Several years ago, Archbishop Rembert Weakland who was a part of the Consilium to redesign the Mass after Vatican II, and very progressive in matters of liturgy and otherwise, the law of prayer is the law of belief, lamented the fact that many progressive liturgists and parishes focused more an the "extravagant" signs and symbols of the liturgy which is idolatry and less on what these signify, Jesus Christ.
For example, in the modern post-Vatican II era, the focus was on the ingredients of the bread and wine used, did it look like real bread and have a lovely, chewable taste and quality, was it like real food. The same for the wine, was it pleasing to the nose, tantalizing and sweet to the tongue and did it have a rich, colorful bouquet?
Tied into this, did people actually eat and drink, chew and chug? After all, Jesus at the Last Supper told the Apostles take and eat, take and drink. He didn't say, receive, kneeling, and on the tongue and forget about taking and drinking.
Of course, at the Last Supper Jesus was talking to the Apostles as he instituted both the priesthood and the Sacrament of the Most Holy Eucharist, the first priests/bishops of the Church and not to the laity. And today, priests and bishops must take and eat, take and drink, but the laity have always "received" never taking!
In the Latin Rite, the belief that Jesus' Body and Blood is "whole" because we are receiving the Glorified and Risen Lord whole and complete, but under sacramental signs and symbols, and we are not receiving dead flesh and blood taken as though from a carving plate or a blood vile means that if the laity receive only the consecrated Bread or only the consecrated Wine, they receive Christ, pure and simple!
But listen to liturgists who focus on a misunderstanding of the Last Supper and what they think is the primary sign and symbol of the Communion Rite. It is processing to the Communion station, taking the bread that looks like real bread, eating and chewing and the same for the consecrated Wine, taking it and drinking, guzzling and moving on. This is the action that is primary to the Communion Rite and all this while they are singing a communion chant.
But actually, isn't the primary emphasis during the Communion Rite, receiving our Lord "hidden or veiled" under the sacramental signs of bread and wine. We're not receiving bread and wine as though these are an end in and of themselves, we are receiving Christ, in a physical/spiritual sense, not just spiritual.
For example, a person receives Christ spiritually when one asks the Lord to come into their heart and soul during prayer or during Holy Communion when unable to receive Him sacramentally, they do what is called a "spiritual" communion. While actually receiving the Body and Blood of our Risen and Glorified Lord is primary or the source and summit of receiving Christ, there are other ways to receive Christ and call it eating and drinking, like eating the Word of God and drinking it in and do so not in the literal sense but in the figurative sense at Mass during the Liturgy of the Word.
For example, when I eat cereal, I eat and drink the milk with it by using a spoon. When I was a baby, my mother spoon-fed me. In either case, I was eating and drinking.
The same with Italians who know quite well and fabulously wonderfully, that when one takes a good piece of Italian bread and drunks it into a fine class of Chianti that they are eating and drinking that bread and wine even though it is by "dunking" the liturgical side which is called "intinction!"
Now for kneeling or standing for Holy Communion. The liturgists say that standing better symbolizes being "raised up" in Christ. I say, bull! If I receive kneeling, I am still raised up in Christ. If I receive while sick and in bed, I am still raised up in Christ. And if I died in Christ and lay in my coffin before the altar at my Requiem, I am still raised up in Christ! Just who are these liturgists kidding by their silly reductionism as it concerns the symbol of being raised up?
Yes,the Mass in either form, OF or EF must show forth Jesus Christ under the various signs and symbols used. The Proclamation of the Word of God must appear to be proclaimed to God's people for them to "eat and drink" it in.
Yes, the one Sacrifice of Christ, re-presented in an unbloody way through the "mystery of the Paschal Mystery, or better yet, the Mystery of the eternity of God's plan and salvation of His Chosen People" should appear to be a sacrifice as the Old Testament has understood sacrifice and the best of the Tradition of both the East and the West has shown that sacrifice.
Yes, the Communion Rite, should be a "Sacrificial Meal" where after the Sacrifice is completed, and in the Mass, like Melchizedek's sacrifice in the Old Testament that is "unbloody and nothing is killed" we consume what is sacrificed, the Holocuast. In the Old Testament bloody sacrifices it was the flesh and blood of the aninmal sacrificed, in the Mass it is the Body and Blood of our Risen Savior, but He is alive not dead, like the holocausts of the Old Testament bloody sacrifices.
In this sense, we can call the entire Mass a Sacrificial Meal, from start to finish, including the "eating and drinking" of the Word of God during the Liturgy of the Eucharist. The Mass itself is the eternal wedding banquet of heaven, or points to it!
Like on disciples on the Road to Emmaus, from the start of Mass to its ending, we are walking with the Lord who speaks to us and we come to recognize in the Breaking of the Bread, both Word and Sacrament. We are sent from Mass to "glorify the Lord by our life." The Mass always has a moral and ethical dimension to it, it signifies how we as individuals and as a Church must conduct our lives in the world concerned about "Christifying" the world through evangelization, especially the manner in which we conduct our lives and using words only when necessary!
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