The norms very clearly state that communion under one species is fine under circumstances where there is illness or for taking communion to an infirm parishioner. In fact, the practice of intinction, while occasionally practiced in the ancient Church has become a practice for the laity only recently, less than 60 years.

The norms also clearly state the communicant not the minister of communion chooses how to receive the host (paragraph 41). Given that Fr. Lewis refuses to provide communion to a recipient without intincture, it seems to me he is in violation of the norms. I can’t imagine it would be that difficult at OLA for a communicant who does not want intinction to just hold out their hands while kneeling at the communion rail and have Father give them an undipped host but apparently that is not allowed! Why, I’m not sure.

There is absolutely no Church law, dogma or policy that says the minister or presbyter can force anyone receiving to receive under both forms. Which brings us back to the idea that the folks at Atonement think they are somehow better or exempt from following the norms established by the US Catholic Bishops (whom Bishop Lopes is a member of that body and seemingly agreeing with and subject to its norms). The fact that both Bishop Lopes (in violation of USCCB norms) and Fr. Lewis in some in-your-face, take it or don’t come forward for communion policy, would deprive a faithful member of the Church the Holy Eucharist for such petty and indefensible(in the eyes of the Church) reasons should speak volumes of the errors occurring in that Parish and, it seems the Ordinariate as a whole.

So what I'm hearing is that reception in the hand has been the consistent Anglican tradition from the first Books of Common Prayer. While in the early Reformation, it may have implied rejection of the Real Presence, a level of ambiguity seems to have prevailed in subsequent decades, and certainly between the 17th and 19th centuries, it was accepted that Anglicans had latitude to believe in the Real Presence or not. By the mid-19th century, reception in the hand carried no particular implication, it was just standard practice.

Meanwhile, certainly by the post-Conciliar period, reception in the hand by Catholics is fully licit and accepted by the same bishops' conference in which the North American ordinariate operates. It presumably reflects belief in the Real Presence for practicing Catholics, since at the time of reception, they say "Amen" specifically as an assent to the doctrine of the Real Presence. Again, to impute something else to the practice is like insisting the OK sign is actually a white supremacist gesture.

In his March 12 letter, Fr Lewis said that there are sound theological reasons for requiring communicants to receive in both kinds on the tongue. He went on to say that he would be more than glad to explain them. I challenge Fr Lewis to explain these reasons to me, as well as to explain how reception on the tongue is part of the Anglican patrimony.

I recognize that ordinariate clergy have been instructed not to communicate with me. Perhaps Fr Lewis could forward his explanation to Fr Perkins, who might in turn forward them to me via some third party. Otherwise, I'm hard pressed to understand how the ordinariate is not, as the visitor above suggests, teaching errors to the faithful.