Question about Catholic Mass

Factual Questions
1

I went to a mass at my uncle’s church this weekend and noticed that when we went up for communion, some people (about 4/5 out of the 25/30 in the congregation) took only the bread and not the wine.

Why would (might) this have been?

Thanks in advance…

Grim

2

If the wine was been given out, which isn’t always the case BTW well here in Ireland anyway, I can only think of two reasons.

  1. They don’t drink
  2. Alter Wine taste like old socks
3
  1. They are fearful of catching a disease
  2. They have a disease and don’t want to pass it on
  3. They’re recovering alcoholics
  4. They’re allergic
  5. They have a phobia
  6. The voices inside their head told them not to
  7. They personally don’t think it is appropriate to drink the wine

and the number ten reason…

10.They noticed that you were counting.

4

It used to be the standard way to serve communion to the congregation was to give out only the bread – stick out your tongue and let the priest place the wafer on it. At most, he would dip the host in the cup. So for a majority of congregants it is still the traditional way of doing things – it not being mandatory to take communion in both forms.

From the Catechism of the RCC:

“pastoral reasons” = practical considerations, some of which have been mentioned in the prior posts. Also: you can relatively easily carry around and store a large stock of those little unleavened wafers so as to have enough for however many people show up, and equally safekeep (separately) the already-consecrated ones if there are left over; just keep them dry and secured from vermin. Doing the same thing with wine requires a bit more logistics for transportation, storage, and security.

5

They weren’t Catholic? I have been to mass a few times with my grandma to make her happy. I don’t take communion when I go because I am not Catholic.

6

Yeah but the OP says they took the Host so it’s a fair guess they were RC

7

Oops! I misread the op…

They took the bread but not the wine? I haven’t seen anyone do that the three times I went to mass! :slight_smile:

8

In Conceivable, I read that they were taking Communion, just not the wine part of communion.

I almost never take the wine - the last time I did was at my HS Baccalaureate Mass (Catholic school) before graduation, so 11 years ago?

It’s not out of any aversion to wine or drinking, but more because I don’t like the idea of drinking after all those people.

9

It’s rare that I attend a Mass when the wine is offered; when it is, I rarely partake. As has been noted above, receiving communion under either species, alone, is sufficient – there is no extra spirtual benefit for taking both.

10

Personally I feel like Lsura here, I just never wanted sloppy seconds.

11

Personally I just don’t like standing in line again. I’d rather get back to the comfy kneeler. :rolleyes:

12

When I was still going to Catholic Church, we had several members of the congregation who still went by the “old” way of Communion - kneeling at the communion rail, accepting the host on the tongue rather than the hand, and not partaking of the Blood.

You would be surprised how many of the older generation of Catholics still refuse to accept the changes made to the Mass as a result of Vatican II. We even had one parish (don’t know if it’s still around anymore) that was strictly pre-Vatican II - All Latin Mass, the priest faces the altar rather than the congregation, etc.

critter42

13

Catholic belief is that the body and blood are both present in both the bread and the wine, so consuming either one is sufficient. (Cf. The Baltimore Catechism, Q. 881-882)