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St
John the Apostle ~ Kippax
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CANBERRA,
AUSTRALIA |
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Ministers of Communion - Roster
At the Mass for which you are rostered, it is important to arrive at the church at least 10 minutes before the start of Mass. If you are not there 10 minutes before Mass the Acolytes will have to organise a substitute. If you know ahead of time that you cannot make the Mass please arrange for someone to take your place and advise them that they need to be there 10 minutes early.
If there are altar servers they will move to the front of the centre aisle in readiness to receive communion. Please wait till the congregation has said: ‘Lord I am not worthy’, then come down the centre aisle and stand behind the altar servers in readiness to receive communion. Those with “2” to the left; those with “3” to the right. The priest will offer you the host. The Acolyte/Senior Server will offer you the chalice. When you have received communion proceed around the Altar (“2” to the left and “3” to the right) pick up your bowl or chalice from the altar and go to your positions to distribute communion.
Meet the eyes of the person receiving communion and smile but do not use names (this highlights the ones whose name you do not know!) and say simply either ‘The Body of Christ’ or ‘The Blood of Christ”. If you are offering the Body of Christ, and people indicate that they want you to place the host on their tongue, try not to touch their tongue with your hand (this will need practice). If a child (or adult) wants a blessing, hold the host in your hand and touch their forehead with the back of your finger making the sign of the cross saying words such as: ‘May Jesus give you his special blessing and love.’ If you are offering the Blood of Christ, wipe the lip of the chalice carefully where their lips contacted the chalice. It is important to avoid touching the consecrated wine with the cloth. Rotate the chalice and the cloth (sometimes it picks up lipstick) after each person has received the precious blood
After you have finished offering communion, you return to the sacristy. If there are hosts remaining in your bowl, these are placed in the ciborium. It is important to ensure that all broken pieces of bread and crumbs are also placed into the ciborium. The Acolyte or Senior Server returns to ciborium to the tabernacle. If there is consecrated wine remaining in the chalice, it is essential that this be consumed, if not by yourself, then by one of the other ministers. Please do not leave any consecrated wine lying in the chalice, and please do not put the purifier in the chalice before consuming the consecrated wine.
Reflection for Special Ministers of the Eucharist (April 2009) To be invited to be a special minister of the Eucharist is to be invited by grace into a most privileged ministry. Jesus’ offering of himself on the Cross to God and to the world is made present each time we celebrate Mass. That this is what Jesus wanted is clear from the last supper. As he broke the bread to share it, and as he poured the blood-red wine for his friends for the last time, he could not help thinking of his own body and his own heart which were about to be broken for them. All he had left was his life, and he wanted to give it for those who had drawn close to him during his public ministry. His heart is the heart of God, however, and so he wanted to give himself, body and blood, for every man, woman and child who is born into this world. So he made of this meal a sacrament that would enable him to give himself to us everywhere till the end of time. As he promised: "When I am lifted up from the earth I will draw everyone to myself" (John 12:32); and ‘I am with you always, till the end of time’(Matthew 28:20). He invested this bread and this wine with a new meaning and a new reality, and he asked his followers to "Do this in memory of me"(Luke 22:19). Do what? Do what he was doing. He placed himself in their hands and asked them to give him – his life, his Spirit, his prayer, his heart – to all who were hungry and thirsty for love. He asked them – and he continues to ask us – to give their lives, too, and their life-blood, their energy, their spirit, their love, to others: "Love one another as I have loved you"(John 15:12). At the last supper it was Jesus who took the bread, and broke it, and handed it to his disciples. As a special minister you are graced to be the one who hands to others the body and the blood of Jesus. People come to you, hungry and thirsty, for this amazing gift, and you have the privilege – a humbling one – to place Jesus’ body in their hands with the words ‘The Body of Christ’, and to offer them his blood, his life-blood, to drink, with the words ‘The Blood of Christ.’ You watch them as their hearts fill with longing and gratitude and faith in this gift from the heart of the risen Jesus who wants not only to be close to them, but to fill their veins, to dwell within them as in a temple and to bring with him his Father and the Spirit who is the bond of union between Jesus and his Father. Before offering people this sacred gift, you receive it yourself. Remember that in receiving his body and drinking his blood, you are making a commitment to do what Jesus did. You are saying "Yes" to his request that you love one another just as he loves you. Through your hands, through your commitment, through your ministry, Jesus asks the same commitment of those who come to you for the greatest gift you can ever give to anyone. You are offering them Jesus, the one who alone can satisfy their deepest hungers and their deepest thirst. Our baptismal vows commit us to give "all our heart and mind and soul and strength" to bring about the reign of God's love. It is a commitment to love the world with the love of the heart of God. We cannot be content till we see the whole world opening its arms to embrace God. Nothing less can satisfy the hunger and thirst in our hearts. In the meantime, let us open our hearts to receive Jesus, for it is he who, working in us, will, as Paul promises, "accomplish abundantly far more than we can ask or imagine"(Ephesians 3:20). Pope Benedict XVI spoke the following words at the Youth Convention in Cologne: ‘By making the bread into his Body and the wine into his Blood, Jesus anticipates his death, he accepts it into his heart, and he transforms it into an action of love. What on the outside is simply brutal violence – the Crucifixion – from within becomes an act of total self-giving love. This is the substantial transformation that was accomplished at the Last Supper and was destined to set in motion a series of transformations leading ultimately to the transformation of the world when God will be all in all. In their hearts, people always and everywhere have somehow expected a change, a transformation of the world. Here now is the central act of transformation that alone can truly renew the world: violence is transformed into love, and death into life … The process of transformation must now gather momentum. The Body and Blood of Christ are given to us so that we ourselves will be transformed in our turn. We are to become the Body of Christ … He is within us and we are in him. His dynamic enters into us and then seeks to spread outwards towards others until it fills the world.’
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