JAKARTA (UCAN): “I really longed to receive Holy Communion sacramentally. It (has been) more than eight months since I last received it due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Thanks be to God,” Paulina Kadang said after she received Holy Communion for the first time at home during the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic.
A parishioner of St. Joseph Church in East Jakarta, she joined livestreamed Sunday Masses when the Archdiocese of Jakarta cancelled all Church activities involving crowds and broadcast all celebrations from March 20—18 days after the Indonesian government announced the first two Covid-19 cases in the country.
“Instead of receiving Holy Communion sacramentally, I could only pray ‘An Act of Spiritual Communion’ when I was joining livestreamed Sunday Mass. By saying the prayer, I believed that Jesus came at least spiritually into my heart,” she said.
Nearly four months later, after local authorities began to ease social restrictions imposed to combat the pandemic in the capital, the archdiocese reopened churches for public Sunday Masses with a limited capacity of up to only 20 per cent.
In the beginning, only three out of 66 parishes were allowed to reopen, including Our Lady of the Assumption Cathedral in Jakarta. They had all met the health and safety requirements set out by the archdiocese to reopen, such as providing washbasins, body temperature scanners, social distancing and the wearing of facemasks.
More parishes were allowed to reopen as time went by. St. Joseph Church, for an instance, resumed public Sunday Masses on August 16.
However, the archdiocese’s policy says that Masses during the Covid-19 pandemic can only be attended by parishioners aged between 18- and 59-years-old, while children and the elderly should continue to join livestreamed Masses for the sake of their health.
“I can understand. Elderly people are most vulnerable to Covid-19. Still, it feels so different when I attend Sunday Masses in church. I can feel the sacredness of the Eucharistic celebration,” Kadang, a mother of four, said.
On October 27, the Archdiocese of Jakarta issued a letter containing guidelines on the distribution of Holy Communion by laypeople during the Covid-19 pandemic, which is considered an extraordinary situation.
“I can understand. Elderly people are most vulnerable to Covid-19. Still, it feels so different when I attend Sunday Masses in church. I can feel the sacredness of the Eucharistic celebration”
According to the eight-page guidelines, a healthy Catholic adult, aged between 18- and 59-years-old and who has received the sacraments of initiation, is allowed to serve as a Pelayan Pembawa Komuni or PPK (Holy Communion carrier servant).
The guidelines also stated that a PPK should firstly join a livestreamed or public Sunday Mass before distributing Holy Communion to their family members in a very respectful way.
The archdiocese’s policy was issued based on, among others, the Code of Canon Law that stipulates that “laymen who possess the age and qualifications established by decree of the conference of bishops can be admitted on a stable basis through the prescribed liturgical rite to the ministers of lector and acolyte.”
In that case, a PPK is different from “a pro-deacon” or a parish lay minister whose tasks include distributing Holy Communion and conducting funeral rites, a practice common in many parts of the world due to a shortage of priests.
“This is a good effort taken by the archdiocese: how it responds to Catholics’ longing for Holy Communion by maintaining health protocols. I really appreciate it,” said Sirila Nadindra Ardiyaveda Giri, a 41-year-old mother of three.
According to Father Jacobus Tarigan, a liturgy lecturer at the Jesuit-run Driyarkara School of Philosophy in Jakarta, the sacredness of Holy Communion does not lie with the carrier servant.
“The sacredness of the Body of Christ lies with Christ who presents in the Eucharist,” he said at a webinar livestreamed on YouTube on November 11.
Calling the archdiocese’s policy “a precise approach,” Father Tarigan, who is parish priest of Christ the King Church in Jakarta, said: “Imagine, there are some parishioners who cannot go to Sunday Mass for almost a year. Our bishop, Cardinal Ignatius Suharyo, has a sense of compassion. His heart is disturbed by his moral responsibility. That is why such a policy was issued.”
