Wednesday Liturgy: Follow-up: Ensuring Enough Hosts for Good Friday
ROME, APRIL 17, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Answered by Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum university.
After our piece on the Good Friday services (March 27) a reader from France wrote: "My friend who lives in the south of France was telling me that her parish holds an ecumenical service for Good Friday -- they alternate between the Catholic Church and the Protestant church each year for the service. Since it is being followed for many years, she was quite surprised that others have Good Friday services only in the Catholic Church. Now the question is: Is this possible? What about the distribution of Communion?"
Our correspondent was right to wonder as to the legitimacy of this practice. Catholics and Protestants may certainly come together on Good Friday to share the Scriptures as a common spiritual good. These moments of sharing, however, may never substitute such an important liturgical celebration as the Passion on Good Friday.
The practice of the French parish almost certainly means that Catholics who participate in the Protestant service are deprived of Communion as well as the veneration of the cross, as this rite would be unacceptable to most Protestant sensibilities.
It would also violate the liturgical law mentioned last time that intimately associates the celebration of the Lord's Supper with that of Good Friday.
Finally, several readers asked if confessions were not allowed on Good Friday. As mentioned in our follow-up of April 27, 2004, no such prohibition exists and several Church documents expressly approve the practice.
After our piece on the Good Friday services (March 27) a reader from France wrote: "My friend who lives in the south of France was telling me that her parish holds an ecumenical service for Good Friday -- they alternate between the Catholic Church and the Protestant church each year for the service. Since it is being followed for many years, she was quite surprised that others have Good Friday services only in the Catholic Church. Now the question is: Is this possible? What about the distribution of Communion?"
Our correspondent was right to wonder as to the legitimacy of this practice. Catholics and Protestants may certainly come together on Good Friday to share the Scriptures as a common spiritual good. These moments of sharing, however, may never substitute such an important liturgical celebration as the Passion on Good Friday.
The practice of the French parish almost certainly means that Catholics who participate in the Protestant service are deprived of Communion as well as the veneration of the cross, as this rite would be unacceptable to most Protestant sensibilities.
It would also violate the liturgical law mentioned last time that intimately associates the celebration of the Lord's Supper with that of Good Friday.
Finally, several readers asked if confessions were not allowed on Good Friday. As mentioned in our follow-up of April 27, 2004, no such prohibition exists and several Church documents expressly approve the practice.
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