Among this week’s highlights in the international news was the loss in Australia of a tiny capsule, less than a third of an inch long, that contained radioactive material. Somewhere along a 900-mile journey, the cesium-137 capsule not only dislodged from the mechanism in which it was a functional part, but slipped out of the vehicle transporting that mechanism. It was “on the lam” for more than two weeks, though the announced search lasted but one week and culminated in its radioactive signature being detected by a vehicle carrying a detector passing by at about seventy miles an hour on the road several yards from where it lay. So much for that excitement.
You would ask, as nearly everybody seems to be asking, how do you lose a radioactive capsule? How do you mount it so tenuously, and transport it so carelessly, that its little bundle of deadliness could wiggle loose, slip through the floor, and bounce off into the weeds? I daresay someone will be designated guilty of surpassing negligence, but since this is not governed by US tort law, I have no idea how astronomically high the financial liability will be set.
For my part, I found it not hard to understand at all. You see, I routinely distribute the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ to hundreds of people. I say I do it “routinely,” and I confess I do put a great deal of stock in the routine to provide the necessary caution and care of the precious element I handle. Not everybody, however, invests that same caution, and that same care, in their routines of receiving it.
Yes, there are (plural) routineS of receiving, and while each communicant may think he is doing the exact same thing in the exact same way every time, let me assure you, almost no two communicants present themselves in the same way to receive. The altar servers who accompany the priests with the paten in the distribution can attest to the exciting and sometimes exhausting challenge of “reading” the signals presented by each communicant and successfully delivering the Lord to the communicant.
Since the pandemic, when we began distributing communion at the communion table around the sanctuary, it has been manifest that there are many advantages to this practice, not least of which is the hygienic benefit. When the communicants are simply holding still, that is an enormous help to avoiding unwanted contact. Many have rediscovered the ease and naturalness of receiving on the tongue while kneeling, which in addition to reverence also increases accuracy.
As it has been since the late nineteen-seventies or so, there is also the permission to receive on the hand, which also goes much better when the communicant is not moving. There is a greater chance of unwanted contact when the hand receives the host. The variety of shapes and sizes of the human hand is simply astonishing, let me assure you. Add to that some hands that are not level, or are not open, and you begin to see the challenge. Let a hand shake, slide, or shudder, grab, snatch, or clutch; let it close like a mousetrap or move away the minute the host makes contact, and that where it gets truly difficult and even dangerous. The sacred host can roll or slide away, get knocked loose, break, or even shatter. This is no way to receive Our Lord -- though admittedly He is not unaccustomed to it.
I used to suggest to people that receiving Holy Communion on the hand should involve the same level of effort and attention that would apply if someone were handing you your great-grandmother’s diamond engagement ring. On a moving train. While standing on the platform between cars.
Now I have a new comparison: a 5x8mm capsule containing cesium-137. However, this little item entrusted to your care is worth all of your attention and every bit of caution you can muster not because it can bring illness or even death to many, but because it brings grace and even life to you.
Monsignor Smith
