QUAERITUR: Can Father require all servers to stand to receive Communion?
From a reader:
My 10-year-old son, who daily receives Holy Communion on his tongue while kneeling (and in fact has never received standing) just completed altar server instruction. He was told that when he serves, he must receive standing!!! (for the sake of uniformity!) I realize that serving is a privilege and not a right, but does exercising this privilege allow for his right to receive kneeling to be restricted? He has been looking forward to serving for so long now and would have the opportunity to serve nearly daily. It’s tearing us apart to think that he would have to go from always kneeling to almost always standing.
Indeed. Lay people do not have rights when it comes to serving at the altar. They cannot simply demand to serve and then serve only on their own terms, in their own way and style.
This is tough question. On the one hand, the right of the faithful to receive whilst kneeling is inviolate. This is affirmed in Redemptionis Sacramentum. On the other hand, the priest may choose whom it pleaseth him to choose as altar boys. If Father wants to make posture for the reception of Holy Communion a litmus test, he can. Service at the altar is not a right. Lay people serve at the pleasure of the priest.
Frankly, I would like priests to require all the altar boys to kneel to receive, and of course to use the Communion paten properly.
And wouldn’t it be great use as a litmus test the state of grace?
You might try to win the priest over to another view of the matter, but as a parent you can through good instruction and good example and practice help your children receive only when in the state of grace.
