Question about First Communion

[Padre_Pro]

In the picture that kjvail posted of his first communion, i noticed  that the altar boys were holding the cloth infront of him while he  received our Lord for the first time.  I was curious if this is a  common practice for people's first holy communion, because I have never  seen this before.  To save you the trouble of going all the way  over to the Pig Roast and then into the Church Photos and then finding  this pic, I thought I would just copy it here for your convenience.
 

[nicollette]

I don't know why it was done in this matter here but at our church there is a "table cloth" on the altar rail as well as the altar boys holding the patens.  Our previous priest re-instated the practice and if I remember right is has german orgins. (?)

We are supposed to put our hands under the cloth and make a "trough" so to speak.  This is in case the Host is dropped and the paten doesn't catch it.  The first time I've seen this was in our church and I've never seen it anywhere else.  

Pax,

nicollette

[CatholicCrusader]

The Institute also does this at their seminary, though not at the formation house in Germany (interestingly enough, if it is a German custom), but the lack of the cloth at the formation houe is likely due to a deficiency in number of servers for the task. It has the same use as the the cloth on the altar rail, as described above. I had never seen such a practise for those in the sanctuary other than with the Institute (but the Institute is also the most "liturgically sound" of the traditional Orders), but I have seen churches that have communion rails for those sitting in choir to use, which would in turn have the same cloth.