This is the subject of an article on the NCR site today. The broader question is, will some things we used to do in liturgy ever come back?
In the article, the answer to these questions concerns the livelihood of some people:
" In the days after the World Health Organization declared the SARS-CoV-2 virus a pandemic on March 11, 2020, Catholic parishes and churches across the country and around the world closed their doors and temporarily ceased in-person celebrations of the Mass in lieu of virtual liturgies. When churches reopened, in most cases the communal Communion cup did not come back."
"For cultivators of sacramental wine, it represented a worst-case scenario. And as concerns remain about how to conduct communal consumption of the Precious Blood amid a highly contagious virus, so too winemakers worry about what those decisions will mean for their future business."
"Even if the church returns to the common chalice being distributed, I don't think a lot of people are going to take it up," Ouweleen said."
"I don't even know if it'll ever come back again," said John Cribari, president of Cribari Vineyards in Fresno, California. "I don't know. Would you do it?"
Sales down 90%
"Operations at Cribari came to "a dead halt" as COVID-19 shutdowns spread across the U.S."
"The vineyard, located in California's Central Valley, the top grape-growing region in the state, had just scheduled a large packing order to prepare for Easter — along with Christmas, one of the biggest business days, as churches anticipate more people filling the pews."
"When we saw what was coming, we just threw a huge wrench into the schedule of production and cut it substantially," Cribari said.
"With only priests primarily consuming the consecrated wine, the need for greater quantities disappeared, and many churches relied on in-house inventory."
....Another set of recommendations, issued April 30 that year, stated as churches looked to begin reopening, distribution of the Precious Blood should remain paused, "nor should the faithful receive the Eucharist by intinction" — dipping the host into the consecrated wine. Nearly every diocese in the U.S. adopted the measures, and the communal cups were mothballed.
"Along with sacramental wine vineyards, wholesalers of church supplies and goods also saw business dry up fast, not just for sacramental wine but other items like hosts and candles. Patrick Baker & Sons, which primarily distributes Mont La Salle altar wines in New England, saw its overall sales cut in half. At the Church Supply Warehouse, based in Wheaton, Illinois, sacramental wine sales made up 10% of sales pre-pandemic, and have shrunk to roughly 1-2% of total revenues."
Some of the vine growers have tried to transition more towards a table wine emphasis, and others have tried to encourage wine tourism by offering camping or B&B experiences.
Our parish didn't offer Communion under both kinds to the congregation very often, usually just during Holy Week. However the EMHC's who assisted at Mass were offered the cup. I am an EMHC for two or three months out of the year at the Saturday evening Mass. I do miss receiving the consecrated wine even though I understand that Jesus isn't subdivided, we receive his body, blood, soul, and divinity from either of the consecrated elements. It is just something that feels a bit missing.
Receiving from the cup isn't the only custom which has fallen by the wayside. The sign of peace, in any other way than a wave or hand signal, is still gone, except among family members. The children's collection, which was popular among the younger set, isn't being done again. Maybe it won't be, but that is too bad. Everyone enjoyed watching the little kids run up to the front with their children's envelopes or quarters and dimes.
The quality that seems to be missing is connectivity. Maybe we will find it again, but maybe we won't.
I will be most happy to return to communion under both species. But that time is not yet. There's a noticeable uptick in the daily case rate in PA. My guess is that it's a combination of the invasion of the BA2 subvariant along with the sudden cessation of social mandates. I.e., my gym stopped taking temperatures before entering. It will be interesting to see how high this hump will be. It is less lethal like the BA1 but Omicron CAN kill.
ReplyDeleteMichigan's infection rate has been about 3 or 4 percent for a couple weeks, but this week moved up above 4 percent overall, higher in Detroit metro, which is always the bellwether for where rates are trending.
DeleteThe steep decline in infection rates coincided with much greater availability of home tests, so I have no idea how accurate the public health stats are.
I postponed an oral procedure at the height of Omicron. The resked was yesterday. I go back for the next round after Easter, when the holiday get togethers and spring break travel will get BA2 all spread around nicely! That appt can't be resked, so hope that the doc and techs are all being responsible in their off hours.
It's sad when things people find meaningful fall by the way. Raber misses some of the signs of connectivity you mention. There is no more coffee and donuts after Mass, hand holding at the Our Father is restricted to family units. I wonder if any parishes are finding ways to replace the connectivity with alternatives that don't get too free-lancey.
ReplyDeleteOf all the liturgical reforms of Vatican II, the communion cup met the most resistance. In the Notre Dame Study of Parish Life done in 1983, 52% of parishes reported the cup was unavailable, in another 18% of parishes less than 40% of the congregation received from the cup, in another 13% of parishes from 40% to 69 percent of the congregation received the cup and finally in only 17% of the parishes did more than 70% receive the cup.
ReplyDeleteAround 1992 the mental health boards of Ohio were given responsibility for alcohol and drug treatment. Boards and board staff changed their practices. The happy hour before the annual board meeting was abolished. We board staff decided that we would no longer drink alcohol in public, and that we would be very careful not to drink and drive. If any of us were involved in a car accident, even if we tested below the legal limit, it would be in the newspapers. The local United Way head had lost his job because of drunken driving. All this meant that I became sensitive about receiving the cup, especially as parishes began to prod everyone to receive the cup. I decided to abstain on some occasions just because I thought the cup should not be a requirement.
Then about ten years ago I developed my balance problem which necessitated a walking stick. That made receiving the cup more difficult, so I abstained even more.
Finally, I read that alcohol and caffeine sometimes contribute to another problem that I had, episodes of atrial fibrillation, so I gave up alcohol, caffeine, and the cup.
Right now the question is whether Betty and I will ever be able to come back to parish Eucharists. Every time we begin to make plans to do so another wave comes along. We were thinking of Pentecost but the coming wave may push that back. If the virus becomes seasonal like the flu maybe we will be going to church only during the summer. My aunt switched to televised Masses in her eighties; she just got fed up with having to sit next to sick people in church.
At the base in NJ where I worked, they had multicultural days and employee appreciation days. Beer was served and you could walk around with it. Then they made it so you had to drink beer in a fenced off space under the supervision of a cop. A kind of mini concentration camp. Needless to say, a lot of people stopped drinking beer AND going to these events. They became more like opportunities for suckups to smooge with the bosses. Takes the fun out of everything.
ReplyDeleteI can’t remember a time in my two Catholic parishes when the cup wasn’t offered. Jack, when was it first approved? During the last ten years in the Episcopal parish it was offered for a sip or intinction. The Episcopal church teaches Real Presence but does not teach, nor accept, the concept of transsubstantiation. I’d say that about half the people chose to sip and about half chose intinction. At the moment, based on reading the weekly email, I think only intinction is permitted. A few years ago when I was church shopping we went to a Lutheran church. They offered the cup but they also had a tray of tiny paper cups that had non- alcoholic “wine.”
ReplyDeleteYes, Anglicans accept transubstantiation, but it is not an essential of faith like belief in the Real Presence. It was agreed at one of the ecumenical conferences with Rome that transubstantiation was an acknowledgement of the Real Presence. Many in the Anglo-Catholic wing of the Anglican communion believe it. These dogmatic hairs get sliced and diced pretty finely.
DeleteThe Anglo- Catholics are much more conservative than the ECUSA. Most of the Anglo- Catholic parishes broke away from the ECUSA because of the acceptance of the gay bishop in New Hampshire. Some became RC parishes as ordinairiate parishes, but most joined a new organization that sprung up to accommodate them. Some joined Anglican African dioceses because most of the Anglican bishops in Africa are as homophobic as the Catholics. I believe the Orthodox also teach Real Presence ( Jack can elaborate on this I’m sure), but don’t insist on how it occurs. Individual belief in transsubstantiation is accepted but not required. Our EC pastor was relieved to learn that I don’t accept that doctrine, but, like the Orthodox, the EC is pretty open to letting people decide these things on their own. It’s one of the things I really like about them - they don’t have a 1000 page catechism full of “ must believes”.
DeleteECUSA is the main branch of the Episcopal Church. There are also some mission dioceses of the Ugandan Church no longer in ECUSA but still in the Anglican Communion. A few parishes, including our old one, became Anglican Catholic, which is out of communion with Canterbury and Rome.
DeleteAnglo-Catholics may exist in any of these groups. I am an Anglo-Catholic.
I have concerns about the way ECUSA has handled some of its differences with other branches of Anglicanism. It came to a head with Bishop Gene Robinson, but there were other stressors in the American church. Whatever beefs I had with ECUSA was overshadowed by the sheer nastiness of the Ugandan faction.
At the time I went through RCIA, I thought I was catholic enough to join the RCC and that joining up would help me live a life in which I could dedicate myself more fully to God. Didn't turn out that way, so I find myself treading water in the Tiber, though closer to the Canterbury side these days.
Not sure why your priest would be "relieved" that you don't accept transubstantiation unless it signaled that you weren't going to give him/her a hard time about other doctrinal issues.
The CCC is quite daunting, I agree. For quite a few years, it looked like religious differences might be a deal breaker for our marriage. I finally pointed out several rules I had not lived up to that would have given Raber grounds for an annulment. He might have pursued that route and traded me in for a nice Catholic woman without all the baggage and a tendency to argue.
The upshot was that he accepted my lapsing, and I support his Catholicism, and there's lots we avoid discussing.
The New Missal was approved by Paul VI on April 3, 1969. I suspect that the official giving of the cup to laity took place within a few years. However, since the idea was approved at Vatican II, the giving of the cup probably took place much earlier in some parishes or at some progressive liturgies (just as some English had been used) before it all became official.
ReplyDeleteFrom the NY Times
ReplyDeleteST. LOUIS, Aug. 23, 1964—The first major atep in the modern?ation of the Roman Catholic liturgy in this country, the inauguration of the mass in Eng
Latin and English versions of miss are on Page 19. lish, will be taken here tomorrow afternoon.
Thousands of priests, nuns and laymen are expected to crowd into Kiel Auditorium at 5 P.M. to hear the Rev. Frederick R. McManus of Catholic University of America celebrate the first mass. Masses will also be celebrated in English on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
Priests from most of the nation's dioceses, which embrace 45 million American Catholics, have been sent by their supe riors to observe the first celebrations. The English mass is expected to come into general use in this country on Nov. 29, the first day of the ecclesiastical year.
The celebrations were authorized by Joseph E. Cardinal Ritter, the Archbishop of St. Louis, to mark the 25th gathering of the Liturgical Conference.
I was there for the first Mass; I was an undergraduate at Saint John's at the time. I don't think there was communion from the chalice. I also don't remember receiving from the chalice at Saint John's.
Thanks Jack. So English was introduced in the US by late 1964. I was in France in 1965-66. Mass was in French in the local parishes, and in English at the English language parish there. We went to Christmas mass in Germany and German was used. It was in English at my Catholic college when I returned the following year.
DeleteWe married in 1972 (50 years later this year). I don’t remember much about the mass or communion other than being so grateful that the pastor invited my husband to receive during the nuptial mass, and to continue receiving as a member of the parish, albeit still officially not Catholic. He was never pressured to convert. It was the most Jesus-like love I ever experienced in the Catholic Church in my whole life. That experience of Jesus’ love coming from a priest kept me in the Catholic Church for 25 years even after the pastor moved to a new parish, and even though I did have to take temporary leaves- of - absence several times when I simply couldn’t handle the acceleration of the backwards course that started with JPII. Benedict gave me the final incentive to walk out the door - Benedict along with a series of increasingly conservative JPII and Benedict priests and pastors. It was hard to leave but I simply could not continue to remain in a Catholic parish, dissenting from so many Catholic doctrines (the reason I never agreed to teach religious Ed when asked to) and live with my conscience.
The episcopal liturgy at our parish is in English of course, but with more beautiful translations of prayers in general, and more Jesus- like translations of the prayers (inclusive language. For example, In the creed, Jesus came for US and...not Jesus came for us MEN ....). There is often some sung Latin - the Gloria, for example, and Greek - the Kyrie Eleison. Episcopalians also offer Morning prayer and Evening prayer n many parishes.
The first time I remember a partially English Mass with an altar facing the people was pre-Vatican II in about 1961 or 62. We were visiting an aunt in Pueblo, Colorado. I remember that my mom was so impressed. She was a convert and always felt that the celebrant's back to the congregation came across as rude. The bishop of that diocese was considered a bit of a maverick, that's probably why the priest got away with the "preview" of some of the changes.
DeleteI do feel sorry for the vine-growers who depended on the altar wine trade for much of their livelihood. The Communion cup is not likely to come back into use soon for most congregations. Altar wine has some requirements; it is supposed to be at least 12% alcohol, and without artificial additives. This shouldn't be a barrier to selling it as table wine. The lack of additives may even make it more desirable to the organic crowd.
ReplyDeleteI was in Wal-Mart a couple of days ago and was surprised to see how much they had expanded their wine and spirits area. It appears that wine is experiencing brisk sales. Hopefully the vine growers and producers will be able to work that to their advantage.
I never heard of anybody going broke selling alcohol ...
DeleteI wonder if vintners who sold to churches got any special perks in the way of taking discounts nor what-not. If so, likely the loss of that perk plus the cost of re-branding and -labeling, and finding a new distributor will be what costs them $$.
*tax discounts
DeleteI'm not much of a drinker, and not much of a wine connoissseur. We split a bottle of Arbor Mist six ways for our last holiday dinner. What I do notice on the shelves is a proliferation of small winery brands. Even the big ones have redesigned their labels. Everyone now has a very arty label. And very creative names for their product. If the former altar wine producers want to compete in that market, they should put their creative skills to work.
DeleteA couple of years ago my son showed me how the label on our dinner wine could become animated using his iPhone and a special app.
DeleteMaybe these vintners could attract the home market by using “ living labels” - they could have a labels for mass, the rosary, litanies,?
https://www.ksby.com/news/2018/09/25/local-company-brings-wine-to-life-with-augmented-reality-2
I made my first communion in 1968 or 69. I don't think the cup was on offer to the people then, but it came shortly thereafter.
ReplyDeleteWhether it is safe for dozens of strangers to drink from the same cup always has been a question out there, even pre-COVID. Among recipients of communion, only about half, or even fewer, ever would drink from the cup in our parish. I am pretty certain that health concerns were the chief reason that more wouldn't partake.
The question of whether it was safe to drink from a shared cup was sufficiently prevalent that at one time, pre-COVID, the US bishops had a statement on their website about it. I don't have time now to search for it, but I'll try later. The statement was from the CDC or a similar authoritative source. As I recall, it was rather cautiously written, and didn't explicitly say, "It is safe to partake of a shared cup." But it also didn't say, "Stay away from a shared cup!" The bishops' intent in publishing the statement was to reassure everyone that drinking from a shared cup wasn't inordinately risky.
It's worth considering that unconsumed precious blood can't be poured down the drain after communion; somebody needs to consume what remains - which on a Sunday could be a considerable amount, in several cups. At least in our parish, the people with that job are the communion ministers. When they drain those cups, they are drinking from cups which already had been drunk from by many people - and they could be drinking much, much more than the tiny sips that everyone else takes. If there is risk in a shared cup, those folks certainly would be the most at-risk.
I've done that job on Holy Thursday (pre-Covid). I didn't catch anything. But as I've said, I'm not used to drinking much, and I felt pretty dizzy after consuming nearly a full cup. High on the Lord, I guess.
DeleteJust a bit more on shared cups. I have never seen this, but I am told there are Protestant churches which, pre-COVID and perhaps in this era, offer each person their own individual cup, shot-glass-size, with a tiny amount of the wine in it. That surely would address the health concerns. But Catholic liturgists always poo-poo'd the individual cup practice, as it didn't sufficiently manifest the unity which a shared cup symbolizes. Whether the individual-cup practice is gaining new currency among Catholic liturgists in this COVID era, I am not certain, but it strikes me as the only practical way to reintroduce reception from a cup on a large scale.
DeleteTraditionally, at least around here, the deacon would receive from the priest's chalice. That stopped in 2020; the new recommendation was for the priest to consecrate two chalices, one for the priest and another for the deacon. But, as I was being offered a cup and the rest of the people weren't, I asked my pastor to please not consecrate a cup for me. If they can do without, then so can I.
A few months ago I was a deacon at a mass in a different diocese. Apparently they have resumed having the deacon drink from the priest's cup. The matter didn't occur to me before mass, so I didn't realize, until it was actually offered to me,
that I'd be expected to drink from a chalice that someone else already had drunk from. I drained the chalice, but I admit it gave me the willies.
Here the deacons are back to drinking from the chalice after the priest, and doing the purifying afterwards. I'd rather they didn't, but doesn't seem to bother my husband.
DeleteI believe with the little individual cups, tge problem is with purifying them afterwards. At my maternal grandparents' church (Baptist) they had a little glass cups. Some places do intinction, but that can be rather messy. I understand that some of the Eastern churches do intinction with a spoon. Shared by everyone. I think that would be worse than a shared cup.
The RCC bans intinction. Does it also ban individual cups? Our episcopal parish offered intinction as well as the shared cup. The Lutheran church we went to offered individual cups as well as the shared cup. But I think the individual cups were non- alcoholic wine, probably also banned by the RCC. I’ve known of at least one case of an alcoholic priest who had to get special permission to sip grape juice instead of wine. He was pastor at my sister’s parish. But non- alcoholic wine is probably verboten and individual cups probably are too. After all, they refuse to permit gluten free wafers - not obeying the command to love Catholics with celiac disease. One of my nieces has celiac disease and the low- gluten wafers still don’t cut it, at least not for her. She is now totally alienated from church, especially the RCC. No bread for some . Too bad, so sad.
DeleteI also went to a non- denominational service once with a friend (female) who is an ordained Baptist minister (not southern Baptist but the Baptists that Jimmy Carter went to because of the Southern Baptist denial of ordination to women. (Yay, Jimmy!) . There was no shared cup, only individual cups.
The RCC is not known for letting common sense override canon law. Legalism will probably triumph again. While still in Catholic pews on Sundays, I would estimate that at least 95% of the congregation sipped the wine. Of course, this was years before Covid. I don’t know what they are doing now in local RC parishes. Perhaps bread alone.
Katherine, right - I also now ask priests to purify their own vessels. Maybe I'm being overly cautious, but why risk catching COVID?
DeleteAnne, the deacons were doing self-intinction at the parish across town during Covid restrictions. Our priest during that time (he was transferred this summer) had gone through alcohol rehab and was using what they called "mustum" which is basically unprocessed grape juice. He said it tasted pretty much like Welch's. He had the archbishop's permission. The deacons had a separate chalice with regular wine. We do have a few parishioners with celiac, and we have very low gluten hosts for them. The story is that they are made in a Benedictine convent, and the nun in charge is a former biochemist. Our people seem to do okay with those hosts. In former, preCovid times there was also the option of receiving only the consecrated wine from a separate chalice, because when the priest fractions his host, he places a fragment in his chalice. Yes, it does seem rather hair-splitting, but we try to accommodate everyone. As my older son said, if Jesus had been born in Japan we'd probably be using rice cakes and sake.
Deleteo
I never found intinction messy. But in most ECUSA parishes 20 years ago, you were dunking your wafer in the common cup that some people had drunk from directly. During flu season the priest would encourage intinction only.
DeleteI had communion on a spoon a few times at the Melchite Church with my friend Dan's family. The priest was very deft! Spoon never touched your mouth.
"The priest was very deft! Spoon never touched your mouth."
DeleteThat is standard practice in Orthodox churches. Both priests and people learn how to do it without the spoon touching the mouth. Since it is difficult, during the height of the pandemic, some Orthodox parishes gave communion with disposable spoons.