Hooray!!! (from Father McDonald of Southern Orders Blog)

ON BLESSING ALTAR RAILINGS; HOLY COMMUNION PROCESSIONS AND THE COMMUNAL ACTION OF RECEIVING HOLY COMMUNION

On Sunday's Extraordinary Form High Mass for the Feast of the Holy Name of JESUS, we blessed our newly restored altar railing for Saint Joseph Church in Macon, Georgia.

The Mass, as usual, was exquisite. I have come to appreciate this Mass more and more for it touches the heart in ways that even a child perceives. We are not bombarded with words, idiosyncrasies, or contrived horizontal, banal signs and symbols. That doesn't mean that the horizontal is not at work in this Mass. Oh yes it is!

The most powerful sign of the horizontal at the EF Mass is the traditional way in which Holy Communion is distributed when the communicant kneels at the communion rail. As a child and teenager I received Holy Communion at an altar railing from the time I was 7 until I was about 18 as my home parish in Augusta was late in changing this time honored and most reverent means of receiving Holy Communion kneeling to the now more banal standing method.