Putting Down a Sleeping Toddler at Communion?
Question: At Mass, my daughter’s three-year-old child was asleep in her arms when she went up to receive Communion. There the Eucharistic minister insisted that she put down the child in order to receive. She was alone with the child. What was she to do?
Answer: Presumably, the Eucharistic minister’s instruction was in compliance with coronavirus-hygiene regulations that don’t allow for Communion on the tongue — which parents know from experience often is the only way to receive Communion while carrying a child. If that was the case, your daughter shouldn’t be too upset about that experience, provided that the minister adopted a civil tone with her.
Having said that, the priest or minister might have done well to ask your daughter to return to the pew where Communion could have been administered once everybody else had received if that was a possibility. It might be worth it to approach the priest in a constructive spirit and share the problems of motherhood with him, so as to help him accommodate parents to deal with situations like that your daughter experienced.
(Günther Simmermacher)
Asked and answered in the February 2022 issue of The Southern Cross magazine
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- Putting Down a Sleeping Toddler at Communion? - March 30, 2022
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