September 30, 2022 – Pastor’s Note

[Series on the People’s Chalice, Part 2/3]
[Part 1]
[Part 3]

Today we pick up where we left off last week on the history of sharing the chalice with the laity at Mass.

Fr. Jungmann continues his account:

“When the chalice Communion was already practically forgotten [in the 12^th century], it was seized upon by hostile groups and made a symbol of their movement. Thereupon, after first being forbidden, the lay chalice was granted in 1433 for Bohemia. After the Council of Trent, the use of the chalice was granted for Germany, under certain specified conditions, but after some unhappy experiences the concession was withdrawn, for Bavaria in 1571, for Austria in 1584, and for Bohemia and in general, in 1621.”

The most notable dissenter of all, of course, was Marin Luther, who addresses the question of communion under both kinds extensively in his 1520 treaties On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church. His conclusion from that treatment was:

The first captivity of this sacrament, therefore, concerns its substance or completeness, which the tyranny of Rome has wrested from us. Not that those who use only one kind sin against Christ, for Christ did not command the use of either kind, but left it to the choice of each individual, when he said: “As often as you do this, do it in remembrance of me” [I Cor. 11:25]. But they are the sinners, who forbid the giving of both kinds to those who wish to exercise this choice. The fault lies not with the laity, but with the priests. The sacrament does not belong to the priests, but to all men. The priests are not lords, but servants in duty bound to administer both kinds to those who desire them, as often as they desire them. If they wrest this right from the laity and deny it to them by force, they are tyrants; but the laity are without fault, whether they lack one kind or both kinds. In the meantime they must be preserved by their faith and by their desire for the complete sacrament.

The Council of Trent addressed the Reformers’ arguments in Session XXI (July 1562). Of most interest to our discussion are the following:

“[This Council] declares furthermore, that in the dispensation of the sacraments […] the Church may, according to circumstances, times and places, determine or change whatever she may judge most expedient for the benefit of those receiving them or for the veneration of the sacraments; and this power has always been hers. […] Wherefore, though from the beginning of the Christian religion the use of both forms has not been infrequent, yet since that custom has been already very widely changed, holy mother Church, cognizant of her authority in the administration of the sacraments, has, induced by just and weighty reasons, approved this custom of communicating under either species and has decreed that it be considered the law, which may not be repudiated or changed at pleasure without the authority of the Church.”

“[This Council] declares, moreover, that though our Redeemer at the last supper instituted and administered this sacrament to the Apostles under two forms, as has already been said, yet it must be acknowledged that Christ, whole and entire, and a true sacrament are received under either form alone, and therefore, as regards its fruits, those who receive one species only are not deprived of any grace necessary to salvation.”

You can see in these passages from an Ecumenical Council (the highest expression, united with the Pope, of the magisterium of the Church!) why the bishops of the world felt so free to restrict the chalice immediately during the COVID-19 pandemic and why some U.S. bishops would even restrict the chalice during flu season long before COVID became a reality. Next week we will finish up with Vatican II and the current Mass rubrics.