Morning Prayer, Catholic style: Hit it up!

In the Benedictus, the sometimes, inexpressibly beautiful Morning Song of Christianity, Zechariah, mute for a substantial amount of time, bursts into words after hear God's Message from the Archangel Gabriel. In the hymn, Holy Mother Church sings with Zechariah about, his son, John the Baptist, and the great announcement of salvation to the many through the forgiveness of their sins. More poignantly, however, the Church is reminded and renewed in, through, and with "The dawn from on high", Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Another noteworthy event, or saying in the Canticle of Zechariah, taken from the opening chapters of Luke's Gospel, is the sentence, "He (God) promised to free us from our enemies." So, so more often that not, dear friends, those enemies are in the interior life of ourselves, rather than in other people or objects around us. God promised us interior freedom; the freedom and opportunity to cleanse ourselves, with the help of His grace, from those things that each human has inside himself or herself that blocks that particular person from a fruitful relationship with God.

Hand or Mouth

Receiving Communion via the hand or having the priest place the Consecrated Host directly on the tongue is, unfortunately, a controversial subject in the Roman Catholic Church ( in Eastern Catholic Rites all faithful receive the inctincted Eucharist -  the Consecrated Host dipped in the Precious Blood of Our Lord - in the mouth directly  from the priest or deacon via an extended spoon).
           The purpose here is to understand what actually happened at the Passover meal Our Lord shared with his Apostles, and secondly to point out that a discussion of that particular Passover meal occurs nowhere in the Gospel of John; when we look for a discussion of it in John, we look to John Ch. 6, which is a prefiguration of the last Passover meal Jesus (while in space and time) shared with His Apostles. Why I am I referring to the events Roman Catholics celebrate on Holy Thursday as a Passover meal rather than the Eucharist? Because the Supreme Sacrifice that is Jesus’ death, the only acceptable Sacrifice to the Father for Man's sins) reopened the gates of Heaven to the many and defeated Satan once and for all time occurred on Good Friday, not Holy Thursday.
          Let's look at the several actions of the Passover meal our Lord shared with His Apostles: the first one we want to look at for our purposes is that the Apostles with Our Lord reclined, not necessarily at tables like we know them today, but on low couches, and the table may have been several clothes, on the floor, placed on top of on another. They reclined by leaning back on their left elbows. This put the Beloved Disciple right at Our Lord's breast. Our Lord had already announced to the group that one of them would betray him. The Beloved Disciple intimately said to Jesus, because it was an intimate situation for all, "who is it." Jesus replied, it is the one to whom I hand the morsel after I have dipped it." (John 13)
         So, let's keep our close look at the setting and events. The twelve were reclined on their left elbows and shoulders, and the way that each would Jesus feed the disciple to his right was to lean over his left shoulder with the bread dipped in wine and place in it that disciples mouth, much as new husbands and wives do as they feed each other pieces of wedding cake at the reception as a great sign of intimacy and love.
      The Apostle at Jesus's right was Judas, and Jesus feed him in the above mentioned manner, looked back over his shoulder and said to Judas, "whatever you do, do quickly."
       How does this apply to the way in which Roman Catholics receive what is now Christ Crucified, because it is after Good Friday, 2013 years after the Supreme Sacrifice for man's fall from Grace? Well, the priest, while administering the Sacraments is in persona Christi, or in the person of Christ, standing in the place Our Lord. Those in formation for the Priesthood of Jesus Christ usually get used to handling the Body and Blood of Our Lord by receiving him in the hand, as I was instructed by my seminary professor while I was in formation. The Church, however, can not specifically order her faithful to receive the sacrament one particular way, nor would she want to do that. But perhaps the faithful are loosing a degree of that intimate relationship and love that Christ has for them and hopefully they return for Christ, by not receiving the Consecrated Host on the tongue, from the priest who at that moment, is standing in the place of Christ Himself.