當中關於送聖體方式的部份，引起了我的注意。
Do not change the rite of ministering Communion to make it more efficient and less personal.
In some places in the late 1970s, seemingly in the interests of efficiency, "self-intinction" had been practiced for Communion under both kinds and occasionally this practice continues. No major liturgical writer has ever suggested that intinction is a good way to minister Communion under both kinds - drinking from the chalice is always to be preferred (cf. U.S. Norms #42). One form of "self-intinction" forces all communicants to take a host themselves and then to dip it in the chalice. Such a practice does not give people the option of drinking from the chalice or even of receiving Communion on the tongue, and we must respect that piety even if we disagree with it. In addition, such a practice eliminates the necessity of having a minister in the action of receiving Communion, therefore depersonalizing it as well as turning an action which for centuries has been seen as "humbly receiving God's gifts" into "taking what is rightfully mine."
Archimandrite Robert Taft, S.J., an expert on liturgies of the Eastern Chrisitian Churches, writes:
But from the sources we have studied at least one thing is clear: the Eucharist, ideally at least, is not something one takes. It is a gift received, a meal shared. And since sacraments by their very nature are supposed to symbolize what they mean, then self-service, cafeteria-style communion rites just will not do. (24)
This same reorientation of symbol takes place anytime the Sacred Elements are passed through the congregation, as occasionally happens in some small group liturgies. Such a practice is also explicitly prohibited in the 2002 GIRM (#160).
The late Father Robert Hovda wrote:
The personal sharing and transaction between minister and communicant is part of the symbolic action. That is why it is such a loss when that personal dimension is eliminated by the use of a mode of sharing which does not involve a minister of the plate and a minister of the cup. One sees this not infrequently: plates simply passed through a group, or cups simply placed on the altar to be found by communicants. The loss is not a minor one. It is a loss of personal eye contact, personal word, personal gesture, personal touch. (25)
If the group is small enough, it may be very meaningful, once in a while, for the presiding priest to minister the consecrated Bread to all present first and then to minister the Precious Blood. But to pass the elements in a larger group, forcing everyone in a non-homogeneous group to "take" rather than "receive," in the minds of most liturgical authors, results in a poorer liturgical experience.
(24) Taft, "Receiving Communion - A Forgotten Symbol?" p. 418.
(25) Hovda, in Kay, It is Your Own Mystery, pp. 31-32.
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