Communion: Do You Receive or Take?

This might seem trivial, even silly to some older Catholics who have been taking communion since they were seven, but I'm still a little unsure. And it seems at most masses lately, I've been getting "hit over the head with a frying pan" about which way I should receive communion.

In RCIA, Father taught us that we cup our hands, putting the hand we use on the bottom. Then to respond Amen and take our bottom hand and use it to put the host in our mouth. He also mentioned that the second way was to open our mouth and not to dangle our tongue like Gene Simmons.

I've watched very closely how people take communion ( though I don't do that anymore since I recently read you're supposed to be praying while you're waiting to receive. Something I did not learn in RCIA). Most people in our church do take communion cup style. It seems only those who are holding small children or who are more traditional receive in the mouth. I once saw a man licking the palm of his hand. Horrified, I asked Heathcliff, "What's that man doing?! Isn't that disrespectful?" He then asked me a series of questions I knew the answers to: What is he taking? The host. What do we believe about the Host? It's the full presence of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Is He present in every particle of it? Yes. When you take communion in the hands, could there be pieces of the host left on them? Here I paused, and I realized what the man was doing by licking his hands. He wasn't being disrespectful at all. In fact, the man was preventing possible abuses to Our Beloved Savior. By licking his hands, the man was getting any miniscule particles that might get trampled on by other communicants, stuck to the bottom of some person's shoe, or worse, swept up by the Church janitor and thrown into the garbage. To think of something like that happening, it breaks my heart.

Yet, I still take communion in the hand. I feel guilty about it too. Not guilty for taking communion, but guilty that I can't have the courage enough to take communion as I think I should. Part of it is peer pressure, part of it is rebellion. Everyone else takes communion in the hand, and I'll be in the minority. Heathcliff used to make a big deal about the way I take communion, and it really put me off from receiving communion in the mouth. Now, neither of these things is such a big deal. Now, it's just awkwardness that binds me. I psyche myself up on the way, I pray for the courage to do it, and when I do, it's awkward and unfulfilling. The Eucharistic ministers always makes a funny face like I'm blasting bad breath in their direction, or I'm asking too much of them to come near my mouth. Or maybe it's all in my head. But it certainly doesn't feel like it.

As I said before, lately, I've been hit over the head with signs that I need to stop with my hands. Almost after every mass for around a month (give or take), I see bit and pieces, and flakes of the Host remaining in my hand. And I carefully and lovingly gather each one, press it to my finger, and then press my finger to my tongue. But I can't help but think how many more pieces I missed before Heathcliff and I had that conversation.

One of my spiritual heroes, Mother Teresa, has an often mis-quoted quote, but it weighs heavily on my mind. (What follows is the correct quote). "Wherever I go in the whole world, the thing that makes me the saddest is watching people receive Communion in the hand." I feel that way about myself. And I think the conclusion that I've come to while writing this is this: I've been alternating using "taking" and "receiving" communion depending upon which way I'm describing. It hasn't been deliberate until the last portion of the entry. People who take communion themselves take communion in the hand. People who receive communion receive in the mouth. I've often heard it said that the Eucharist is a gift that Christ has left us; who are we to take it out of the minister's hands? Shouldn't we gracefully receive it, like the gift that it is?