No Manual Gestures

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Comments

  • ZappaZappa Ecclesiantics Host
    When I was at theological college there was a movement towards saying that the epiclesis is the "moment" of consecration. Basically I'm with the Orthodox and await the Amen of the people to know the mystery is fulfilled.
  • ForthviewForthview Shipmate
    I know that that is what it means as far as Western liturgies are concerned, but does Cyprian mean the same by this word ?
  • Forthview wrote: »
    I know that that is what it means as far as Western liturgies are concerned, but does Cyprian mean the same by this word ?
    That is, as I understand it, what it means, and how it is commonly used, in Orthodoxy.

  • CyprianCyprian Shipmate
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    Forthview wrote: »
    What exactly do you mean by the anaphora. ?
    The anaphora is what in Western liturgies is generally called the Eucharistic Prayer, the Canon of the Mass or the Great Thanksgiving.
    It’s the prayer that begins with the liturgical greeting and sursum corda, and ends with the doxology and “Amen.”

    This matches exactly my understanding and reflects Orthodox usage.

    Regardless of etymology, when discussing liturgics, my experience is that anaphora is directly synonymous with eucharistic prayer.

    During that prayer, whatever we choose to call it, some of the traditional rites contain rubrics that direct the priest to touch the Gifts while others do not, and I think it is important to follow those rubrics according to whatever rite is being celebrated.

    However, what I had not come across prior to reading this thread, was the idea that the celebrant not touching the Gifts during this prayer could potentially be insufficient for consecration, as is suggested in the OP. It is this that I was asking for clarification about, and not anything to do with a moment of consecration.

    If true, it seems that it would render ineffectual any rite that does not require the celebrant to touch the gifts during the anaphora. Where does the idea come from?
  • ForthviewForthview Shipmate
    Sorry that I have misunderstood exactly what Cyprian's question was. I should have gone back to the OP. The Roman Rite ,which I am most familiar with ,still supposes that the celebrant will take both the Host and the Chalice into his hands at the moment of consecration.
    If there is more than one co-consecrator only the principal celebrant would do this.

    You sometimes see a priest with only one arm and then only one hand consecrate the Host and sometimes even if the priest has two hands it may occasionally be that only one hand is used.

    I've never thought what would happen if the priest had no hands.
  • CyprianCyprian Shipmate
    Forthview wrote: »
    Sorry that I have misunderstood exactly what Cyprian's question was.

    :relieved: It happens sometimes in this form of communication.
    I've never thought what would happen if the priest had no hands.

    I assume this, at one time if not now, would have been an impediment to ordination. I'm not sure what would happen if the situation were to arise post-ordination. I know of one priest (now gone to his rest) who had developmed a medical condition that meant he only had sporadic control over holding and gripping with his hands, and did not trust himself to handle the Holy Gifts. His bishop gave him a blessing to continue to serve but always with a deacon, who would perform all carrying, elevating, &c. of the Gifts while the priest said the words.

  • Alan29Alan29 Shipmate
    Cyprian wrote: »
    If it contributes anything, in the Orthodox Tradition, the Roman and Sarum eucharistic rites are the only ones I've experienced in which the priest touches the Holy Gifts at all during the anaphora, and that's when he holds the Bread during the dominical words. In the Byzantine Liturgies, in the neo-Gallican Liturgy, as well as what I can recall of the East Syriac and Armenian Liturgies, the Holy Gifts are not touched during the anaphora.

    In some of those rites there is an elevation by the deacon, but it is the vessels that are handled, and not the Gifts themselves.

    I have never come across the idea that the priest has to touch the Gifts for them to be consecrated. Where does this come from?

    I have never come across that idea either. I'm not sure that it is an idea that no touching = no consecration otherwise the RCC would not recognise the validity of consecrations in its own uniate churches.
    People do like to put constraints on the power of God.
  • ForthviewForthview Shipmate
    I absolutely agree with Alan 29. In the Roman rite the priest holds the Host and the Chalice while saying the words of consecration because this is in the rubrics. The important thing, however, is to be doing and intending to be doing what the Church says you should be doing.
  • Interesting. If you want the priest to touch the elements, should they dip their fingers in the wine? The only time I have contact with the wine itself is when I receive, after consecration.
  • Cyprian wrote: »
    Forthview wrote: »
    Sorry that I have misunderstood exactly what Cyprian's question was.

    :relieved: It happens sometimes in this form of communication.
    I've never thought what would happen if the priest had no hands.

    I assume this, at one time if not now, would have been an impediment to ordination. I'm not sure what would happen if the situation were to arise post-ordination. I know of one priest (now gone to his rest) who had developmed a medical condition that meant he only had sporadic control over holding and gripping with his hands, and did not trust himself to handle the Holy Gifts. His bishop gave him a blessing to continue to serve but always with a deacon, who would perform all carrying, elevating, &c. of the Gifts while the priest said the words.

    At one point in the RCC it would have been an impediment but now Canon 1041 only applies to those who mutilate themselves. Decades ago I was acquainted with a canonist in Montréal preparing a proposal for a JCD thesis analyzing the indults issued for French priests mutilated in WWI (there was no exemption from conscription for clergy, but most served in support or medical rôles, and bullets and cannon shot often found them). I recall him speaking of how permission was granted to the legless to say mass while seated-- I do not remember him discussing manual gestures-- I did review the English of his 2pp on celebrating while masked or if unable to speak, which applied to priests whose faces had been so mutilated by wounds that they could not do otherwise. Apparently there was a ward/wing of a monastery or hospital in the French countryside for the worst of the clerical victims of war, but others worked as chaplains in convents etc., as it was felt that they could not serve in public places.

    @Cyprian's bishop seems to have found a useful solution. In my long-ago (15 years?) MW of All Saints (Anglican) Church on Salt Spring Island, I saw how readers and lay ministers of communion worked to smoothly assist a priest who had limited mobility issues. Where there's a will, there's a way.
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