Canizares on Communion

A girl kneels to receive Communion from the Pope.
A girl kneels to receive Communion from the Pope. (photo: CNS)

“What does it mean to receive Communion in the mouth? What does it mean to kneel before the Most Holy Sacrament? What does it mean to kneel during the consecration at Mass?”

Those are the questions posed by Cardinal Antonio Cañizares Llovera, the new prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, in an interview published on Sunday by the Spanish daily La Razón.

Here’s how the Spanish cardinal answered his own questions, as translated by the Rorate Caeli Catholic blog:

“It means adoration, it means recognizing the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist; it means respect and an attitude of faith of a man who prostrates before God because he knows that everything comes from Him, and we feel speechless, dumbfounded, before the wondrousness, his goodness, and his mercy.”

Added the Vatican’s new top official on liturgical matters, “That is why it is not the same to place the hand, and to receive Communion in any fashion, than doing it in a respectful way; it is not the same to receive Communion kneeling or standing up, because all these signs indicate a profound meaning. What we have to grasp is that profound attitude of the man who prostrates himself before God, and that is what the Pope wants.”

— Tom McFeely