As long as we cooperate with Grace.
Assimilating into Christ is our hope, which, by definition, is faith [Heb 11:1], not an act of instant transformation.
Understand. So does Card. Ratzinger.
We are told to be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect [Mt 5:48], which in the original Greek is a future imperative and not something that happens now. The Eucharist helps us along, it feeds our souls as it purifies us, unclean beings, and relieves our soul from burden of our transgressions, lest it be tarnished forever by them, just as the soap cleans our bodies and prevents them from becoming diseased. It wipes clean our errors, for we know that no sooner have we taken the Divine Gifts we will commit sin again. It is sustenance, our spiritual staple which, like food, helps us grow into mature and healthy beings.
It does all those things, plus more. But that introduces the process of Justification.
That's why the Novus Ordo habit of dropping the host into someone's hands before it is consumed is an unthinkable act of desecration, but given that our understanding of the Eucharist seems light years apart, you will no doubt call this observation an "error" as well.
Yes, I will. It clearly isn't desecration. Communion was routinely received in the hand. Fasting Communicants also brought the Eucharist home with them to be reserved until consumption after their fast ended.
Tertullian, Prayer A.D. 200: "Likewise, in regard to days of fast, many do not think they should be present at the sacrifical prayers, because their fast would be brokwn if they were to receive the Body of tghe Lord....Will your fast not be more solemn if, in addition, you have stood at God's altar? The Body of the Lord having been received and reserved, each point is secured: both the participation in the sacrifice and the duscharge of duty."
A.D. 390, Cyril of Jerusalem: "Approaching, therefore, come not with thy wrists extended, or thy fingers open; but make thy left hand as if a throne for thy right, which is on the eve of receiving the King. And having hallowed thy palm, receive the body of Christ, saying after it, ‘Amen.’ Then after thou hast with carefulness hallowed thine eyes by the touch of the holy body, partake thereof; giving heed lest thou lose any of it; for what thou losest is a loss to thee as it were from one of thine own members. For tell me, if anyone gave thee gold dust, wouldst thou not with all precaution keep it fast, being on thy guard against losing any of it, and suffering loss?" (Catechetical Lectures 23:22).
*For what it is worth, I only receive on the tongue and would prefer to receive while kneeling but my Church has no Communion rail.
Yes, of course, there is historical evidence that the bread was received in the hand in the past (in a reverent way, as your quotation from St. Cyril shows -- not in the casual way of taking it in one hand and popping into one's mouth like a gumdrop that I see done by most parishioners in Catholic churches.)
But I ask the question: Why? What was deficient in the pre-Vat II way of receiving communion that created an urgency to change the practice, other than the absence of communing with the wine as well? Why the big push to go to receiving in the hand? Why were people forced to receive communion in the hand, and not allowed to receive it in the old way, in many parishes? Historical evidence that it used to be received in the hand is really not a reason to do it that way. There are lots of practices from the ancient church that developed into something else as the centuries went by, practices that have not been reintroduced. I always challenge those who want to reintroduce something "old" (the effect of which is usually to have a "modernizing" effect) that if they want to do this -- fine. But then they should reintroduce everything else from pious practice in that day and age -- but that usually won't go over, since the praxis of those ancient times was usually very strict and severe by comparison to our age. So usually there are no takers.
The Catholic Church could have added the chalice to the existing way of receiving the host. It could even have taught its members to receive it as St. Cyril directed, and done so on bended knee -- the Anglicans have long received communion in exactly this way.
It seems clear at least to this outsider that there was a concerted and radical effort to "demystify" communion in the post Vat II church, at least in America. Why would it be so important to do this? There were of course things that were a bit over the top: veneration of the Blessed Sacrament is unknown in the Orthodox Church, for instance. But couldn't these things have been de-emphasized without the radical changes that actually took place?
And this brings us back to Ratzinger -- where will he take Catholic piety with regard to the Eucharist? Will he take it in a direction that the Orthodox recognize as being in the same spirit as the way we receive communion, even if the mechanics differ? The last Pope had a great concern for Orthodox-Catholic unity, and as I have pointed out before, the only unity that will matter is the one that the faithful recognize. The bishops and theologians can talk and write and sign agreements until they are blue in the face, but until Catholic and Orthodox faithful can walk into each other's parishes and recognize the same faith and the same spirit, it will be meaningless and there will be no union.
Right now, what I see in Catholic churches in this regard is more foreign to Orthodoxy even than what I remember from my Anglican days (I wasn't in Catholic churches pre-Vat II.)
And this brings me back to one of my recurrent themes: to see what is believed, we must see how worship takes place and what is done. Ratzinger's essay in many respects, even though it is in language that is not patristic, reflects some aspects of the Orthodox understanding of communion better than was perhaps the case 75 years ago in the Catholic church. But my question would have to be where Ratzinger's theory will take Catholic praxis should he become Pope.