Holy Communion outside the Mass. . .

While it is often customary to compare Luther's critiques of the Mass to what Lutherans now see in Roman Catholic Churches, the reality is that until 1961 or so, hardly anyone but the celebrant received communion during the Mass.  Communicants did not receive during the distribution but at side altars where the people communed upon the consecrated reserved hosts even during the Mass -- like two different rites and rituals taking place simultaneously in the same space!  It is not that only a few communed but nearly all but the celebrant (and perhaps assisting clergy) were discouraged from receiving during the distribution time in the Mass.  There was, therefore, no real need for distribution music since few were receiving, if any!

Some have suggested that the most profound rationale for this is due to the the mandatory “midnight fast.”  Nobody who had eaten or drunken anything since midnight—even a drop of water—could receive Holy Communion.  If that was the case, how was this fast waived or honored while communion was distributed at a side altar (or altars) while the Mass was going on?  I have actually read countless pages of evidence that this was the practice but I remain confused as to the reasons.  So the Mass was for watching rather than receiving the Sacrament at the time of Luther and well into the 20th century.  The normal practice was that it was very rare for anyone to receive Holy Communion at a SUNG MASS except the celebrant himself.  Though perhaps technically possible, it was not normal practice. 

What today has become normal practice for Rome, was not then or until modern times considered normal practice in terms of the distribution.  That puts the critique of Luther in a different context.  Luther was not addressing a situation analogous to the present day but a Mass which was hardly ever the context in which anyone received the Sacrament and the distribution was more for show than for anything else.  The Mass was all about performance and could be said to be only about the performance of the Rite.  By the time of Luther and certainly well after, the distribution was perhaps the least significant part of the Mass and at most short and sweet.  This must be considered in understanding Luther's critique of the Mass and is not incidental to both his concerns for existing practice then and his intent upon reform.  Once we understand that Holy Communion was almost never distributed at High Mass, we can understand the normal context of Luther's complaints all the while also acknowledging that the form of the Mass known by nearly all Roman Catholics by the time of Luther -- priest and lay -- was a Low Mass.