FINALLY CBCP RULED OUT THAT KNEELING SHOULD REMAIN FROM CONSECRATION UNTIL THE GREAT AMEN!

"This is My Body which will be given up for you..." (Lk. 22:19; 1 Cor. 11:24) -Photo Source:1Peter5

On the QUESTION of Kneeling or Standing

After the Consecration Until After the GREAT AMEN

During the Eucharistic Celebration

Source: CBCP News

March 19, 2016

Your Eminences and Excellencies,

During the January 2016 112th CBCP Plenary Assembly in Cebu, there was a discussion on the issue of standing or kneeling after the consecration until after the Amen. The discussion included a question on why we do not continue kneeling after the consecration until after the Amen. After a short discussion, the Permanent Council of the CBCP was tasked to look into this issue.

So, at the March 15, 2016 meeting of the CBCP Permanent Council one of the issues discussed was this issue on the posture of standing after the consecration and to keep standing or of kneeling after the Sanctus until after the Amen of the Eucharistic Prayer. This is the reason for this letter.

Before the 1990s, we can still recall that we had the established practice of kneeling after the Sanctus until after the Amen of the Eucharistic Prayer.

In the 1990s the practice of standing after the consecration was begun. This change in the established practice was based on the 1990 Guidelines for the Eucharist which were approved by the CBCP in January 1990. Number 3 of the 1990 Guidelines states: “The people should kneel from the Sanctus until the end of the Eucharistic Prayer…. If the acclamation after the consecration is sung, the people may stand for it and keep standing.” However, in reality the practice became always standing after the consecration until the Amen.

In January 2003 at the 86th CBCP Plenary Assembly, one of the proposals that the CBCP approved to include among the Philippine Adaptations to the General Instructions of the Roman Missal 2002 was:“Proposed Philippine Adaptation: ‘In the Philippines, the people kneel after the Sanctus, rise for the memorial acclamation, and kneel after the Lamb of God.’”

In both instances, the 1990 Guidelines for the Eucharist and the proposed Philippine Adaptations to the General Instructions of the Roman Missal 2002, no recognitio was ever received from Rome.

Specifically for the Philippine Adaptations to the General Instructions of the Roman Missal 2002 that were submitted to Rome, no answer was ever received. Archbishop Romulo Valles, during an ad limina visit in September 2003, made a follow up at the office of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments on the status the Philippine proposed adaptations. After that, until up to now we have not received a formal written reply.

In February 2016, Bishop Julius Tonel, Chairman of the Episcopal Commission on Liturgy, made a query with the Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments about this specific proposed adaptation. In reply to his query, it was confirmed that a formal reply or recognitio had never been given.

With the above information, we sought the advice of some of our bishops knowledgeable in the Code of Canon Law. They have responded that no answer or silence from Rome means that the recognitio has not been given. Without the recognitio the CBCP does not have the authority to make or implement any such adaptation. This being the case, we have to revert to the established practice before the request.

Based on the above documented information, the Permanent Council came to the decision that we must ABANDON the practice of standing after the consecration until the Amen as we do not have the authority to make such an adaptation nor do we have the authority to implement it. We must go back to the previously established practice of kneeling after the Sanctus until after the Amen of the Eucharistic Prayer.

To go back to our established practice is very much in keeping with our current General Instructions of the Roman Missal, approved by the CBCP and given the needed recognition from Rome, published in the Philippine Edition of the Roman Missal of 2011. Number 43 states: “Where it is the practice for the people to remain kneeling after the Sanctus until the end of the Eucharistic Prayer …, it is laudable for this practice to be retained.”

Another way of saying this is that we go back our established practice where the people kneel beginning after the Sanctus and remain kneeling until after the Amen of the Eucharistic Prayer knowing that this is in harmony with the present GIRM.

You are kindly requested to inform our clergy and Catholic faithful about this re statement of position and lead them, through liturgical catechesis, to deepen our reverence for the Most Blessed Sacrament. The spirit of the law is to observe greater reverence for the Real Presence.

We remind you of some lines contained in our Pastoral Exhortation to Open the 2016 Year of the Eucharist and the Family:

Kneeling is part of our Christian culture. We cannot abandon or set aside the culture of kneeling in favor of the culture that says as freemen we must face God on our feet. Bending the knee before the tabernacle in genuflection, kneeling down at the celebration of the Eucharist, kneeling down to adore the exposed Blessed Sacrament—these are little but sublime acts of adoration that we must preserve and protect.

Sincerely yours,

+SOCRATES B. VILLEGAS

Lay Eucharistic ministers not entitled to position, Archbishop Burke clarifies

Archbishop Raymond L. Burke

Vatican City (EWTN News/CNA)- The rights of girls and Catholic lay faithful to carry out certain roles on the altar are not prescribed as "rights" within the Church, according to the Church's top legal authority, Archbishop Raymond Burke. The statement came in a clarification he wrote about the consequences of the reintroduction of the Latin Rite Mass by Pope Benedict.

The Catholic Church of Germany recently printed a commentary on the application of Benedict XVI's 2007 motu proprio, "Summorum Pontificum," which made Pope St. Pius V's Latin Rite Mass more widely available. In the preface of the volume, printed for the third anniversary of the motu proprio, Archbishop Raymond Burke clarified some confusion about the legislation's practical use.

Archbishop Burke is the prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, which is often described as the supreme court of the Catholic Church.

According to Vatican Radio, the archbishop explained in the preface that due to the motu proprio's papal origins, it is not just an act of legislation brought about as a "favor" to a specific group for the celebration of the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite, the Mass in Latin, but one that applies to the entire Church.

Archbishop Burke wrote, "it is about a law whose finality is the protection and promotion of the life of all the mystical body of Christ and the maximum expression of this life, that is to say, the Sacred Liturgy."

It implies an obligation of the Church "to preserve liturgical tradition and maintain the legitimate celebration of both forms of the Roman Rite, that preceding the Second Vatican Council and that which followed it," he said.

Archbishop Burke pointed out that the Holy Father himself explained that for the communion of the Church in the past and the future, "universally accepted uses of uninterrupted apostolic tradition" must be observed.

This, he he pointed out should be done "not only to avoid errors, but also to transmit the integrity of the faith, so that the law of the prayer of the Church might correspond to her law of faith."

The American archbishop went on to point out that certain elements may need to be clarified in this regard. For example, he wrote, among the "rights" of the baptized, assistance by "persons of the feminine sex" at the altar is not included. Additionally, serving as a lector or as an extraordinary distribution of communion is not a right of the laity, he noted.

As such, out of respect for the integrity of the liturgical discipline within the Roman Missal of 1962, these more modern modifications are not observed in the extraordinary form.

This clarification comes just a week after L'Osservatore Romano writer Lucetta Scaraffia published an article on the altar server pilgrimage to the Vatican which drew thousands of boys and girls alike. She drew some attention as she proposed that the introduction of girls into the position of serving at the altar "meant the end of every attribution of impurity to their sex ... it meant a different attention to the liturgy and an approach to the faith in bringing it near to their very hearts."

Archbishop Burke clarified, however, that the reality of the matter is that neither the presence of girls at the altar, nor the participation of lay faithful "belong to the fundamental rights of the baptized."

May Jesus Bless your Holy Week Observance!

In CHEMISTRY, he turned water into wine.

In BIOLOGY, he was born without normal conception;

In PHYSICS, he disproved the Law of Gravity when he ascended to heaven;

In ECONOMICS, he disproved the Law of Diminishing return by feeding 5000 men with two fishes & 5 loaves of bread;

In MEDICINE, he cured the sick and the blind without administering a single dose of drugs,

In HISTORY, he is the Beginning and the End .


In GOVERNMENT, he said that he shall be called WONDERFUL COUNSELOR, PRINCE OF PEACE;

In RELIGION, he said no one comes to the Father except through HIM; He alone among founders of religion who claims to be God!

So WHO IS HE? He is JESUS!

The Greatest Man in History Jesus had no servants, yet they called Him Master.

Had no degree, yet they called Him Teacher.

Had no medicines, yet they called Him Healer

He had no army, yet kings feared Him...

He won no military battles, yet He conquered the world. He committed no crime, yet they crucified Him.

He was buried in a tomb, yet He lives today. I feel honored to serve such a Leader who loves us!

Praise and Honor to Jesus Christ FOREVER!

Amen!

Have a fruitful Holy Week and Blessed Glorious Resurrection Day to ALL!

Rumored Liturgical Reform

That started some few weeks ago when some Catholics send wrong messages that there would be reforms in the liturgy such that the celebration of the Holy Mass would be patterned back to the times when the priest facing his back from the congregation. This practice wasn't anymore the norm as it was used to be practiced in the entire Church before the Second Vatican Council.

Thanks to Zenit for the clarification. This Latin Mass isn't a mandatory but an option just as the whole Catholic Church has different rites, the Latin Mass is just one of the many rites we have in the Catholic Church.

Vatican Denies Rumors of Coming Liturgical Reform
Article Source: Zenit.org

VATICAN CITY, AUG. 24, 2009 (Zenit.org).- The Vatican is denying rumors promulgated by some news organizations that announced forthcoming changes in the liturgy.

Father Ciro Benedettini, deputy director of the Vatican press office, clarified that "for the time being there are no institutional proposals for a modification of the liturgical books used at present," Vatican Radio reported.

In recent days some media sources incorrectly reported that the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments had presented proposals to Benedict XVI for a "reform of the liturgical reform" motivated by the Second Vatican Council.