Last week I attended a nuptial Mass in the Extraordinary Form in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. It was a gorgeous liturgy in a beautiful historic church and every bit as splendid as one might imagine.
When it came time for Holy Communion, only the bride and groom received the Eucharist; Communion was not distributed to the congregation. I could not help but think how antithetical to the spirit of the Novus Ordo this practice was. I am not even sure whether the rubrics of the NO allow for limited distribution of Communion to the bride and groom alone during a nuptial Mass. From what I recall, the two options in the Novus Ordo are wedding during Mass and wedding outside of Mass—and in every single NO wedding during Mass I've ever attended, Holy Communion has been distributed to the entire congregation. If the option exists to distribute Communion to the bride and groom exclusively, I have never seen it exercised in the Novus Ordo.
If you've spent any time reading the litugrical reformers of the 60s and 70s (as I sadly have), you may recall that one of the hallmarks of their liturgical vision is subsumption of everything under the Eucharist. The reformers scorned any type of liturgical ritual existing outside of Mass. This scorn even extended to private devotions, like Eucharistic Adoration and the Rosary, two pious customs that were deemed too individualistic and given the heave-ho. For the reformers, the Eucharistic celebration was the apex point of Christian community; everything meaningul for the Catholic had to take place within this community in a very literal sense.
In the progressive paradigm, it makes zero sense to celebrate a nuptial Mass where distribution of Holy Communion is limited to the bride and groom. A man and woman are being sacramentally united before God and the Church; should not this be the occasion of Communion for everyone? For progressives, it would actually be insulting to limited Communion to the couple on their wedding day, as it would constitute a deliberate slight to the Christian community, reflecting an hyper-individualistic perversion of the sacrament of matrimony.
Of course, this is all nonsesnse. The idea that literally every ritual must be communal is a modern error born of the progressives' idolization of the Christian community. Distributing Communion exclusively to the bride and groom on the day of their wedding does not diminish the importance of the community of the faithful. Rather, it focuses the gaze of the community where it ought to be: on the sacramental mystery unfolding before it, wherein a man and a woman, through their consent before God, "become one flesh." The community is present and engaged, but through their witness and their prayers. The progressive attitude, on the other hand, reflects the stupid crass activism of modernity whereby someone is not participating unless they are physically walking around doing something.
One final point: Novus Ordo weddings are perhaps the greatest occasions of Eucharistic sacrilege, as they are often filled with non-Catholics who are seldom told to refrain from receiving Communion (and sometimes they are even encouraged!) Could this problem not be solved in an instant by distributing Communion to the bride and groom alone?
If you've spent any time reading the litugrical reformers of the 60s and 70s (as I sadly have), you may recall that one of the hallmarks of their liturgical vision is subsumption of everything under the Eucharist. The reformers scorned any type of liturgical ritual existing outside of Mass. This scorn even extended to private devotions, like Eucharistic Adoration and the Rosary, two pious customs that were deemed too individualistic and given the heave-ho. For the reformers, the Eucharistic celebration was the apex point of Christian community; everything meaningul for the Catholic had to take place within this community in a very literal sense.
In the progressive paradigm, it makes zero sense to celebrate a nuptial Mass where distribution of Holy Communion is limited to the bride and groom. A man and woman are being sacramentally united before God and the Church; should not this be the occasion of Communion for everyone? For progressives, it would actually be insulting to limited Communion to the couple on their wedding day, as it would constitute a deliberate slight to the Christian community, reflecting an hyper-individualistic perversion of the sacrament of matrimony.
Of course, this is all nonsesnse. The idea that literally every ritual must be communal is a modern error born of the progressives' idolization of the Christian community. Distributing Communion exclusively to the bride and groom on the day of their wedding does not diminish the importance of the community of the faithful. Rather, it focuses the gaze of the community where it ought to be: on the sacramental mystery unfolding before it, wherein a man and a woman, through their consent before God, "become one flesh." The community is present and engaged, but through their witness and their prayers. The progressive attitude, on the other hand, reflects the stupid crass activism of modernity whereby someone is not participating unless they are physically walking around doing something.
One final point: Novus Ordo weddings are perhaps the greatest occasions of Eucharistic sacrilege, as they are often filled with non-Catholics who are seldom told to refrain from receiving Communion (and sometimes they are even encouraged!) Could this problem not be solved in an instant by distributing Communion to the bride and groom alone?
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