A communion-plate is a metal plate held under the chin of a communicant while receiving Holy Communion in the Catholic Church. Its use was common in the last part of the nineteenth century and during most of the twentieth.
A communion-plate is a metal plate held under the chin of a communicant while receiving Holy Communion in the Catholic Church. Its use was common in the last part of the nineteenth century and during most of the twentieth.
The communion-plate is in Latin called patina, distinguishing it from the paten, which in Latin is called patena.
The Vatican-approved English translation of documents such as the General Instruction of the Roman Missal hyphenates the name. [1] The two words are also written separately, as in the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church [2] and in Bishop Peter John Elliott's Liturgical Question Box. [3]
The unhyphenated term, "communion plate", is also used to mean in general eucharistic vessels plated with a precious metal, such as patens, chalices and ciboria. [4]
"Communion plate" (unhyphenated) is also used [5] for what is more commonly called a "communion tray", [6] holding bread in the form of a loaf or cubes or crackers or holding small cups of wine or grape juice, which are passed along the pews in some Protestant churches [7] [8] since the final years of the nineteenth century. [9] [10]
The custom of holding a small communion-plate under the chin when receiving the sacred host arose in the mid-19th century, and became widespread after 16 March 1876, when in response to an enquiry about the new practice, the Sacred Congregation of Rites said it had no objection to it. [11] On 26 March 1929 the Congregation for the Discipline of the Sacraments ordered its use by communicants, who were to hold it under their chin and then return it to the priest or pass it to the next communicant. [12] In October of the following year, the same Congregation approved, in answer to a query, an alternative custom that had developed in some countries, in which the communion-plate was held under the communicant's chin, not by the communicant but by an altar server. [13] The Congregation continued to require the use everywhere of a white linen cloth or veil stretched below the mouths of communicants, as prescribed by the Roman Missal. [14] This has been called the communion cloth or the houseling cloth. A photograph of its continued use in 2013 within the sanctuary of a church appears in an online report on a priestly ordination in a Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter church. [15] It can also be attached to the altar rails. [16]
In his 1960 Code of Rubrics, Pope John XXIII mentioned "the Communion plate for the faithful" (patina pro fidelium Communione) as one of the objects to be placed on the credence table before Mass. [17] Two years later, he revised the Roman Missal, removing the rubric about the communion cloth and inserting a mention of the communion-plate, saying that the celebrant "puts into the chalice any fragments that may be found on the communion-plate that was placed under the chin of the communicants". [18] That the communion-plate replaced the cloth is a view mentioned by Monsignor Charles Pope and others. [19] [20]
The 2002 edition of the Roman Missal refers twice to the communion-plate: it retains the mention of it as an item to be placed on the credence table, [21] and speaks of its use in administering Communion from the chalice by intinction to the faithful, who are to hold it themselves. [22] The 2004 Instruction Redemptionis sacramentum says: "The Communion-plate for the Communion of the faithful should be retained, so as to avoid the danger of the sacred host or some fragment of it falling." [23]
The organization Catholics United for the Faith says that use of the communion-plate is obligatory even where communion in the hand is authorized, and that it is held under the communicants' chin by an altar server, not by the communicants themselves. [24]
However, since the liturgical books describe use of the communion-plate only in relation to intinction, Bishop Peter J. Elliott says that the prescription of the placing of a communion-plate on the credence table before Mass can be interpreted as meaning that this can be required only for a Mass in which intinction will be used: at other Masses use of a communion-plate is a licit option and cannot be forbidden, but is not obligatory. [3]
Bishop Elliott says that the custom of using a communion-plate continues in some churches, "especially where the option for kneeling for Communion has been retained". [3] One church has its altar servers (who are equipped also with towels) hold the communion-plates (which it calls "patens") under the chin of those who receive the host on the tongue and under the hands of those who receive it in their hands. [25] Monsignor Charles Pope says that what he calls chin patens or communion patens "are always used in the Traditional Latin Mass [...] some parishes even use it in the Ordinary Form." [19] The 2008 Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church says that the communion-plate has become "obsolescent". [2] The abbreviated Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, published in 2013, speaks of the communion-plate as, "in the RC Church, a plate of silver or metal gilt formerly held under the chin of communicants as they received the Sacrament". [4]
The Mass of Paul VI, more commonly called the post–Vatican II Mass, is the Ordinary Form of Mass in the Roman Rite, the form promulgated, after the Second Vatican Council (1962–65), by Pope Paul VI in 1969 and published by him in the 1970 edition of the Roman Missal and the revised 1975 edition, and as further revised by Pope John Paul II in 2000 and published in the third Vatican II edition (2002). In 2007, Pope Benedict XVI said of it: "The Missal published by Paul VI and then republished in two subsequent editions by John Paul II, obviously is and continues to be the normal Form – the Forma ordinaria – of the Eucharistic Liturgy".
The Tridentine Mass, also known as the Traditional Latin Mass or Usus Antiquior, is the Roman Rite Mass of the Catholic Church which appears in typical editions of the Roman Missal published from 1570 to 1962. Celebrated exclusively in Ecclesiastical Latin, it was the most widely used Eucharistic liturgy in the world from its issuance in 1570 until the introduction of the Mass of Paul VI.
A chalice or goblet is a footed cup intended to hold a drink. In religious practice, a chalice is often used for drinking during a ceremony or may carry a certain symbolic meaning.
An altar server is a lay assistant to a member of the clergy during a Christian liturgy. An altar server attends to supporting tasks at the altar such as fetching and carrying, ringing the altar bell, among other things. If young, the server is commonly called an altar boy or altar girl. In some Christian denominations, altar servers are known as acolytes.
"Gloria in excelsis Deo" is a Christian hymn known also as the Greater Doxology and the Angelic Hymn/Hymn of the Angels. The name is often abbreviated to Gloria in Excelsis or simply Gloria.
A tabernacle is a fixed, locked box in which, in some Christian churches, the Eucharist is "reserved" (stored). A less obvious container for the same purpose, set into a wall, is called an aumbry.
A paten, or diskos, is a small plate, usually made of silver or gold, used to hold Eucharistic bread which is to be consecrated during the Mass. It is generally used during the liturgy itself, while the reserved sacrament are stored in the tabernacle in a ciborium.
Intinction is the Eucharistic practice of partly dipping the consecrated bread, or host, into the consecrated wine before consumption by the communicant.
The Roman Rite is the main liturgical rite of the Latin or Western Church, the largest of the sui iuris particular Churches that make up the Catholic Church. It developed in the Latin language in the city of Rome and, while distinct Latin liturgical rites such as the Ambrosian Rite remain, the Roman Rite has over time been adopted almost everywhere in the Western Church. In medieval times there were very many local variants, even if they did not all amount to distinct rites, but uniformity grew as a result of the invention of printing and in obedience to the decrees of the 1545–1563 Council of Trent. Several Latin liturgical rites that survived into the 20th century were abandoned voluntarily in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. The Roman Rite is now the most widespread liturgical rite not only in the Latin Church but in Christianity as a whole.
An altar cloth altar cloth is used in the Christian liturgy to cover the altar. It is both a sign of awe as well as decoration and protection of the altar and the sacred vessels. In the orthodox churches is covered by the antimension, which also contains the relics of saints.
In the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church, Lutheranism, Methodism and Anglicanism, an altar or sanctus bell is typically a small hand-held bell or set of bells. The primary reason for the use of such bells is to create a joyful noise to the Lord as a way to give thanks for the miracle taking place atop the altar. An ancillary function of the bells is to focus the attention of those attending the Mass that a supernatural event is taking place on the altar. Such bells are also commonly referred to as the Mass bell, sacring bell, Sacryn bell, saints' bell, sance-bell, or sanctus bell. and are kept on the credence table or some other convenient location within the sanctuary.
Solemn Mass is the full ceremonial form of the Tridentine Mass, celebrated by a priest with a deacon and a subdeacon, requiring most of the parts of the Mass to be sung, and the use of incense. It is also called High Mass or Solemn High Mass. However, in the United States the term "High Mass" is also used to describe the less elaborate Missa Cantata, which lacks deacon and subdeacon and some of the ceremonies connected with them.
The text and rubrics of the Roman Canon have undergone revisions over the centuries, while the Canon itself has retained its essential form as arranged no later than the 7th century. The text consists of a succession of short prayers with no clear sequence of thought. The rubrics, as is customary in similar liturgical books, indicate the manner in which to carry out the celebration.
The Mass is the central liturgical rite in the Catholic Church, encompassing the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist, where the bread and wine are consecrated and become the body and blood of Christ. As defined by the Church at the Council of Trent, in the Mass, "The same Christ who offered himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross, is present and offered in an unbloody manner." The Church describes the Holy Mass as "the source and summit of the Christian life". It teaches that through consecration by an ordained priest the bread and wine become the sacrificial body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ as the sacrifice on Calvary made truly present once again on the altar. The Catholic Church permits only baptised members in the state of grace to receive Christ in the Eucharist.
In Eastern and Western Christian liturgical practice, the elevation is a ritual raising of the consecrated elements of bread and wine during the celebration of the Eucharist. The term is applied especially to that by which, in the Roman Rite of Mass, the Host and the Chalice are each shown to the people immediately after each is consecrated. The term may also refer to a piece of music played on the organ or sung at that point in the liturgy.
Sacramental wine, Communion wine, or altar wine is wine obtained from grapes and intended for use in celebration of the Eucharist. It is usually consumed after sacramental bread.
The Spoon in Eastern Christianity is a liturgical implement used to distribute Holy Communion to the laity during the Divine Liturgy of the Eastern Orthodox Church and those Eastern Catholic Churches which follow the Byzantine Rite.
A credence table is a small side table in the sanctuary of a Christian church which is used in the celebration of the Eucharist..
In the Catholic Church, the altar is the structure upon which the Eucharist is celebrated.
Versus populum is the liturgical stance of a priest who, while celebrating Mass, faces the people from the other side of the altar. The opposite stance, that of a priest facing in the same direction as the people, is today called ad orientem or ad apsidem.
